Mungo National Park is one of the world’s most significant archaeological sites and is a special meeting place for the elders and caretakers of this land since the Dreamtime. Located at the southern gateway to New South Wales Outback, the Walls of China at Mungo National Park is one of the major natural attractions of the region.
I was fortunate enough to visit Mungo National Park earlier this year when I was exploring the Swan Hill district, and it was well worth the detour. This unique landscape is unlike anything else I have encountered when exploring Australia the history is just as fascinating.
In this blog I am sharing my top 10 interesting facts about Mungo National Park to hopefully educate you on the significance of this area and inspire you to plan your own trip to Mungo. Before visiting the region, I had no idea this place even existed, and I think you will find it just as spectacular as I did.
1. World Heritage Listed
As of September 2023, there are a total of 1,199 UNESCO World Heritage Sites located throughout the world and only 20 of these are situated in Australia. One of these sites is the Willandra Lakes Region consisting of Lake Mungo which has been listed as a World Heritage site since 1981. This region is a unique landmark in the study of human evolution and several well-preserved fossils of giant marsupials have been found here.
2. Mungo Man and Mungo Lady
This New South Wales National Park is steeped with is steeped in Aboriginal history as it is one of the longest continual records of Aboriginal life in Australia. It was here that the remains of Mungo Lady and Mungo Man were discovered.
In 1968, while searching for clues to past climates and ancient landscapes, scientist Jim Bowle stumbled across the cremated remains of an Aboriginal woman eroding from one of the dunes at Lake Mungo. A few years later, the equally ancient remains of the 42,000-year-old Mungo Man was discovered.
These two significant archaeological discoveries doubled scientific estimates of how long Aboriginal people had called Australia home. The Mungo Man and Mungo Lady taught us that Aboriginal history stretched back to a time when the only humans in Europe were Neanderthals, and people had not yet reached America. Aboriginal people belong to the oldest continuous culture on the planet.
3. The lake was once full
Despite it’s arid and dry appearance, Lake Mungo was once full of water from the Lachlan River and spanned about 200 square kilometres across the region. The lake started to dry up due to soil erosion over the last 16,000 years and it was only made worse by vegetation depletion from sheep grazing and rabbit plagues in the 1800’s. The area where the lake once situated now consists of an amazing 33 kilometre stretch of Australian sand dunes known as the Walls of China.
4. History behind the name
Long after the mega fauna roamed the vast desert landscape, the historic Gol Gol Cattle Station brought mega flocks of sheep to the region. By the early 1850s, news of a gold rush in Australia had reached southern China, sparking an influx in Chinese migration to Australia. Following the gold rush, some of these migrants took up jobs here as boundary riders, trackers and general hands at the Gol Gol Station.
In 1869, Chinese labourers at Gol Gol built what is now the Mungo woolshed as its main shearing base which you can now visit across from the visitor centre. At the peak of the wool industry Gol Gol was shearing 50,000 sheep a season and it is believed that the Chinese workers named the Lake Mungo lunette the “Walls of China.”
5. You need to take a tour
Although many of the main sections of Mungo National Park are protected, there are also plenty of spots in the park you can explore by yourself. My biggest recommendation is booking a guided tour of the park as the guide will talk you through the history and point out some of the artefacts. Take care when driving to the park as most roads are unsealed and there is usually plenty of wildlife roaming around the outback.
You can book organised tours of Mungo National Park with either Tri State Safaris or Outback Geo Adventures, however I think everyone should book a tour with a ranger who represents one of the three Traditional Owner groups of the region: the Paakantji, Ngiyampaa or Mutthi Mutthi. Booking a NPWS Aboriginal Discovery Guide will see you exploring a sensitive area beyond the Walls of China boardwalk, hearing fascinating Dreamtime stories and more.
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