Travel - Making it Through the Mallee

Explore the mystical magic of the windswept Willandra Lakes in New South Wales | Story and Photography by Sue Farley


Ancient man came out of Africa about 100,000 years ago. Moving as slowly as time itself, he wandered and bred his way across continents and seas. But around 60,000 years later, the same time as the Neanderthals were slowly disappearing out of Europe, a quiet, mystical race of people were colonizing Australia.

Where they came from is hard to establish, but the nomadic families of Aboriginals who wandered the searing outback of Australia are now well documented as having lived in these incredibly isolated and harsh spots for at least the last 35,000 years.

On the wind-blown sands of the now-dry Willandra Lakes in south-west New South Wales, their fossilised fireplaces and shell-filled middens are forever being covered and uncovered by the constant westerly winds that swirl the soft-coloured Australian sands around like they were snow.

It’s an interesting three-hour drive from Mildura into this desolate area, and the intrigue grows as we head out of northern Victoria and up into southern New South Wales towards Mungo National Park, through what is locally known as the Mallee country.

Mallee is an Aboriginal word describing any one of a number of scrubby eucalypt species that grow in this arid semi-desert environment. It also describes the area itself and the ecosystem that has developed within that. There are mallee trees, mallee stumps, the mallee landscape, mallee farmland, and they say that the local mallee people have dust in their veins. I imagine they would, as there’s certainly plenty around.

At first glance, the Mallee looks a bit like anywhere else in the lesser Australian outback. Lots of reddish brown dirt, a few straggly gums, kangaroos bouncing around in the shadows, and emus marching across the middle distance. But a closer look reveals a different story.

For a start there are 14 different types of mallee eucalypt. Translated as meaning ‘many limbs’, mallee gums have a number of straggling trunks rather than a single main trunk. These trees can live for hundreds of years because when a trunk is damaged or dies another will take its place.

This, in turn, leads to a huge root bole forming under the ground creating the famous mallee stumps. And mallee gums have been used by the Aboriginal people for coffin trees – where corpses were literally interred in the standing trunks – and for making their long, strange musical didgeridoos.

In between the clumps of mallee gums with their shiny olive green leaves and multi-branching habit, the countryside is broken by large areas of white clay pan and ancient dunes of red sand, stalky dry grass, scrubby salt-bush, and giant river red gums following mythical water courses. Enormous red cattle graze their way through the undergrowth, screeching white cockatoos fly between the trees, and five of the world’s deadliest snakes curl through the bush. This is harsh country.

As we get closer to Mungo, the countryside changes. In the distance the flat dry bed of the Willandra Lakes shines in the sun. The far side of this area has been blown into enormous sand dunes, called the lunette (more specifically the Walls of China), which glitter like a mirage in the intense heat. Early explorers were tricked into believing they were heading to high rock walls across the sand, but as they approached these visions dissolved into shifting sand hills.

Erosion is now a huge problem in the area, not from water of course, but from wind. As Europeans came in with their cattle and rabbits, which began grazing the surrounding area, the natural ground cover was eaten away and the land turned to dust. The prevailing westerly winds picked up that dust and hurled it into ornate formations on the far side of the lake beds, forming the lunettes.

And here’s the best bit – as this sand moves around it reveals hidden treasures that have been buried for thousands of years. Mungo Man and Mungo Woman were unearthed about 20 years ago and were analyzed to reveal they had died at least 40,000 years ago, and maybe as long as 60,000 years ago. A Mungo Child was also found and literally hundreds of other fossils litter the sand.

“Watch where you guys walk,” George, one of the local guides, told us casually as we unfolded out of the van and climbed up into the sand. “See this?” he said, pointing to a few blotches of black soot on the sand. “That’s the remains of a fire that’s been uncovered. It’s the oldest outdoor fireplace known to man, and is about 34,000 years old they reckon,” he said; ‘they’ being the archaeologists. “Don’t stand on it!”

This black smudge on the sand was just a few metres from some bones. “They’re from a giant wombat,” he said, “and it’s between 16,000 and 34,000 years old.” I find this staggering, to think these ancient relics are just lying about where people can walk on them if they don’t know any better.

There are ancient middens with mussel shells and bones in them, although we’re hundreds of miles from the sea. Bones from now extinct animals like the giant kangaroo, hairy-nosed wombats, Tasmanian Tigers, and Tasmanian Devils get uncovered from time to time, and always more fireplaces, chunks of ancient tools, and baked clay from cooking ovens. All these things are moving through with the restless, shifting dunes, appearing then disappearing with the wind.
                                
Later in the day, feeling as parched and desiccated as the country around us, we head back across the giant lake bed towards civilization. The sun has dropped down through a crimson sky and families of animals and birds which have been hiding from the day-long heat come out to feed.

Kangaroos pop their heads up through the saltbush, scanning the horizon as they peer around. Flocks of noisy pink cockatoos fight over tiny camel melons growing on the sand, pecking at them with their sharp beaks.

Ahead of us a wild, scarlet sunset spreads across the western sky as we drive back towards the Mallee country and distant Mildura. We are leaving Mungo to its ancient relics and its clouded memories of a distant dusty past.