Exploring Lake Mungo Environs

12th May 2014

After a surprisingly comfortable night in our cosy sleeping bags we woke to a thick mist.  The Mungo area has a serene stillness and the mist just added to that.  It's easy to see why the place has spiritual significance to the indigenous custodians.

Today we wanted to look more at the pastoral heritage so first up we explored the old woolshed which was built in 1869.  The shed is made from cypress pine logs as were all the buildings on these remote stations. Unfortunately this means all the mature trees for miles around were felled which hastened the erosion process and destroyed native fauna habitats.

The last sheep were shorn in the shed in 1978 but there is still a very pungent smell of lanolin which has soaked into the timbers.

Mustering yards from the woolshed

Mungo woolshed shearing pens

The Murray and Darling river basins were first settled by squatters who eventually gained title to the good land adjoining the rivers,  As more people moved into the area so the blocks became further away from reliable water supplies and the settlers really struggled.  Mungo station was in this category.  The settlers were attracted by the lush saltbush growing on the dried up lake bed as this is a good sheep fodder. However the sheep's hooves broke up the delicate layer of lichen which covers the ground and helps to conserve the moisture.  Drought soon followed and farming was always a struggle.  The sheep ranged up onto the sand dunes, which had already been denuded of trees, so hastening the erosion.  However, it is this very destruction of the environment which has revealed the fabulous archaeology at this site.

We drove the 70km circuit which goes across the lake bed, over the lunette (named as the curve of the sand bank is similar to the crescent moon) to the uplands beyond with a view down into the next lake in the Willandra system.  The sand dunes on the eastern side of the lunette are mobile (ie they are moving) and travelling east at the amazing rate of 3 metres a year.  We climbed to the top of one of the highest dunes for a fabulous 360 degree view.  There were many animal tracks on the dune - we spotted emu, dingo, kangaroo and many small tracks from little mammals and birds.

Mobile sand dune - Lake Mungo

Late in the day we returned to one of the lookouts for a spectacular sunset.

Sunset over Lake Mungo