Ancient Landscapes - Mungo National Park, NSW

Day 5

Fascinated after watching a documentary recently about the discovery of Mungo Man and Mungo Woman (believed to be roughly 40,000 years old), and the vast ancient landscapes so rich in Aboriginal history, we made our way to Mungo National Park this morning, at the heart of the Willandra Lakes UNESCO World Heritage Listed area.

Izzy was excited to finally get some decent dirt roads to drive on and performed exceptionally.

Mungo is one of those places that feels almost otherworldly — a lunar-like sweep of dried‑up lake beds, wind‑sculpted dunes and ancient earth shaped over tens of thousands of years. The most striking feature is the famous Walls of China, a 35km stretch of eroded sand and clay lunettes rising up to 30–40 metres high along the edge of the old Lake Mungo shoreline. Chinese workers in the 1890s nicknamed the formations after the Great Wall back home, and the name stuck. We could see them in the distance and then drove the 10km from the visitor centre to see them up close and personal – amazing!!

It’s hard to believe that these vast dust bowls were once thriving wetlands. Archaeologists have uncovered stone tools, grinding stones, a stone axe head, middens, and traces of ancient hearths — some dating back over 50,000 years. And of course, the most extraordinary finds of all were Mungo Man and Mungo Woman, whose burials represent the oldest known ritual ceremonial site anywhere in the world. Standing on that pale, wind‑carved landscape, it’s impossible not to feel the weight and wonder of deep time. More info about Mungo NP can be found here.

Unfortunately, parts of the park were still closed due to recent flooding, so we could only go as far as the Walls of China and couldn’t camp inside Mungo as planned. In true guideline‑following fashion, we adapted — or in Guideline #4 terms, we ‘just did it’ — and continued on to Pooncarie.

For a very reasonable $10, we set up camp right on the Darling River — the next river in our growing Australian river‑camping collection. The campsite was about a kilometre out of town, so we decided it was time to give the bikes their first outing. We pedalled into town to pay our camping fee at the pub, and naturally it would have been poor community spirit not to stay for a beer and a cider.

Pooncarie offered a few unexpected delights — most notably the golf course, where a mob of sheep were busily grazing the fairways, doing an excellent job of keeping the greens trimmed. Only in the outback.

Back at the river, we enjoyed another peaceful evening, watching flocks of cockatoos swoop down to drink. Beautiful, if slightly deafening. A gentle end to our day.