Mungo Outback & Conservation Journey

Arrive in Mildura, the gateway to Australia’s outback borderlands, where the Murray River sustains life at the edge of vast red sand deserts. After settling into Quality Hotel Mildura Grand, meet your guide for a tour briefing covering the journey ahead – from river systems to ancient lakebeds, from mallee woodlands to shifting dunes. This evening offers the opportunity to connect with fellow travellers before departing civilisation tomorrow. Mildura sits on Latji Latji country at the confluence of desert and river ecosystems, the threshold between Australia’s most productive agricultural region and its arid interior.

Travel south from Mildura into Hattah-Kulkyne National Park, where 48,000 hectares protect exceptional examples of semi-arid zone diversity. Positioned on Murray River floodplains extending into Mallee red sand dunes, this park contains ephemeral lakes whose water levels fluctuate with flood cycles, attracting remarkable concentrations of wildlife during wet phases. Today’s focus targets the park’s most elusive species – Mallee emu-wren skulking in dense vegetation, malleefowl maintaining their distinctive mounds and the diverse parrot assemblage, including regent parrots and blue bonnets. Search for sand goannas, whose beautiful markings provide camouflage against ochre sands, alongside skinks, geckos and other reptiles adapted to temperature extremes. The park’s dryland vegetation showcases mallee eucalypts, buloke woodlands and saltbush plains. Traverse the park’s centre through dunes and vast open vistas before returning to Mildura as sunset colours the desert red.

Explore Murray River billabongs where parrots, cockatoos and waterbirds congregate after desert foraging – a vital water source for species ranging across arid lands. These river habitats create corridors through otherwise dry country, concentrating biodiversity along permanent water. Depart the river zone and travel into increasingly arid landscapes, entering the vast 2,400-square-kilometre Willandra Lakes World Heritage Area. Walk along fossilised Willandra Creek, the ancient watercourse that fed this gigantic lake system before it dried 18,000 years ago. Continue into Mungo National Park, arriving as the afternoon light illuminates the landscape. Watch sunset over Lake Mungo’s dry bed – a perfectly flat expanse stretching to distant horizons, where the scale becomes overwhelming. Here, understand how the Willandra Lakes transformed from thriving wetlands to desert as post-glacial warming changed Australia’s climate. First sightings often include pink cockatoos, budgerigars and both species of great kangaroos – western grey and red – adapted to survive without surface water.

Spend 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 dating to the longest documented habitation of any land. Eroded lunettes expose archaeological layers revealing how people lived, what they ate, and how they adapted as the climate shifted from wet to arid. Walk transects from the lakebed up into wind-carved dunes, following a timeline through 50,000 years. Observe evidence of campsites, cooking fires, and stone tool manufacture. Depending on recent erosion, megafauna skeletal remains occasionally emerge – evidence of giant marsupials that coexisted with early Aboriginal communities beside vast freshwater lakes. These extinct species, including giant kangaroos and Diprotodon, disappeared as the climate warmed and lakes evaporated. Today’s fauna represents survivors: red and western grey kangaroos (two of Australia’s five great kangaroo species), emus in abundance, pink cockatoos, chats, and arid-land fairy-wrens. Crested bellbirds call from mallee woodlands - raptors – spotted harrier, black falcon, grey falcon, wedge-tailed eagle – hunt across open plains. Extremely rare malleefowl may be glimpsed maintaining their massive incubation mounds. White-backed swallows nest in eroded dune faces. Traverse diverse habitats: dense mallee, cypress pine and buloke woodlands, mulga scrub, and vast saltbush plains. Massive white dunes rise above dry lakebeds – climb high into these formations for 360-degree views across seemingly endless desert. Traditional Owners continue monitoring burial sites as erosion exposes remains, maintaining a connection with ancestors while allowing respectful scientific research. The sacred nature of these sites means they remain closed to visitors, but their presence reminds us that this desert supported thriving communities for tens of thousands of years.

Spend 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 dating to the longest documented habitation of any land. Eroded lunettes expose archaeological layers revealing how people lived, what they ate, and how they adapted as the climate shifted from wet to arid. Walk transects from the lakebed up into wind-carved dunes, following a timeline through 50,000 years. Observe evidence of campsites, cooking fires, and stone tool manufacture. Depending on recent erosion, megafauna skeletal remains occasionally emerge – evidence of giant marsupials that coexisted with early Aboriginal communities beside vast freshwater lakes. These extinct species, including giant kangaroos and Diprotodon, disappeared as the climate warmed and lakes evaporated. Today’s fauna represents survivors: red and western grey kangaroos (two of Australia’s five great kangaroo species), emus in abundance, pink cockatoos, chats, and arid-land fairy-wrens. Crested bellbirds call from mallee woodlands - raptors – spotted harrier, black falcon, grey falcon, wedge-tailed eagle – hunt across open plains. Extremely rare malleefowl may be glimpsed maintaining their massive incubation mounds. White-backed swallows nest in eroded dune faces. Traverse diverse habitats: dense mallee, cypress pine and buloke woodlands, mulga scrub, and vast saltbush plains. Massive white dunes rise above dry lakebeds – climb high into these formations for 360-degree views across seemingly endless desert. Traditional Owners continue monitoring burial sites as erosion exposes remains, maintaining a connection with ancestors while allowing respectful scientific research. The sacred nature of these sites means they remain closed to visitors, but their presence reminds us that this desert supported thriving communities for tens of thousands of years.

Depart Mungo Lodge, carrying an understanding of deep time – 50,000 years of human adaptation, 18,000 years of climate transformation, and ongoing processes still shaping this landscape. Travel via Wentworth to observe the confluence of 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 by midday, reconnecting with contemporary Australia after days immersed in landscapes that reveal our species’ longest continuous story.