BEYOND MUNGO

Words Janeane Waters Photographs Jeremy Simons

We travelled the length of the New South Wales–South Australia border, in search of solitude, space, stars and silence.

We started at the World Heritage-listed Mungo National Park, about two hours north of Mildura. It is the home of Mungo Man and Mungo Woman, the burial remains of Indigenous ancestors that have been dated as 42,000 years old. The landscape is ancient, timeless and boundless, and beauty is everywhere: in the patterns of the everchanging sand dunes, in the sedimentary layers in the jutting lunettes and in the multitude of tiny furrows at their bases. But also in the spinifex and mulga leaves, in the bark coiling and twisting off branches, in bird calls, in fragile-looking hardy flowers hidden between pebbles, in tree trunks pressing out between slabs of rock.

The spines of the sand dunes and the Walls of China glow with iridescent hues of red and copper, merging into pink and amethyst, before the indigo blue of the desert night. You can walk beyond the paths and viewing platforms into the landscape, but it’s wisest to go with a guide.

North of Mungo, Mutawintji National Park is rich in Indigenous history and culture. Here it was impossible not to think about our relationship with the land and with Australia’s black and white history. The meeting place for the Malyangapa and Pantyikali people for thousands of years, it features an abundance of stone etchings and rock art.

After Mutawintji, we headed to the northwestern corner of New South Wales, to Tibooburra and the Sturt National Park, the lands of the Wangkumarra and Malyangapa peoples. This is the main route to Cameron Corner, where New South Wales, South Australia and Queensland meet.

Tibooburra’s distinctive landscape offers huge, sculptural, balancing granite tors. And the jump-up country in Sturt National Park is a plateau of flat-topped mesas and cuestas that fall away spectacularly.

These are lands to walk slowly through, to listen to the wind and the voices from the past in the shady, quiet gullies or crevices in the rocks. This is a land of speechless beauty and openness. n

Facing page Exquisite details at Lake Mungo. Following pages Lunettes, Mungo National Park.

Above Storm clouds gather over Dead Horse Gully, Sturt National Park. Following pages The intersection of Gorge Loop Road and Silver City Highway.

THESE ARE LANDS TO WALK SLOWLY THROUGH, TO LISTEN TO THE WIND AND THE VOICES FROM THE PAST.

Above Jump-up country, Sturt National Park.