Next stop was Mungo National Park. We had planned to head in from the Pooncarie side later in the trip but recent flooding had closed the road and we didn’t want to risk missing it. The road via Balranald was open, a bit of a detour from the Murray but a must see.
We had a short stop along the way in Balranald for coffee and petrol.
It was only 250kms from Swan Hill, but with around 60kms of dirt, dips, corrugations and potholes it was slow and steady.
Driving into Mungo National Park we drove through ancient dry lake beds. Mungo National Park is in the centre of the Willandra Lakes World Heritage area and is renowned for its ancient dry lake beds.
When the lakes dried up 18,000 years ago, they preserved evidence of past megafauna and one of the longest continual records of Aboriginal life in Australia with artifacts dating back 50,000 years. It is home to the famous Mungo Man and Mungo Lady, the oldest known human remains in Australia.
The views over the dry lake beds were amazing. You could see forever!
The most spectacular of all was the Walls of China or Mungo Lunette, which is a crescent shaped dune that has been eroded over thousands of years and made up of layers of clay and sand. Mungo Lunette is where Mungo Man and Mungo Lady were found and are now secretly buried (after years of lobbying to return their dignity) and is the site of all evidence and artifacts of Aboriginal life 40,000 years ago.
We stopped at the visitors centre and like most visitors centres it had a wealth of information displayed showing the progression of aboriginal life in the area over the last 50,000 years. It also had information about the settlers lives who lived there long after the aboriginal people.
It was a truly amazing learning experience.
Once we had viewed the sites and visited the visitors centre and tried to avoid getting attacked by flies, we went to set up camp. The flies were relentless! I had to find the nets you put over your hat to get a break from them trying to get up my nose, in my mouth and eyes! We also covered ourselves in a combination of Rid and Bushman’s.
Steve put on a lamb roast for dinner and we sat back and enjoyed being back in the bush again.
While we were quietly enjoying the bush there were some very interesting birds milling around. They were Apostle birds who generally hang around in groups of 12 and are known to be particularly bold. We found out how bold they were when I brought out a packet of chips. It was almost like a scene from the movie Birds! They all came at us and began squawking. The chips had to go away. It was a new and interesting experience.
That night we enjoyed our lamb roast with baked veggies and then watched the sunset before finishing our night with some star gazing.
It was perfect.