In 1981 three places of stunning natural beauty became Australia’s first World Heritage List sites. The Northern Territory’s Kakadu and Queensland’s Great Barrier Reef were obvious choices. The third was a place right here on our doorstep – Mungo National Park. Humans have called it home for more than 50,000 years.
The spectacular landscape is almost always described as “lunar”, albeit a lunar landscape tinged with the classic ochre hues of inland Australia.
The most dramatic formation is the Great Walls of China, which run along what was the eastern shoreline of the largest lake. Almost 35km long and reaching 30m high, the “walls” were formed over thousands of years by sediments deposited by winds as the lakes dried. Dust bowls now, the lakes were in the long distant past, a place of bounty. Stone tools, grinders for making flour, a stone axe head, middens with shells and bones, and evidence of hearths have been found, some going back 50,000 years.
Long before World Heritage listing, in 1968 Dr Jim Bowler uncovered the remains of Mungo Man. Believed to have lived about 40,000 years ago during the Ice Age, Mungo Man is the oldest anatomically modern human found in Australia.
Footprints declaring the world’s largest human trackway were found in 2003 and since then more than 450 prints of adults and children in at least 23 tracks have been uncovered.
Red and Western Grey kangaroos, echidnas, native mice and bats roam the park, along with shinglebacks, bearded dragons and geckos. Large but flightless emus wander freely and are just one of 150 bird species to be found in Mungo National Park.