A Mars landing

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This was published 12 years ago

A Mars landing

Sands of time ... the pinnacles of Lake Mungo's Walls of China.

Sands of time ... the pinnacles of Lake Mungo's Walls of China.

Lance Richardson surveys the otherworldly landscape and deep history of Lake Mungo.

From my vantage point on the lunette's highest dune, the dry bed looks more like a meteor crater than the remnants of an ancient lake. What was once a shallow basin of water is now a vast circle of dirt and scrub, with the lunette, a 30-kilometre crescent of sand, built up along the shore over centuries. Though seemingly alien, this landscape is familiar to many Australians because, on September 23, 2009, people along the eastern seaboard woke to find their houses shrouded in an eerie red dust. Some of it came from here, a strange, semi-arid desert that makes comparisons to Mars seem almost banal.

Contemplating the empty lake bed alone, I can hear the wing beats of a hawk as it searches for prey among the bullock bushes and needlewood. When I walk back down to Vigars Well, a natural soak behind the dunes, ranger Warren Clark smiles and asks me what I think. "It's huge," I say, "and very quiet."

Clark, an Aborigine and the executive officer of Mungo National Park, never raises his voice above a gravelly whisper. "Stand there long enough and you can hear people in the wind," he says. The comment intrigues me. Is he speaking of sound waves or the area's spiritual significance? I've quickly realised culture has equal footing with science here.

With Clark as a guide, my first glimpse of Aboriginal culture in Mungo comes at the park's western entrance, reached via a long unsealed road from Wentworth near the NSW-Victoria border. In rain this road transforms into a rust-coloured mudbath.

Having traversed the drying ridges with some creative manoeuvring, Clark stops the car at a large sign just within the park limits.

"Paliira kiirinana parimba," it reads in the language of the Paakantji tribe. "Our country is beautiful. Please come." Were we at the national park's northern entrance, a similar sign would repeat the message in the language of the Ngyiampaa. In the south: the Mutthi Mutthi. Far from being an empty wilderness, Mungo National Park represents the convergence of three distinct groups. From its edge (these signs) to its heart in the form of a permanent "meeting place" behind the visitors' centre, Mungo is thoroughly and proudly indigenous.

This extends to its governance. Although the park is the legal responsibility of NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service, a co-management agreement with the Elders Council means the original inhabitants get more than just a token say about how Mungo is presented to the world. Most park staff are Aboriginal and the visitors centre is filled with stone tools and a large mural showing a line of dark figures walking across a wall. Each figure represents 10 generations of indigenous occupation in the Willandra Lakes Region, which includes Mungo. The several hundred figures are enough to span more than 36,000 years.

To fully grasp the significance of this, Clark suggests I join a Discovery Tour with rangers Ricky Handy and Ernest Keith Mitchell.

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Mungo is not your ordinary national park. Twenty minutes into this walk is enough to recast the land as one full of hidden secrets. "Mungo Lady", for example, was unearthed here in 1969, the oldest cremation ever found. "Mungo Man" was found six years later in a pit strewn with ceremonial ochre. Both skeletons are about 40,000 years old, making them some of the oldest human remains found outside Africa. This is, I remind myself, in my own backyard.

Other things in my own backyard include: bones of buffalo-sized wombats and giant kangaroos, and a plague of rabbits that can be controlled by hiding cyanide tablets in paddy melons and rolling them into warrens. Handy and Mitchell wander across the lake bed, pointing out signs of scorpions and bandy bandy snakes while discussing the gritty duties of maintaining a national park.

Yet the most notable element of the Discovery Tour is also its beginning. Alongside the "meeting place" and a large granite sculpture by artist Badger Bates, several casts of footprints have been embedded in the ground. These are copies of tracks discovered in the northern part of the Willandra Lakes - evidence of an ancient nomadic people living in the area when everything was still fertile and green.

Scientists have studied the footprints for years but Clark is quick to turn to cultural interpretations. Members of the Pipalyatjara tribe from central Australia were invited to inspect when the footprints were discovered. Clark points at the ground and imitates their reading. "There was a spear thrown here," he says. "It skidded over there. And this is a woman's track; here she transferred a baby from one hip to the other." The Pipalyatjara could tell these things from the depth and direction of the tracks alone.

