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Destinations > The Menindee Lakes
The Menindee Lakes
The road entering Mungo National Park from the west drops you more or less right at the rangers' station and the start of the drive loop within the park. The lakes here have been dry for around 15,000 years, since the Lachlan River changed its course. The nearest watercourse is the Willandra Creek, which peters out in a swamp to the north of the park.
Mungo National Park has been populated forever, or near enough to it. Mungo Man and Mungo Woman, two of the oldest human remains found in Australia were both discovered here, and it is not uncommon to see remains of camp fires that would have burnt when there was water and food in the lakes. These are the traces of the ancestors of the Paakantji, Ngiyampaa and Mutthi Mutthi people.
The visitors centre is based at the old woolshed, and is well worth a stop. Apart from maps and route notes to accompany the circular drive through the park, there is plenty of scientific and historical information. Most people seem to take the short trip out to the Walls of China and back, so you can pretty much find yourself in quiet seclusion doing the whole loop.
Mungo National Park was previously two sheep stations, Mungo and Zanci. Both of their timber woolsheds still stand, and seeing Mungo's drop log construction, it is easy to see why there is so little of the native Cyprus pine left. The shed still houses the steam engine that was used to power the shears before the petrol motor took over. It is amusing to see how steep the chutes are, after stripping the poor thing of its wool, the sheep was dropped almost vertically into the outside pen.
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Crossing Lake Mungo towards the Walls of China, you get the feeling of what the lake must have been like. It is low and flat, there wouldn't have been much depth to the water. The bed is now covered with a stunted and scrubby saltbush. The abrupt change at the Walls of China is striking. Sand dunes rising in the middle of this salty dwarf scrub.
Pressed into semi rock, and eroded away again, it forms all sorts of weathered shapes, leaving an almost Arizona looking landscape in miniature. The western view from the top of the road snaking across the dry lakebed has to be seen. To the east, the sand dunes crash up against the mallee scrub. Leaving the less adventurous behind, the road becomes one-way, crosses the dunes, known as lunettes, and continues through the eastern end of the park across Allans Tank.
There's the remains of a hut on the plain that was dragged there on a sled from the homestead. Rabbits burrowed around the foundations so much it has collapsed. Both the corrugated iron and the rabbit holes are all that remain today. The rabbit plague at the end of the 1800s forced huge reductions in the number of sheep each station could run. It was some time later that goats became a problem. Round Tank in the northwest corner of the drive has an ingenious goat trap built around it, one that probably still works when the tank is full.
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Mungo National Park has been populated forever, or near enough to it. Mungo Man and Mungo Woman, two of the oldest human remains found in Australia were both discovered here, and it is not uncommon to see remains of camp fires that would have burnt when there was water and food in the lakes. These are the traces of the ancestors of the Paakantji, Ngiyampaa and Mutthi Mutthi people.
The visitors centre is based at the old woolshed, and is well worth a stop. Apart from maps and route notes to accompany the circular drive through the park, there is plenty of scientific and historical information. Most people seem to take the short trip out to the Walls of China and back, so you can pretty much find yourself in quiet seclusion doing the whole loop.
Mungo National Park was previously two sheep stations, Mungo and Zanci. Both of their timber woolsheds still stand, and seeing Mungo's drop log construction, it is easy to see why there is so little of the native Cyprus pine left. The shed still houses the steam engine that was used to power the shears before the petrol motor took over. It is amusing to see how steep the chutes are, after stripping the poor thing of its wool, the sheep was dropped almost vertically into the outside pen.
read on below advertisement
Crossing Lake Mungo towards the Walls of China, you get the feeling of what the lake must have been like. It is low and flat, there wouldn't have been much depth to the water. The bed is now covered with a stunted and scrubby saltbush. The abrupt change at the Walls of China is striking. Sand dunes rising in the middle of this salty dwarf scrub.
Pressed into semi rock, and eroded away again, it forms all sorts of weathered shapes, leaving an almost Arizona looking landscape in miniature. The western view from the top of the road snaking across the dry lakebed has to be seen. To the east, the sand dunes crash up against the mallee scrub. Leaving the less adventurous behind, the road becomes one-way, crosses the dunes, known as lunettes, and continues through the eastern end of the park across Allans Tank.
There's the remains of a hut on the plain that was dragged there on a sled from the homestead. Rabbits burrowed around the foundations so much it has collapsed. Both the corrugated iron and the rabbit holes are all that remain today. The rabbit plague at the end of the 1800s forced huge reductions in the number of sheep each station could run. It was some time later that goats became a problem. Round Tank in the northwest corner of the drive has an ingenious goat trap built around it, one that probably still works when the tank is full.
next page »
