We got the campfires back! That, and the lack of people, is the great thing about camping holidays in winter. The nights were so dark and clear that the Milky Way was like a paint stroke across the sky, the small and large Magellanic Clouds and even Jupiter, rising in Scorpius, were obvious :)
Leaving Melbourne on Saturday June 2nd we headed NW and stopped for lunch in Bendigo, a town still showing some of the elegance of its gold-rush heyday. From there we drove all the way to Pink Lakes, arriving at sunset.
The lakes are Pink from beta-carotine secreted by a prolific algae, Dunuliella salina. They dry out in summer and, for much of the 20th century, the massive reserves of salt left when the lake dried were harvested in the long, hot days. A few farms surrounded the lakes but grazing permits expired in the 1980s. Since then it has been part of the huge Murray-Sunset National Park. We spent two nights there, walking and looking at the remains of the salt industry and the amazing Pinkness.
Driving northeast we hit Mildura, a rural city surrounded by vast swathes of citrus orchards. A couple of hours northeast of that, and over the state border into New South Wales, is Lake Mungo National Park and World Heritage Site. The shores of Lake Mungo, now completely dry, have been continuously inhabited by modern man (Homo sapiens) for over 40 000 years.
40 000 years ago Mungo was a huge lake and giant wombats and humans lived on its shores eating freshwater crays and mussels. The remains of two humans, one male, one female, both 40 000 + years old, have been found along with numerous skeletons of extinct marsupials. Over the next 20 000 years the lake dried up. Prevailing westerly winds blew clay and sand to the eastern shore creating a high bank. This bank has since been eroded (infinitely more quickly since sheep and rabbits brought by Europeans have grazed away vegetation, making the dunes more unstable) leaving these amazing rock formations known as the ‘Walls of China’. Around the lake the land is arid and the trees and shrubs are desert-adapted. The landscape already begins show aspects of the central areas of Australia.
Back in Murray-Sunset National Park, the Murray river, a huge, wide river, splits into a number of small creeks cutting off some fairly large islands in the middle. .
We stayed three nights on Lindsay island, kayaking around the creeks, walking on the islands and enjoying being a long way from anyone at all. Huge river red-gums grow along the banks of the creeks showing where the river runs even at distances too far to see it. We also saw many red and gray kangaroos and plenty of emus.
The last place we stayed was the Hattah-Kulkyne National Park. A series of lakes that flood from time to time when the Murray River is high enough. .
The lakes have not flooded naturally since before the 9 year drought. Last summer the park wardens thought the park trees were looking very stressed and so pumped the lakes full from the Murray river. Every time the lakes flood red-gums germinate at the shore. These then grow when the lake dries up. When the lake floods again, the edges are a flooded forest; so fun to take the kayak through!