With COVID restrictions finally easing we pulled the dust covers off the camper and headed out west (in the hope of getting dust on the camper). While the borders were closed we still decided to head as far west from Sydney as possible, heading to Mungo National Park.
While camping in winter means less people, it also means freezing cold nights. So to convince the family it is all worth it, we eased into life on the road, staying for a few nights at Yarrabandai Creek Homestead. Located between Parkes and Condobolin, this is part of what was once a 520,000 acre sheep station. In the early 1990’s it was purchased by a Japanese construction company as a workers retreat. They built the homestead with formal dining room, lounge, bar and billiard room, a 20m swimming pool and boat house and four luxury accommodation cabins. It was then on-sold through several families and now operates as accomodation. Not a bad place to spend a few days exploring the surrounding country side.
While there are not many hikes to do, we did manage to climb Mount Tilga, which was once the geographical centre of New South Wales (until technology told us otherwise). We also ventured to Trundle and a quick stop at the historic Trundle Hotel which boasts the longest verandah in NSW on the widest main street in the state. Heading further west through Condobolin and another quick stop at the ‘Utes in the Paddock’. This has lost some of its charm as it was once located in Ootha, but was more recently bought by the Council and moved closer to town as a more easily accessible tourist attraction.
It is sad to see many parts of the Country in decline as farms conglomerate and life on the land gets harder. What is often left behind are the remains with far too many stories to tell. I have a fascination for these relics of the past (some more images here) and try to capture these when I can.
Heading further west, we leave the black top behind and spend the next 3 hours on dirt with not another car to be seen. What is normally a brown parched landscape, is unusually green having had recent rain - gold from the sky for the farmers that survive out here.
To adequately tell the story of this unique place, we joined a tour (Mungo Excursion), run by a local family. Mungo National Park’s World Heritage status is a result of a combination of cultural use, the forces of nature, early european land degradation and modern exploration.
The story begins as a result of the natural westerly winds which blew sediments out of the lakebeds to build up into the crescent-shaped dunes (lunettes) that lie on the eastern edge of each lake. These lunettes progressively, year by year, cover anything on the surface, entombing them in layers like a book, for thousands of years.
Over thousands of years the pages of the book remain closed but with the introduction of white man, sheep, goats and rabbits began to change the landscape for ever. Over time their hoofs stripped the top soil from the dry lake floor and the native trees were removed. The same natural forces that moved the sands, also eroded them, scarifying the lunette, slowly opening up the pages of the book again to reveal relics of the past.
While many pastoralists stepped over bones and shells with little thought of their significance, one geologist, Jim Bowler, began to read the landscape and discovered human bones in 1968, named Mungo Lady. Later in 1974, he discovered the full skeleton of Mungo Man. These have been dated around 40,000 to 42,000 years old, making them the oldest human remains found anywhere in Australia and some of the oldest modern humans in the world outside Africa. But many Aboriginal people say they have been here even longer, reaching back into the Dreamtime.
These are only two of several hundred human remains discovered along with the numerous middens, stones, petrified wood, animal bones and other signs of past occupation. This includes 20,000 year old footprints found in 2003 (the only Pleistocene footprints in Australia and the most numerous yet found anywhere in the world). Analysis by expert trackers reveals that they were likely an extended family who had walked across the soft clay around the lake, which dried like concrete in the sun, and then later covered by sand. Just from the prints it was possible to tell that one man had lost a leg and hopped with the aid of a stick, while another of a woman carrying a child on her hip.
The remains of Mungo Lady were returned to Lake Mungo in 1992, while Mungo Man’s remains were repatriated in 2017. In November 2017, a black vintage hearse trundled across the Australian sheep country inside a rough-hewn casket crafted from 8,000-year-old fossilized wood. A suitable return to Country.
At dusk, we climbed the Walls of China, crossing the rippling Sahara-like dunes. Although only 130 feet high, the dunes tower over the flat desert lake below. Peering to the south, where Mungo Man and Mungo Lady had once walked it is hard to fathom that an enormous hairy wombat called Diprotodons, and a nine-foot-tall kangaroo, Macropus titan, were drinking from the lake that was full of fish and shellfish.
Mungo also has a strong pastoral history which is worth exploring on foot. Starting out from the Mungo Woolshed, built in 1869 from termite-resistant White Cypress Pine logs by Chinese labourers, we weave in an out of the scrub passing numerous signs of past farming use. At the peak of the wool industry Gol Gol was shearing 50,000 sheep a season in 30 stands. It was the Chinese workers who may have given the name Walls of China to the Lake Mungo lunette. We were puzzled why a traditional name had not replaced this, however we were told that the language of the traditional Ngiyampaa, Mutthi Mutthi and Paakantyi people has not been passed on to current generations and the language has been lost.
As the walk heads north, what was once lush green wetlands of the past, have given way to small leaved tussocks and bluebush and saltbush that can survive on drops of water, 50 Deg C. summers and rising salt. The cyprus pines that were not removed for fence posts, along with the mallee eucalypts, create the last pockets of woodland that can be explored along the walking track.
While COVID may have restricted us travelling further afield, it has provided a good opportunity to explore a bit more of our unique backyard - even if it is over 1000km away!
