The winding mind: January 2012

Aboriginal heritage

The park is famous because the dry lakeshore contains evidence of indigenous campfires, middens and burials, dating back to nearly 50,000 years ago when the lakes were often filled with fresh water.

The shoreline is also a detailed record of Australia's past climate, lake levels and the animals that used the lake. Up until 25,000 years ago this semi-arid country was a series of vast lakes supporting giant kangaroos, wombats and other mega fauna as well as Tasmanian Tigers and Devils. A treasure trove of fossils is a legacy of this extraordinary heritage.

Road towards Mungo from Mildura.

This is Tanya. An aboriginal women that works for the park as a ranger. As manny of the national parks, this one also belongs to aborigines people and they are taking care of those kinds of places. She explained history of the place and showed us important traces of humanity. Their natural "supermarket" and plants that will feed us and hill us...

The Walls of China

After the lake dried up, winds swept storms of sand up from the lake floor, dumping it on the shoreline and creating the famous Mungo lunette. This is the site of the spectacular Great Walls of China, which have been carved from layers of the lunette. As the lunette erodes it reveals remains and fossils. The ancient dunes at Mungo are known as the "Walls of China". As the sands shift, ancient and extremely well preserved campfires, cooking hearths and burials as well as the remains of long extinct animals have been uncovered. The fragile formations of sand and clay have been shaped by wind and water and are spectacular when viewed in their entirety from a distance.