Discover Mungo National Park & Redwood Forest: Australia Travel Guide Part 2
This is the second part of my travel blog articles about Australia. In the first one, we discovered Paronella Park and William Ricketts Sanctuary. In this travel guide, we will explore Mungo National Park and Redwood Forest, enjoy!
Australia keeps surprising me every time I visit this huge country. There are so many awesome and interesting places to visit here and it offers a lot of different tourist attractions. This time we will also spend some time outside, by visiting Mungo National Park and Redwood Forest.
Mungo National Park
If you are visiting Melbourne or Adelaide and have your own car or have a lot of time to spend, it's not a bad idea to visit Mungo National Park. It's located about 100 kilometers north-east of the city of Mildura, in the south-western part of New South Wales.
The main attraction of Mungo National Park is a lake called Mungo lake, or that what's left of this lake because it dried about 19000 years ago. Over time, winds have swept away top layers of soil, revealing beautiful dunes and rock formations, but 40000 years ago it was filled with a freshwater and Aborigines used to live here in ancient times.
Also, one of the biggest archeology discovers was found here. The Mungo Man was a buried remain of a man, dated back 42000 years and it's the oldest evidence of humans in Australia. It shows that people occupied the area of Mungo National Park regularly for that long period of time, also a lot of their tools and footprints were found. Also many other discovers happen here, for example, 40 species of animals that are now extinct. Because of it all, Willandra Lakes Region is now listed in UNESCO World Heritage Sites from 1981.
While being here, it's worth to visit the Walls of China, where the stratified layers of the ancient shoreline appear in great relief. Also, the Red Top Tank is a great place where you can see the awesome view and the panorama of the park and the hills called Mungo Dunes are also awesome for photography. There is also a small visitors center, where you can know Aborigines history and have a picnic or barbecue. I can recommend Mungo National Park for everyone who loves nature and walking through desert and mountains.
Redwood Forest
After visiting Mungo National Park, I drove more than 7 hours to get to another awesome tourist attraction: Redwood Forest in Victoria, Australia. I love any kind of nature and forests, so I was very excited about experiencing those huge trees and other wildlife. And I was not disappointed, because the forest was breathtaking, with monstrous sizes trees, all sort of bird and plants.
I couldn't believe that those trees are only 80-90 years old, as they were planted here in the 1930s as a part of a revegetation program. It was like entering different, magical world, with bird nests so large to fit dragon eggs and round circles trees similar to other-world portals. All of that between the trees arranged in a grid formation, what makes it even more interesting and awesome for photography.
Tip: While being here, keep looking for David Digapony artistic works, as he weaved together fallen branches and make beautiful things from it.
Practical information
You will find below some practical information about Redwood forest in Australia.
- Entrance is free of charge.
- There are no toilets here.
- Also no bins, but please try not to throw trash in the forest.
- Take your camera!
Conclusion
This was the second part of my Australia travel guide and this time we discovered Mungo National Park and Redwood Forest, two awesome tourist attractions and very interesting places. If you like my travel blog or have questions about my trips to Australia, feel free to leave me a comment in the section below.
