Segwun at Sea: Two Great National Parks

Would you believe me if I told you we have been to the Grand Canyon and The Wall of China these past few days? Well it's true. But perhaps not the ones you think.

The Grand Canyon was at the Grampians National Park and although quite amazing, I think it is probably not as grand as its US counterpart, but still beautiful in its own right.

We camped overnight at Grampians and were introduced to the bushman's alarm clock. The delightful Kookaburra is a genius at waking up all living creatures with its distinct and very loud laughing call. As soon as the sun is up, they position themselves right over your tent. One starts "laughing" and it isn't long before another joins in, and then another in the distance. And the clever birds stop as soon as everyone is awake and moving about. But one fellow was nice enough to stick around for a photo shoot.

We had hoped to see some aboriginal rock art in the park, but a terrible fire swept through there last year and many of the access roads are still closed. So it was off to Mildura, a town famous for its position on the Murray River and also our jumping off point to get to Mungo.

Mungo was once a huge inland lake. Actually one of several that dried up 15,000 years ago. A discovery in the '60's changed what they knew of aboriginal life in Australia which dates back some 60,000 years. The remains of what they call Mungo woman and Mungo man were discovered in the sediment and evidence proves they lived in this area 25,000 years ago. Archeologists' findings show a nomadic lifestyle but with complex social structures including ritual cremation, a variety of tools including returning and nonreturning boomerangs and bones of several species of fish and animals long extinct, piecing together a picture of the people from that time.

The wall of China refers to the lunettes created by the prevailing wind which swept sand from the dried up lake bed onto the North Eastern edge into a crescent shape. Huge sand dunes have formed and although most of the lunette was once covered by a variety of trees, grasses and shrubs, the introduction of sheep farming in the 1800's caused a great deal of destruction to the natural vegetation. The arid conditions meant the plants couldn't grow at a fast enough pace which led to erosion of the lunette. The land has once again been turned over to Mother Nature and the scrub land is slowly regenerating. And the emu and kangaroo are home again.