Lake Mungo National Park

I had a broken sleep, woke up feeling very average, then dressed and had an early breakfast. Our tour guide Phill picked us up at 8:30am then it was a 1.5 hour drive on mostly dirt roads with many bumps and jarring cattle grates which I won't miss.The residents didn't want a sealed road in order to keep the "wrong people for dealing with heritage listed lands" driving through. We spotted sheep, kangaroos, emus, and wild goats. Commentary also included information about the 5 lake system from the last ice age, which dried up 18000 years ago. Mungo Man and Woman were dated at 42000 years old.

We arrived to see a vast flat dry lake bed full of various saltbush plants in a blanket of blues and greens. Mungo Lake's bed east to west is 10km drive!

We had morning tea at Mungo Lookout and also tried some bush tucker (bright red berries). Mungo is a Scottish word from the early European settlers because there were no indigenous people around to ask place names.

We soon were walking onto the sandy, ancient lake bed, and the wind was blowing sand into my teeth and behind my sunglasses. It is an amazing place with limited wildlife, including birds and emus.

Lunch was at the Visitor Centre and was a salad and ham for lunch made by Alison (Phill's wife), who really cared about dietary requirements. Then, after lunch was a walk through a woolshed and the visitor centre. There was a new discovery hinted, but it was yet to be made public re footprints.

I left with a sense of awe and appreciation of this land and note to self for next time, bring lip balm to deal with windy conditions.

We took 1.5 hours to drive back to the Mercure Hotel, and all of the passengers had a catnap or two.

After arriving back at the hotel, we went out 30 minutes later to seek out dinner at a local schnitzel place. The meal was yummy and we walked back to the hotel for a quiet night then a well earned sleep.Read more