Mungo National Park in New South Wales. It's one of Australia's natural wonders it's a unesco
world heritage site and it's the site of one of the most important scientific discoveries
probably in our lifetime so i've traveled out to lake mungo to discover why these dried up
lake beds are so special who exactly is mungo man and why is he so important and i want to
find out if this part of Australia is actually as peaceful and as tranquil as i've been told it is.
departure climbing 3500 tracking to the northeast Mildura
starting to head right out into the desert here now you can see the
ground starting to get a lot redder. I always like this part this is kind of the gap between
regional Victoria and outback Australia and we're actually in
new south wales now we've flown over the border where we left Mildura.
i just love that that would have taken an hour and a half to drive from Mildura
or in our case 16 minutes after we departed... Mungo National Park.
turning final runway two four full stop
Echo
Yankee Zulu is tracking runway 24. Oh wow it's busy. Echo Yankee Zulu you got some friends.
Because i flew into Mungo National Park and don't have a car when i'm down here
to actually look around the place the team at Mungo Lodge where i'm staying very kindly offered
to loan me their vehicle so now i'm a tour
guide
I'm doing 35 kilometers an hour i'm scared to go any faster just in case
this whole thing rattles itself apart i love this little man this is brilliant
got a map
if you're wondering why i don't have any drone shots in this video
Anyone know what these are is that a melon something's eaten that one
You can still see the evidence of some of the rivers that are flowing off the hills behind
us into what was lake mungo but that dried up they estimate around 18 to 22 000 years ago
since that point there's never been water here it's all just been a dry lake bed like it is today
No unauthorized access beyond this point to venture on the lunettes you must have be
under the supervision of a licensed tour guide or a written approval from the area manager
so i can't go up there on my own
okay no that's okay what time does that leave 6 30 and do you have any space on that one
you do all right yeah if you can put me down for that and um i better bring your van back
it was here in Mungo National Park back in 1974 when a geologist by the name of Jim Bowler was
out walking and saw what he thought was a rock in front of him glistening in the sun. As he
got closer it actually turned out to be a human skull. The rest of the skeleton was unearthed
the remains were taken to Canberra and they were carbon dated to being 42 000 years old just think
about that for a second 42 000 years before now say we take now the time that i'm recording this
and we draw this line in the sand this is today let's go back to when mobile phones
were invented the internet the car even go back say 2 000 years to here depending on what you
believe in but the birth of christ if you want to go back 40 000 years you have to draw a line
about here. Now i'm fascinated by science and i think a discovery like this is really important
to us as a human race but of course there are some ethical questions about removing human
remains and taking them to Canberra for storage and scientific discovery for over 40 years ...
Now just a short time after recording this piece you're watching on what happened to
the remains of Mungo Man I got talking to the team at Mungo Lodge where i was
staying and they told me that the only people in the National Park who should tell the story
of mungo man are those in the aboriginal communities themselves. And yet here I was,
a middle-aged white man who flew his own aircraft into the middle of his sacred site
sitting here telling a story on YouTube that I, well, I didn't really have the right to tell
So i've decided to respect the fact i'm an onlooker here and i'm not the storyteller
and i've decided to leave out what actually happened to Mungo Man in this video. Now of course
you can easily google what happened to Mungo Man and find a bunch of information on it if you want
but for this channel and for me i'd rather just say if you want to hear the real story i think you
need to come here yourself and hear it from those who are actually part of the story you can't go
down unless you pay these guys to pay for a tour i don't know how much is it the third layer is
this stand here behind you here or behind me and that's it that's the uh zankye layer and that's at
thirty thousand and when we get on top of the germs you'll see a different color clay will get
it like a greeny tincture color paint that's your youngest lane that's a romper layer and that's at
twenty thousand so one of the datings i'm giving is just an average dating on what we think the age
of the soil is well as if this didn't look like an alien planet enough look at this look at the moon
it's like something out of star wars
so
temperature pressures are good air speeds increasing on both
i've got to do one fly over at Mungo
Lodge
This is why these trips take so long! If you did enjoy this video do give it a like and
please feel free to share the link on your social media platforms it really helps me
to see the videos getting out there. And thank you as always for watching. I really
enjoy having you flying along with me on these adventures and I'll see you in the next video.