Mungo Outback & Conservation Journey

Arrive in Mildura, the regional centre positioned where the Murray River sustains life at the edge of vast red sand deserts. Check into Quality Hotel Mildura Grand on Latji Latji country, at the threshold between Australia's most productive agricultural region and its arid interior. Meet your guide for a comprehensive tour briefing covering the journey ahead. Understand what you'll experience over the next six days: Australia's longest documented human occupation, evidence of climate change spanning millennia, and arid-zone ecosystems adapted to extreme conditions. After the briefing, enjoy an optional dinner with fellow travellers before departing for remote country tomorrow. This evening marks your threshold between the contemporary world and landscapes that will reveal 50,000 years of human history.

Travel south into Hattah-Kulkyne National Park, where 48,000 hectares protect exceptional semi-arid zone diversity. Positioned on Murray River floodplains extending into red sand dunes, this park contains ephemeral lakes whose water levels fluctuate with flood cycles, attracting remarkable wildlife concentrations. Today's exploration targets the park's most elusive species. Search for Mallee emu-wren skulking in dense vegetation and malleefowl maintaining their distinctive incubation mounds. The park supports diverse parrots including regent parrots and blue bonnets. Watch for sand goannas, whose beautiful markings provide camouflage, alongside other reptiles adapted to temperature extremes. The dryland vegetation showcases mallee eucalypts, buloke woodlands and saltbush plains. Traverse the park's centre through dunes before returning to Mildura at sunset.

Begin at Murray River billabongs where parrots, cockatoos and waterbirds congregate – permanent water functioning as vital resource for species ranging across arid lands. These river habitats create corridors through otherwise dry country, concentrating biodiversity along reliable water sources. Depart the river zone, travelling into increasingly arid landscapes as you enter the vast 2,400-square-kilometre Willandra Lakes World Heritage Area. Walk along fossilised Willandra Creek, the ancient watercourse that fed this lake system before it dried 18,000 years ago. Continue into Mungo National Park, arriving as afternoon light illuminates the landscape. Watch sunset over Lake Mungo's dry bed stretching to distant horizons. First wildlife sightings often include pink cockatoos, budgerigars and both western grey and red kangaroos.

Begin two full days exploring Mungo National Park's 1,110 square kilometres surrounding ancient Lake Mungo. This site preserves the world's oldest human cremation, dating to 50,000 years ago, and continuous Aboriginal occupation representing the longest documented habitation of any land. Walk transects from the dry lakebed up into wind-carved lunettes, following a timeline through 50,000 years revealed in eroded layers. Observe evidence of Aboriginal campsites, cooking fires and stone tool manufacture. Depending on recent erosion patterns, megafauna skeletal remains occasionally emerge – evidence of giant marsupials including Diprotodon that coexisted with early Aboriginal communities. Search for today's survivors: red and western grey kangaroos, emus, pink cockatoos, arid-land fairy-wrens and crested bellbirds calling from mallee woodlands.

Continue exploring diverse habitats across Mungo National Park: dense mallee woodlands, cypress pine and buloke forests, mulga scrub and vast saltbush plains stretching to distant horizons. Watch for raptors hunting across open country – spotted harrier, black falcon, grey falcon and wedge-tailed eagle. Scan for extremely rare malleefowl maintaining massive incubation mounds. White-backed swallows nest in eroded dune faces. Climb massive white sand dunes that rise dramatically above the dry lakebed for 360-degree views across seemingly endless desert. Traditional Owners continue monitoring burial sites as erosion exposes remains, maintaining connection with ancestors. The sacred nature of these sites means they remain closed to visitors, reminding us this desert supported thriving communities for millennia.

Depart Mungo Lodge carrying a transformed understanding of deep time – 50,000 years of human adaptation, 18,000 years of climate transformation, and ongoing geological processes still actively shaping this landscape. Travel to Wentworth to observe the confluence of the Murray and Darling Rivers, where Australia's two longest river systems meet. This junction has drawn people for millennia, marking the boundary between permanent water and seasonal aridity. Return to Mildura, reconnecting with contemporary Australia after days immersed in landscapes that reveal our species' longest continuous story. Transfer onwards independently, departing with evidence-based understanding of environmental change across geological timescales.