Mungo National Park, New South Wales
Forty years ago the remains of a man were found at Lake Mungo in NSW. This discovery would forever change our understanding of the Aboriginal history of Australia.
In geological layers dated as far back as 50,000 years, there are stone tools and hearths, shellfish middens and butchered animal bones.
The bones of both Mungo Lady and Mungo Man, as well as the fragmentary remains of as many as 100 other people found at Willandra, made their way into ANU collections in Canberra during the 1970s and ’80s. The NSW State Government purchased Mungo station and turned it into a national park in 1979 (funds from Australian Geographic’s founder Dick Smith helped establish the visitors centre, which includes a small museum). Gazetting of the larger WHA followed in 1981.
THE WILLANDRA LAKES Region World Heritage Area covers 2400sq.km of semi-arid saltbush plains, dunes and sparse woodlands in the Murray Basin of south-western NSW. It consists of 19 dry relict lakes (see map, overleaf) that were once filled with glacial meltwater flowing east along the Willandra Creek from the Great Dividing Range.
These Pleistocene-era lakes, which were full from about 50,000 years ago, vary in size from 6 to 350sq.km; all have crescent-moon-shaped dunes called lunettes on their eastern sides, formed by prevailing winds. Mungo NP itself covers about 70 per cent of Lake Mungo, including the striking Walls of China, which are part of the lake’s 26km-long lunette.
“Some of the very earliest modern human remains in the world are here at Mungo,” says Harvey Johnston, a NSW Office of Environment and Heritage archaeologist, who’s been involved with Willandra since the late 1980s. “You have this record of human occupation going back 40,000 years and burials and ceremonies associated with that: cremations, burials with ochre, multiple individuals and burials with unusual features.” SUBSCRIBE: The official channel of Australian Geographic magazine.
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Parallel 29 and the One Ton Post part 1
Always fascinated with the state borders, saw the southern border of Queensland, and was interested in the ‘squiggly bit’, this was a road I had not traveled near before (why was it squiggle?). I had originally planned to tackle the prime objective first, leaving the bitumen roads to travel home. But the season broke, and after waiting for clearing weather, decided to do the black top roads first hoping the clearing weather would allow me to travel the dirt roads back home later on.
The first day I traveled to Wentworth, camping at lock ten, the same camp we used for the 'Chain of Ponds Odyssey'. The weather was gloomy and so was I.
I wanted to camp the second night on grass, after my first night in the river mud at Wentworth, so I went back to Lake Cargelligo and camped in the caravan park. I was feeling much better now and after a good night’s rest was getting back into the swing of things.
After crossing the Great Dividing Range came into Coffs Harbour, the traffic was horrendous. Nice place to visit, great views, planned to camp in the park overlooking the bay, found a burnt out car, I was not impressed. I found another spot, not happy. The night was coming on now and it was getting dark, my camping guide was no help, so I tried finding nearby Caravan Park in my GPS. Here I was, on the Bruce Highway, two lanes, driving at night, trying to follow directions to a place I did not know how to get to, or even how far away it was. I missed the GPS’s first choice, not being in the right hand lane to turn off, continuing on I concentrated, and when ‘she’ said to turn, I turned; I had no idea where I was going. Soon I came to a dead end road, boom gate in front of me, thank God. I went in saw the lady, ignoring the closed sign, said “can I stop here tonight, If I can’t I’m camping at this bloody boom gate”, she said “come on in luv, find a place down the end, you look like you’ve had a rough day”. I was way down the back by the creek, and in the morning found out I was at Sapphire Beach a glorious spot, and I had slept within one hundred meters, no wonder I could hear the surf running all though the night. In the morning I also saw some of the biggest caravans I have ever seen filling the park.
After this pleasant park stay, I decided to try another further up the coast, Broken Bay, just down from Byron Bay. After paying thirty three dollars for unpowered site (worth every penny, she said), a quiet spot, I said, “way down the back”. Don’t worry she said “there is no one else back there”, famous last words. All went well, I watched the moon rise (I still don’t know why) turning in about eight. In comes two overseas female backpackers, chatter, chatter, tap, tap, tap, their small tent goes up then the go to the camp kitchen (feature of caravan parks in the region), and proceed to have their evening meal, coming back to the tent about ten, for the night. All okay so far, they will settle soon and it will be quiet, my mistake. They had got chatting to some boys in the camp kitchen, and now the boys came over, with their car to park next to the girls. About eleven o’clock, the ‘chatting’ was still going on, getting louder, the boys wanted to get it on with the backpackers, but the girls would have none of this. The boys then opened the boot of the car, so they could play some ‘tunes’, this made my blood boil, so I arose from my swag to face the recalcitrates, It was then I realised they were not only close, they had set up their tent about three meters away from my car. So much for the park staff’s “there is no one else back there” comment, I yelled at the boys (about 18 year olds), and requested they “keep the f**king noise down, as I “had a long drive ahead of me tomorrow”. This (possibly thinking me a bit crazy) did the trick for short while. I fell asleep. Awoken around one thirty with loud laughter, these boys were still trying to ‘pull’ the two female backpackers. I had had enough; I slid down (lucky I sleep in the back on my car), put the keys in and drove out to the boom gate, put in my code, and spent the rest of the night in the caravan waiting area car park. I was awoken at day break by surfers going for their morning ritual surf; the car park was now full. I looked back up the hill in the caravan park (not far away), the boy’s car was still parked next to the girl’s tent, and all was quiet, perhaps they got lucky after all. I was tempted to give them a visit, but no, I backed up and drove away.
In my visit to Byron Bay and the Eastern most point on the Australian mainland I was struck by the full spectrum of society, from the very dirty flower children (all in their forties), in the caravan park, ramshackle arrangements’ of tents and flower painted combies. To the flashing of obvious wealth, in the houses, on the one way loop road that runs around the cliff’s of the headland, that forms the most easterly point.