Lake Mungo National Park
Part of the Willandra Lakes World Heritage Area, Lake Mungo has recently made headlines in the international press following the discovery of 20,000-year-old footsteps imprinted in the hardened clay of its dried-out shores. But its significance for the history of humanity goes back a lot further, to at least 40,000 years: that is the estimated age of the burial sites of "Mungo man" and "Mungo woman" found in 1969 and 1974, still the most ancient evidence of burial rites, and therefore human civilisation, in the world.+.jpg)
For until about 15,000 years ago, Lake Mungo was a real lake and the site of a thriving community which the Aboriginal Paakantji, Ngyiampaa and Mutthi Mutthi people of the region regard as their direct ancestors. The fish in the lake provided plenty of food, as did the "megafauna" of giant kangaroos and wombats ashore. Evidence of ancient campfires and fossilised bones are not difficult to find for the sharp-eyed visitor today, especially when helped by the knowledgeable Aboriginal guides working for local tour companies such as Harry Nanya Tours.The National Park is co-managed by the NPW and a council representing the three Indigenous groups associated with the region who also provide the resident park rangers for its day-to-day care and maintenance. The main attraction for most visitors is the "Great Wall of China" or "lunette" (because of its moon-like appearance) on the north-eastern shore of the former lake, where erosion by wind and rain has exposed a bizarre landscape made up of more solid layers of sand and clay. From the Visitors Centre at the entrance to the National Park, you drive across the lakebed to a car park with a boardwalk and viewing platform right by the lunette, and the beginning of a 70km one-way loop road taking you across the lunette through an ever-changing scenery past the sand dunes behind the "Great Wall" and back to the Visitors Centre.