Sydney or the bush?

By JENNIFER GRIMWADE

You need to let your imagination run wild at Lake Mungo, in the south-west of New South Wales. You must try to imagine a thriving community in this now arid land, for archaeologists have discovered evidence of Aboriginal people camping here 50,000 years ago.

These days there are far more kangaroos than people. Lake Mungo has been dry for the past 17,000 years, but when it was full, what a paradise it was, with an abundance of food.

It is quite easy to see the lake was once 20km long and 10km wide, but you have to believe the archaeologists when they say it was up to 15m deep.

As soon as you learn the prevailing winds come from the west, it is not hard to see how the magnificent Walls of China, at the eastern edge of the lake, were formed.

Over tens of thousands of years, the water levels in the lake fluctuated and, when it was dry, these prevailing winds swept dust and sand from the lake floor up against the eastern sand-dunes. Over the millennia, this turned into a crescent-shaped wall or a "lunette" because the shape resembles a crescent-moon.

Just 5km longer than the original Lake Mungo, the lunette is so similar to a wall, it is no wonder local Chinese farm labourers in the 1860s are attributed with dubbing it the Walls of China.

The spectacular walls consist of varying aged layers of unbelievably clean sand and sediment, in colours from salmon pink to bleached khaki. It's not hard to climb to the top of the wall and look out across the old lake bed. In fact, it is wonderful walking around the walls, a startling variation of rolling sand dunes and craggily eroded outcrops.

In some areas, looking down from the top of the compressed but crumbly outcrops is similar to flying over the Himalayas. Numerous small but recently eroded peaks are divided by tiny, dry river beds, even glacial look-alike beds, for this fragile lunette is constantly changed by wind and by intermittent rainfall.

Ironically, in this arid scene you can't help but think of water, despite the intense heat and the blinding light from the brilliant blue sky bouncing off the pale reflecting sand.

In the middle of the afternoon, all I can hear is the buzz of the ever-present flies and the caw of crows. I follow the tracks of a western brown snake and spot emus sheltering in the shade of low, nobbled, weather-beaten rosewood trees and clumps of grey saltbush. I get a bit spooked as I stumble across ancient bits of bones and shells and wonder whether they are thousands of years old.

I don't know who gets a bigger fright when I reach the peak of a dune and encounter a large kangaroo. It's a red kangaroo, Australia's major desert mammal, a true survivor. It has the astonishing ability to conceive, but keep the embryo dormant until the rains come, and the conditions are right to rear its offspring.

But the red kangaroo is nowhere near as big as the now extinct, short-faced kangaroo procoptodon goliah, which used to stand 3m tall and browse on woodland trees.

Nor are the emus a patch on the former giant flightless bird, the genyornis, which had legs as big as a horse, let alone the buffalo-sized zygomaturus, which liked to graze on plants flourishing around the edges of Lake Mungo.

The lunettes contain wonderfully well-preserved Aboriginal middens, (pre-historic refuse heaps), campfires and stone tools.

In 1969, not far from the Walls of China, Australian archaeologists unearthed the bones of Mungo I, a young adult female, between 24,500 and 26,500 years old. Just 1.4m tall, Mungo Woman had been cremated. This is the oldest evidence of ritual cremation in the world.

Then in 1974, an entire skeleton was discovered, a rare find indeed, for in Africa, it is considered a major event if archaeologists uncover even a jaw bone. The skeleton, estimated to be 30,000 years old and named Mungo III, was of a man with bones coated in red ochre. The skeleton had severe osteoarthritis in the right elbow and there was some speculation that it was "spear-thrower's elbow".

The Aborigines at Lake Mungo had a rich and varied diet. Remains of the brown-haired wallaby, the hairy-nosed wombat, the rat kangaroo, even the western native cat have all been found in ancient fireplaces, alongside broken emu eggs.

Nearby Mungo Woman's burial ground, bones have been found from the huge Murray cod, maccullochella macquariensis, estimated to weigh up to 15kg.

Although evidence is scant, it is believed the Mungo Aborigines also enjoyed native tomatoes, native plums and peaches (quandongs), even native cherries.

Besides being attracted to the abundant food supplies, the Aborigines were also drawn to the silcrete ridge on the western side of the lake. A number of silcrete tools have been found in the area, including choppers made for heavy-duty work such as chopping down trees and sharp-edged flakes, which were ideal for cutting or scraping food, sinews, even fur.

There are no Aborigines living at Lake Mungo any more, but visitors can stay in shearers' quarters, adjacent to the Mungo woolshed. Built in the 1870s by gangs of Chinese gold miners, this shed constructed by the drop-log method was built out of the indigenous, termite-resistant White Cypress Pine. In its heyday, 18 hand shearers used to shear up to 50,000 sheep each year.

Looking out from the shearing shed across the dry bed of Lake Mungo, emus and western grey kangaroos graze on saltbush, and wedge-tailed eagles hover in the thermals. And I can't help but imagine Lake Mungo as a glistening, huge freshwater lake surrounded by water lilies, with Aborigines catching golden perch in hand-made fish traps.

Fact File:


Lake Mungo is a 1 1/2-hour drive north of Mildura. It may also be reached from Wentworth, Broken Hill or Balranald.

Mildura is a 12-hour, 1200km drive from Sydney but buses and planes also connect Mildura with Sydney and Melbourne.

The minimum stay advised is two nights.

Mobile phones do not work (tour operators use satellite phones) and there are no shops or telephone facilities.

Limited bunk accommodation is available in shearers' quarters at a cost of $A16.50 ($19.50) an adult..

The basic camping facilities include clean pit toilets, tables, and fireplaces, with wood supplied. Visitors should take their own drinking water.

Charges are $A6 per vehicle, campers $A3.

There are no camping reservations.

Ranger-guided tours are conducted at Easter and in the July and September school holidays only.

A 60km signposted track takes visitors across the lake floor to the Walls of China, over the dune to the mallee country, then around the north-eastern shore of the lake.

Contact: Harry Nanya Aboriginal heritage tours, PO Box 53, Wentworth NSW 2648. Phone: 0061 3 50 272 076, or visit Harry Nanya Tours.

Full-day tours costing $A60 a person, including lunch, are available from Mildura or the surrounding Sunraysia district.

A tour from Lake Mungo costs $A25 a person, including lunch. Tours run daily, but Sundays are by arrangement only.

During Daylight Saving months, tours run at sunset instead of during the heat of the day.

Travellers may also enjoy a few days in the oasis of Mildura or the historic mining town of Broken Hill.

Contact: New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service, Buronga. Phone: 0061 3 502 18900 or visit New South Wales National Parks.