It's because of these tracks and the Mungo skeletons that the 2400 square kilometres of Willandra Lakes were classified a World Heritage Area in 1981. There are 17 such areas in Australia but Willandra Lakes is one of just four listed as much for cultural reasons as environmental significance. The main criterion for this is that a site be valuable to all humanity. The footprints of Willandra Lakes might be outwardly Aboriginal but their legacy is for everyone.

As the most accessible of the Willandra Lakes, Mungo is nevertheless intimidating in size. A good way to digest its offerings is to take the 70-kilometre self-driving tour, which loops across the lunette and highlights some of Mungo's pastoral history as well. On the way, Clark stops regularly, pointing out a woolshed or leading me off the road to what he calls "the rock shop", where a natural anvil and tool shards have been linked to Aboriginal trade networks across the country. By the time we reach Vigars Well and the white dunes I'm sure I've seen it all. Then I'm standing by ancient campfires or wagon ruts from the early 1900s. History blends like layers of silt here, accreting and peeling back with the changing winds.

Although it's possible to camp in the park or stay at restored shearers' quarters near the visitors centre, I retire, exhausted, to Mungo Lodge, built just outside the park. Keeping with the spirit of things, the lodge is both beautiful and strange - an unexpected oasis of luxury in the red desert. Though it's indigenous-owned, the managing couple is French. They preside over more than a dozen well-equipped cabins powered by a miniature plant and watered from a catchment tank that occasionally runs dry. There's no chance of that this season but the irony of water shortages in what was once an abundant lake is not lost on Jacques Barichard. Along with his wife, Catherine, he takes on the challenging environment by maintaining a standard that wouldn't be out of place in most cities.

On my last morning, I re-enter the park with Graham Clarke from Harry Nanya Tours. Apart from the park rangers, Clarke is the only licensed operator allowed to walk among the extraordinary Walls of China. His wide-ranging commentary adds an extra dimension to the waking hallucination that is the eroded layers of Mungo's most famous landmark. As I walk around the bases and up the ribbed valleys, Clarke stands in the background, digressing from evolution to the people who lived here long before anybody else. His voice catches in the wind; I am transported momentarily.

There's concern about accelerated erosion in Mungo, a product of modern tourism and land clearing. But it's easy to see that in 20,000 years the land will still be here - in whatever form - after we've turned to dust.

Lance Richardson travelled courtesy of NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service and Destination NSW.

FAST FACTS

Getting there

Virgin Australia and Qantaslink fly to Mildura from Melbourne (about 1hr, from $235 on Qantaslink, low-season return); Sydney passengers fly via Melbourne. Mungo National Park is about 110 kilometres north-east of Mildura, near Wentworth in NSW. A four-wheel-drive is recommended in wet weather for entrance to the park.

Staying there

Just outside the park, Mungo Lodge is the area's high-end option. Deluxe cabins for two are $260 a night. A self-contained cabin for four adults or two adults and two children is $410 a night. Phone ahead to confirm road conditions; phone (03) 5029 7297; mungolodge.com.au.

Turlee Station Stay is a working station near Mungo that offers four-star "bush cabins" for $150 a night. Shearers' quarters cost from $50 a night. Camping is $8. Phone 1800 991 995; see turleestationstay.com.au.

In Mungo National Park are shearers' quarters near the visitors' centre capable of housing up to 26 people. $30 an adult; $10 a child. Camping at Main Camp or Belah Camp on the self-guided driving track is $5 a night. phone (03) 5021 8900.

Things to do

Aboriginal Discovery Tours are conducted by the three tribal groups taking in the Walls of China or a Foreshore Walk and placing Mungo in its context of indigenous history. Bookings are essential; phone (03) 5021 8904; see discovermungo.com.au.

Harry Nanya Tours through Mungo National Park operate in daytime April-October, then switch to sunset tours in November-March because of temperatures. From $160 a person, including park fees, morning tea and a buffet-style picnic lunch or dinner; phone (03) 5027 2076; see harrynanyatours.com.au.

Nearby Wentworth is also worth a visit for its historic buildings, the Murray and Darling rivers, and the famous Perry Sandhills. Artback Gallery and Cafe exhibits works from local artists and serves the best coffee in town; phone (03) 5027 2298; see artbackaustralia.com.au.

More information

See visitmungo.com.au.

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