Mungo National Park, Walls of China, Willandra Lakes, World Heritage
Make your own finds alongside the ancient discoveries in a landscape carved by time.
Just before dusk, Tanya Charles, Mutthi Mutthi woman and national park guide, takes me through the gate at the end of the boardwalk. We are inside the Mungo lunette, its crescent-shaped dunes carved throughout countless centuries by wind and water, the landmark Walls of China at the top of the rise.
Serious and quiet, Tanya tells me: “This is my ancient museum, my history is in this landscape.” Together we look at the charcoal-coloured sand of a campfire next to a midden, from a time when the area was rich in plant life. The lakes provided food, an abundance of ducks, swans, fish, yabbies. There are bleached freshwater mussel shells, the fishbones of golden perch and Murray cod, and Tanya “reads” the sand to tell me the stories of the families who lived here.
The sun is almost setting as we sit together and she draws sand pictures of Aboriginal tracks, waterholes, directions, and how many days of travel they take. Then, as the moon rises and the light fades, we head back. The night comes quickly here.
Mungo National Park in the Willandra Lakes in southwestern NSW is a 90-minute drive from Mildura and six hours from Melbourne. It is a landscape that has redefined the notion of time. More than 40,000 years ago, families had lives of plenty and fished from lakes almost without end. Then, about 14,000 years ago, with the coming of the last Ice Age, the water disappeared. In the visitors’ centre, there’s a life-sized model of a Diprotodon, the forerunner of today’s wombat. Huge, calm and with plenty of room to roam, he and his fellow marsupials lived well. At the centre, the layers of the park are laid out in simple, large charts. The sensation of being absorbed into this land, of touching the sand, hearing it crunch underfoot, is when the park comes to life.
In a classification that rubs shoulders with the Grand Canyon and Kakadu National Park, the Willandra Lakes is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Its layers of history lure travellers, students, artists, birdwatchers and photographers to its remarkable dry lake landscape. It is a constant and absorbing field of study for scientists. In 1968, the then young geologist Jim Bowler found Mungo Lady, followed in 1974 by his discovery of the ritually buried Mungo Man. This placed the land’s occupation at least as far back as 42,000 years, turning the knowledge about Australia’s ancient history on its head.
It was little wonder that international archeological interest soared. Stand there, with the wind whispering, the dying sun casting long rippling shadows on eroded hills, and you are drawn into the echoes of deep time.
For a different perspective, I take to the air with pilot Larry Cowley in his small plane, which leaves from the landing strip next to Mungo Lodge. Flying at an altitude of about 500 feet, the layers of sediment in the Mungo lunette are clear, the windswept and eroded shapes dramatic. Larry dips the plane to show where the lakes were, later covered with sand, forming today’s curves, ripples and hollows. While huge megafauna roamed here, the tracks we see are of modern animals.
From the air, the shells of pastoral buildings resemble deserted playthings, desolate and lonely. In 1860, the huge Gol Gol station covered more than 200,000ha and at its peak, incredibly, was shearing 50,000 sheep. Today, the homestead and woolshed sit in overgrazed land, further degraded by rabbits, then drought. While many animals make this their home, the only ones we see as we fly over are kangaroos and emus amid the shrublands.
The privately owned Mungo Lodge occupies 77ha at the edge of the national park, and is the centre of social and community activity. Visitors stay in luxury cabins grouped around the property or at the nearby campground, often in a caravan or motor home.
The modern Mungo Shearers’ Quarters, run by the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service, are about a kilometre away. Most visitors, including day travellers, come into the lodge at some time for a meal, a drink at the bar or to buy a postcard. It’s a welcoming place for locals as well, an atmosphere that general manager Lou Costello fosters with warmth and energy. There are gleaming wooden floors of white cypress pine, an open fire fuelled by mallee roots (from local farmers) and comfortable lounges.
The lodge, which has a sturdy, air-conditioned “big bus” with seating for 12, runs daily tours, the most popular at sunset. Photographers, artists and birdwatchers have particular requests and there are regular visits by schools. Tours take about 2½ hours and explore different parts of the park. Independent travellers can take the well-marked, self-guided Mungo loop.
I go with guide and driver Steve Farrer to see the old pastoral buildings, including the Mungo Woolshed, where 30 shearers worked at a time. These buildings are also made from white cypress, which is impervious to termites. As we stand in the shadowy interior, Steve says on a really warm day there’s still a hint of lanolin in the air from long-ago fleeces.
Outside, he gives the tank stand a brisk pat. “No nails,” he says admiringly, “all tongue and groove.” And the wire holding the posts together is “deadman’s hitch”. “They call it that because if it sprang back, it could kill you.”
On to the comprehensive Mungo Visitor Centre, where there are replica casts of the ancient footprints of a family group, 20,000 years old, found in 2003. Captured from a damp claypan, they are the oldest Pleistocene footprints ever found.
In a glass case are letters and, beside each one, a small rock, mementos of Mungo returned by visitors for reasons of, say, guilt or increased awareness. Tanya Charles says there are thousands of the letters with their small enclosures, known as the Conscience Rocks. All are kept.
Back at the lodge, dinner is being prepared by chef Beau, who can turn his hand to a barbecue for 90 as easily as dinner for two. And there are stories, always. About the location scout who brought models from the US to Mungo for a fashion shoot destined for Europe, and the famous French photographer hopelessly bogged and rescued by the park team. And about keeping track of travellers: “We always say to give us a call when you get to the bitumen,” Lou says.
Leaving means saying goodbye to a sky full of stars, to red dirt, passing the emus who want to race the Mungo big bus and, with something of a shock, coming back to Mildura’s neat groves of citrus trees.
Jane Sandilands was a guest of Mungo Lodge, Hangar 51 Air Tours, NSW National Parks and Destination NSW.
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MORE TO THE STORY
Mungo Man, ceremonially buried at least 42,000 years ago, was returned to country in November last year, on an occasion steeped in meaning. Mungo Lady had been returned several years earlier, also with a special ceremony. The return of Mungo Man signified the end of the sustained campaign by three tribal groups, the Mutthi Mutthi, Ngyiampaa and the Paakantji/Barkindji, to reclaim their own. It also marked the continuing reconciliation in the relationship between scientists and the Aboriginal caretakers of the land. Jim Bowler, who discovered Mungo Man, was guest of honour and hundreds gave a ceremonial welcome. The casket was taken close to where Mungo Man was found, and while the crowd watched, was carried over a rim, into the dunes. Afterwards, as the casket disappeared, the twisting wind of a willy-willy swept in, exactly where Mungo Man had been discovered, drawing a collective sigh from onlookers. The two caskets of Mungo Man and Mungo Lady are held in a secret location and can be opened only with two keys, turned at the same time, one by the scientists, one by the elders of the three tribal groups.
JANE SANDILANDS