Day 8 - Mungo National Park

23th April 2022

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Due to our muddy adventures earlier that day, we arrive quite late in the late afternoon in this World Heritage area. The visitor centre is closing, and its already chilly. We have been looking for firewood during the day but havent`t found any.

Behind the Shearers sheds a group of very friendly people is unpacking their jeeps, it is their final night of a 2 week road trip. I see some wood logs on their roof and dare ask if they could miss some. They are so kind to give us logs and an axe. While chopping the logs into firewood, we have a nice chat. They invite us to stay over at the cabines. A very tempting offer... But it is our last night under the stars, we are not quite ready yet to turn back to civilisation.

Thank you to the 4WD Northern Beaches group for saving our night!

Last sunset outside, we are getting very efficient in getting our tents up. Chloe is managing the sleeping bags while Tristan prepares the fire. We have a visitor in our tent, 10cm big grasshopper, never seen such a big one before.

As we are rarely prepared for our trips, we are discovering only being here that Mungo is actually an archaeological and geomorphological site of international significance.

Historical significance

Lake Mungo is important for three reasons:

• The skeletons found in the sands of the lunette are the oldest known fully modern humans outside Africa

• The discovery of the Mungo Lady (1969) who was dated to around 40,000 years old, and has provided the oldest evidence of ritual cremation in the world.

• The discovery of Mungo Man (1974) The discovery was a big deal because it proved that Aboriginal people had been here about twice as long as previously thought being over 50,000 years!

Mungo Lady and Mungo Man are particularly special to their Aboriginal descendants who still live around the area.

The land frozen in time

Lake Mungo is a relic of life in Australia 30,000-45,000 years ago when the area was defined by a series of large, deep, interlocking lakes teeming with large fish. The now dry bed of Lake Mungo would have been 20 kilometres long and 10 kilometres wide, with a depth of some 15 metres. On its eastern side sand dunes provided sheltered campsites by the lake shore.

Aboriginal hunters and gatherers, accustomed to walking from water hole to water hole, settled on the shores of the lakes and established semi-permanent campsites where they could rely on the freshwater lakes for fish and crustaceans. The local fauna, drinking at the water's edge, supplemented their food supply.

The lakes were formed around 150,000 years ago and the lunettes on the eastern edges of Lake Mungo started to form as the prevailing winds blew sand off the lake's beaches.

About 16,000 years ago, at the end of the ice age, the lakes dried up. All that was left was a 30 km-long sand dune, called a lunette, which stretched along the eastern edge of the lake and was, in places, up to 40 metres high.

The stark, eerie, desert landscape; the vastness of the flat lake bed; the sparse vegetation and the unique crinkled and fluted dunes and ridges make the place look like a strange moonscape.

This last picture is not ours: Entering and walking in the footsteps of Mungo Man and Mungo Lady is only possible accompanied by a guide.

The Paakantji, Ngyiampaa and Mutthi Mutthi people are proud of what the ancient remains prove of their endurance in the land and survival from the distant past. Today they share Country with all visitors of Lake Mungo NP.

This is another place where I definitely want to come back to...