This travel story appeared in The Age on November 7, 1998
IT WAS a hot, hazy mid-October day when we arrived at Mutawintji National Park.
The sky was cloudless and the horizon shimmered like something out of a Coke commercial. The few tree-shaded spots in the campground were already staked out; some campsites were deserted, at others people were sprawled in the shade, sweat glistening on bare torsos. The stillness of the scene was accompanied by a soundtrack cut by local insects.
The officer at the Broken Hill National Parks and Wildlife Service had assured us that our 20-year-old Holden station wagon would handle the 130 kilometres to Mutawintji, no worries. So we had packed the HZ to the roof, hitched up the campertrailer and headed north-east.
Turning off the gravel Silver City Highway, the road had become a rough dirt affair dotted with large, sharp stones and half-buried rocks the size of watermelons. Every few kilometres the road was crossed by a watercourse that dipped deep and tested our suspension. Behind us we left a snaking trail of dust that hung in the windless air for hours, as thick as a rich, red London fog.
Mutawintji means "place of green grass and waterholes". But from our campsite we could only see spinifex and skinny trees, and the bone-dry bed of a creek close by. Moisture in this arid land was as scarce as penguins.
As we unfolded ourselves from the car, hair, clothes and mouths thick with dust, we met our first locals. A dozen prehistoric-looking apostle birds sprinted towards us; a pack of 20-centimetre velociraptors chattering to each other, chattering to us, looking for water. These drab, grey birds can fly but they prefer to walk or lope along in marauding bands, always on the move in search of food and drink.
The 70,000 hectares worth of ranges and plains of Mutawintji are the eroded remains of an ancient seabed estimated to be 400 million years old, prized by palaeontologists for its fossil content. An aerial view would show that the flaming red Bynguano Range rises from the land like a pod of enormous vermilion whales breaching the surface of some great sun-baked ocean.
At ground level, carved into the interior of the range, are beautiful river red gum-lined gorges banked by high walls of stone. Hidden in these gorges, behind boulders and beneath rock awnings, is evidence of 8000 years of occupation by the Malyankapa and Pandjikali peoples.
Rock art, old fireplaces and stone tools litter the park and can easily be found on any of its many signposted walks.
The most impressive art is at the Mutawintji Historic Site and can only be seen by joining one of the guided tours conducted twice a week from April to November. Only crazy people go to Mutawintji in summer, so no tours are offered then - and no responsibility is taken by the NPWS folk for those silly enough to venture here when daytime temperatures hardly dip below the high 30s.
On our first day, we were visited by the park's Aboriginal caretaker, Bill Riley, in his 4WD. Formerly a miner in Broken Hill, Bill's family has lived in the area for as long as anyone knows. When he became too ill to work underground he came back to Mutawintji, regained his health, and swapped the pace of city life for a new acquaintance with the land. At the time of our visit, he and wife Muriel lived in the old homestead from where they kept an eye on things, making sure no one got into - or caused - trouble.
Muriel was our guide when we took the Historic Site tour. Also from a family strongly connected to this area, but having spent most of her life in Broken Hill, Muriel had to re-learn the folklore and secrets of the land, knowledge her ancestors took for granted. As we trailed behind her through low grass and between boulders she picked out quandong berries and medicinal herbs. She also showed us remarkable rock carvings and explained the meaning of 6000-year-old ochre hand stencils on a large sandstone wall, considered one of the largest and most significant Aboriginal art collections in the country.
From a high ridge we looked down on a large flat green clearing that was a gathering place for tribes from as far away as Broken Hill, White Cliffs and Wilcannia. Typically, a messenger from the host tribe would be sent out to announce the start of initiation, rainmaking and other ceremonies and during the next few days up to 1000 people would arrive and camp on the fringes of the meeting place to exchange news, make decisions and to feast on bush fruits, emu and kangaroo.
The last such ceremonies were held as recently as 1948 and today Aboriginal people from the region use it again as a place for meetings and cultural purposes. The NPWS recognises the connection to the land of the Mutawintji Local Aboriginal Land Council and has jointly managed the park with the council since 1983. On 5 September, Mutawintji was handed back to its traditional owners, the first such handback under NSW's Aboriginal Ownership Bill (1996).
