Mungo National Park NSW - 3

Mungo and Zanci Homstead sites and the Mungo National Park - China Wall:

On Tuesday 16th February 2021 we drove north 150klms from Balranald to explore Mungo National Park ... the dogs needed to sit this trip out as dogs are not welcomed/allowed into National Park areas - we left them to have a rest day in our air conditioned van which we parked-up for the day at Balranald Caravan Park (under the watchful eyes of the park managers).

The road out to Mungo National Park was better than we expected - so it took us just over an hour and a half to make the journey. The land out in this end of the world is hot, dry, barren, heavily corrugated and incredibly unforgiving. The only thing that grows well out here is saltbush - which apparently sheep survive well on!

Note: This last photo is a shot I took of a notice board at a lookout point just inside the park - I just wanted to point out that the guy cycling through Mungo National Park on the above map photo is clearly a nut.... interesting as Mungo is - no one in their right mind would cycle around Mungo National Park, across the endless cavern sized road corrugations, in the extream heat & dryness - just saying!

Mungo National Park is hugely significant for the strong Aboriginal history that has been discovered in the area & most notably the discovery of human remains carbon dating back 40,000 & 45,000 years. Mungo also has a more recent colonial history from the 1850's as early settlers moved into the area and started farming. By 1869 the Mungo Woolshed was built as a base for shearing in order to send fleece down the Darling River to Adelaide - the property became a large pastoral sheep grazing property, shearing over 50,000 sheep in a season. The property was later sub- divided and operated as two large properties - Mungo & Zanci Homsteads - the remains of thiscsettler history also lay in ruins in Mungo National Park.

Photos of Mungo Visitor Centre:

Photos of Mungo Woolshed:

The Mungo Homestead brand is the wine glass below - this brand is found on much of the timber around the old woolshed!

Mungo National Park area has been placed in the shared care of 3 traditional owner communities (being Barkandji/Paakantyl, Matthias Matthias & Mglyampaa people), in collaboration with NSW National Parks who manage all the sites at Mungo - the park information centre has become the meeting place for discussion about Mungo management. Exploring the Mungo National Park China Wall can only be done with an approved guide - we therefore organised a tour guide through Mungo Lodge & set out with Michael to explore the China Wall;

We stopped for lunch at Mungo Lodge, before driving on to look at the Zanci Homestead, stable & woolshead ruins - which are 5 klms further on along the road from the Mungo Visitor Centre turnoff & worth the stop;