Mungo Lake's alien landscape reveals our past

By Michael Turtle
Updated July 2 2021 - 2:27am, first published October 17 2020 - 8:00am
This landscape is called a 'lunette' for a reason - it feels a bit like walking on the surface of the moon. Pictures: Michael Turtle
This landscape is called a 'lunette' for a reason - it feels a bit like walking on the surface of the moon. Pictures: Michael Turtle

It doesn't have the fame of Kakadu or the Great Barrier Reef, yet it's just as significant and just as magnificent.

Driving into the Willandra Lakes region in southwest New South Wales along a dusty unsealed road, I first hit Garnpung Lake, marked on Google Maps as a huge expanse of blue. Yet, there's nothing but pink-tinged dirt, low shrubs, and a heat haze that hovers near the horizon. I drive across the dry lakebed and then, not too long after, find the same thing at Lake Leaghur, and then again at my final destination, Lake Mungo. Each a large blue lake on the online map I've been following. Each, in reality, arid.

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