The heat was overwhelming for the first days of our visit. Bore water was available for pull-string showers in the toilet block and a tap supplied spring water, but it was warm so even drenching yourself gave little relief. That sort of heat can cause a madness in coastal dwellers not used to it. With no breeze, nothing cold to relieve the oppression of the sun as it bakes your body, inside and out, it becomes hard to think and difficult to do more than sit out the hottest part of the day. You occasionally douse yourself with tepid water in the hope that your skin won't crack and that a puff of air might come past. Every drop of moisture becomes a consideration, as the apostle birds made clear when they leapt with alacrity and much chatter on to a puddle I left behind a tree.
Fortunately, Muriel told us about the Homestead Gorge Trail, a four-kilometre walk leading to a swimming hole. Early on the third morning of our stay we packed food, water and bathers, donned our flyveils, and set out.
We followed a single-file track for several kilometres through a wide grassed area between two ridges until it entered a narrow gorge. We'd seen magnificent wedge-tailed eagles circling above the plain, as well as corellas, magpies and a rare peregrine falcon. Emus and kangaroos watched our progress as a herd of feral goats - a real problem in the park - chewed on tussocks in the foothills, doing their best to ignore us.
Red markers helped us tread the best route, but once in the gorge, there was only one way to go: deeper in. We clambered over rocks and frequently had to criss-cross a dry creek bed. We'd started in the cooler early morning but now the sun was high enough to blaze into the gorge, making it very tough going.The reward was worth it. After an hour-and-a-half, we reached a dark, deep, inviting rock pool bounded on three sides by sandstone walls perhaps 40 metres high, a small sandy beach with gum trees on the fourth.
The water was icy - not cold, icy - and our first dives brought screams that bounced off the rocks. The water gradually reversed the melting process our internal organs had suffered during two-and-a-half days of ridiculous heat and we felt human again. We spent the best part of the day at the pool, eating, drinking, lying around, jumping in whenever we'd been dry for more than 15 minutes.
We only had to share the water with a couple of dozen frogs that lived in rockholes at the water's edge. At the back of the pool was a metre-wide gap in the rock that opened into a cavern with a slim shaft of light entering from above, and beyond that was another cavern. In here, the air was dank, the frogs were fewer and of a darker greenish-brown. It felt eerie and we were reluctant to explore any deeper into the heart of the gorge.
On the morning of the fourth day, we awoke to an unusual sight: clouds. And not the pure white cotton wool variety; these had a dark grey underside as though they'd been belly-sliding through mud and seemed to be weighed down, like a pregnant cow. Through the day we kept an eye on them as they grew fatter and darker until the whole sky was like charcoal, so low it felt that you could hit it with a decent throw of a rock. It was still hot but now a mad wind leapt up and buffeted our tent, tearing pegs from the ground and flapping guy ropes against the canvas. A tree full of corellas screeched in full voice and it was all the apostle birds could do to keep their feet.
It was mid afternoon but there was less light than on a half-moon evening. Bill arrived to tell us a desert storm was heading towards Broken Hill and might throw its weight against us on its way through. He gave us a choice: pack up now and get out before the road turned to mud, or batten down and ride out whatever was on its way. If it rained hard, he said, the now-dry creek would swell and flood the camping area and we'd have to move to higher ground near the homestead. We'd also need at least four days' food because that's how long it takes for the road to dry out after a storm like this one, even in Mutawintji's heat.
We took the gamble and stayed. Other campers bundled their gear together and left as we hammered extra pegs into the ground to prevent the trailer from being blown to Kansas. For an hour, we sat in the campertrailer hoping the canvas would hold. Then raindrops the size of eyeballs began to explode in the dirt around us. For days, we had prayed for relief from the heat, for a breeze and perhaps a cold shower. This was how the weather gods answered us. It seemed a folly to have asked anything of them.
But the rain didn't come. The wind pushed the storm to the southwest and we saw the trailing edge of an enormous black cloud bank speed away, leaving a calm, blue-skied late afternoon in its wake. We'd escaped the storm but Broken Hill copped a lashing as it flexed its tail on the way to Adelaide where the real damage was done.
We left the following day, chastened by the elements and full of respect for its extremes. To live in a land so harsh and so threatening requires a certain spirit and special skills: the next time we go to Mutawintji, we're taking a refrigerator. One that makes ice.
