The Stone Library – Mutawintji National Park, NSW

Descending from the Bynguano Range, we come upon a dead goat, hanging upside down from one of the mulga trees; its rear leg trapped in the fork of two branches. Unable to free itself, it has been a slow death. The grisly find brings home the unforgiving nature of the terrain around us. The air is still and the smell fetid. Our view has disappeared in the hot, close scrub. Trees scrape on our packs as we push onwards. Old branches snap underfoot. And yet, this wilderness has a beauty and magic to it. 

In the July/August 2018 issue of Wild magazine, they published a story of ours about Mutawintji National Park in western NSW. The article described the park’s many walking trails, its Historic Site as well as two 'Wilderness Zone' overnight trekking options. The information had been gathered the previous winter, when we spent 10 days exploring Mutawintji. And the park, left a strong impression. It possessed such an immense sense of space and timelessness. The landscape seemed durable and eternal; the scenery vast and beautiful in the evening light. 

So, we have decided to share here our more personal observations of how and why this place resonated so strongly with our aesthetic and sense of wilderness. For detail and track notes, see Wild mag. But for the special beauty, read on.

For our first extended walk, into Mutawintji National Park’s declared Wilderness Zone, we headed past Mutawintji Gorge and north onto the top of the Bynguano Range above the headwaters of Old Mutawintji Creek; then along the range to the escarpment above the southern headwaters of Gundara Waterhole. We dropped off the range (encountered the dead goat) then pushed on and explored some rocky peaks to the east. Second day we walked further east to Gundara Waterhole then up onto the hills running west-north-west back to the main Bynguano Range. We camped one more night, high on the range. On the last day we dropped into Homestead Creek and joined the marked walking trails back to the campground. 

Journal entry:  We reached the rocky peaks about 1pm and stopped for lunch then wandered through these fantastic tors - red, bare and dotted with the pointed, dark foliage of white cypress pines. Some of the headwater creeks behind us also look enticing with long walls of rock, big tumbled boulders and pointy crags. In the midst of all the rocks, at about 2:15pm, we stopped at a pretty, high grotto.  From it we could see exactly where Gundara Waterhole was. We thought our spot was nicer and, photographically, more interesting. I also felt there must be water nearby as there were many small birds. I was sure I heard a thrush and a willy wagtail. So, we decided to stop. Despite not finding water immediately below our camp, I spied a more likely side creek gorge and sure enough lots of waterholes and also some etchings in the stone at the mouth of the gorge. I looked at the markings for a long time and got Caz to take a photo. There were circles with lines through them and carved emu prints. I imagined a family travelling from the east (the Darling River country) to the main valley (Mutawintji Historic Site) for a big ceremony. Perhaps the engravings were instructions on which river to follow, marking the distinctive rocky outcrops or waterholes and where to find the emus. A map for travellers perhaps. It was a special moment, crouched there, discovering the ancient skill and knowledge of the land's original culture. As I looked out over that dry, harsh semi-arid landscape, (even if I didn't understand the story entirely) it was easy to respect the authors. 

Mutawintji Historic Site:  "This is all story-telling." Alfred says, as he traces his finger from one rock onto the next. "This place is where you came to put down hunting stories. Go past this waterhole, these ridges, here I killed a kangaroo, a bobtail." As he speaks his fingers trace the etchings. "One story will go through five other stories. This place is our library," he explains. 

For more than 8,000 years the small valley we are walking through has acted as a repository. Carved into the very ground beneath our feet are images of nulla nulla, kangaroo, emu, ceremonial headdresses, stories of creation spirits, journeys and hunting sagas. The engravings here are widely regarded as NSWs best collection of Aboriginal art and etchings. They are left over from the days when this was a meeting place for the many Aboriginal groups that occupied lands to the east, west and south.  Alfred explains that when the hills turned green and water was plenty, people came here to catch up with their neighbours, attend marriage ceremonies and give birth, initiate their children into adulthood and dance and celebrate with great feasts of emu and kangaroo cooked in deep earth ovens surrounding a huge ceremonial dancing ground. It was a place where people renewed their obligations to the land, where they traded items, settled disputes, formed alliances and put people through the various stages of gaining knowledge, responsibility and wisdom. 

(We took a tour of the Mutawintji Historic Site on our second day in the park. It provided insight and a better understanding of the place's history before we ventured out into its hills. The tour began with a detailed re-telling of the Aboriginal creation story for the area – a history incorporating wild dust storms, the entrails of a giant kangaroo forming the distinctive Mount Wright, and destructive flash floods as punishment for wrongdoing. At the Mutawintji Cultural Centre we are shown carefully crafted spears, finely-honed stone spearheads, as well as tools and implements all found in the surrounding valley. Then it was out into the landscape, and into a remarkable stone library.)

We wander around the edge of the valley's ancient corroboree ground. Alfred stops and picks up a small stone and hands it to me. It has sharp edges and a definite shape. A few more steps forward and he picks up another stone. This one is flat and smooth with a slight curved depression. 

"This small one is a thumb scraper," he points to the sharp stone. "Would be for cleaning the skin of an animal. This one is a remnant of a grinding plate, see how smooth this side is." 

I admire his eye for artefacts and it makes me look at this barren patch of scrub with a new eye. On the other side of the valley are a series of overhangs and caves covered in stencil paintings – hand prints of all sizes and the shapes of artefacts blown onto the surface of the rock; boomerang and nulla nulla. Alfred explains the difference and importance of each stencilled hand, how to tell which ones are by tribal elders. It is a fascinating four hour tour that is a great introduction to the country we plan to walk through.

Journal entry:  Seen today - Diamond Doves, an Eastern Bearded Dragon, a skink disappearing into a river red gum, our first Western Red Box Trees, a red-capped robin, an emu bush that sounded like it was creaking but on inspection had a small gecko hiding inside a hollow and calling repeatedly. Saw our first Leopard Trees. Magnificent! Chestnut rumpled thornbills, Mulga parrots, the diggings of an echidna. A family of babblers. Which reminds me, I wanted to write how yesterday, up on the range, the small grey thornbills came in so, so close when I was stopped waiting for Caz taking photos. And I thought how much I love the curiosity and bravado of small, wild birds. 

Journal entry:  It is incredibly quiet in Mutawintji. There is no flight path overhead. No car noise in the distance. No human hum in the background. At nights, when the wind drops and the birds disappear to roost, you can hear your digestive system, your blood pulsing and your shallow breaths, your skin scraping against the sleeping bag. There are night birds and animals - repetitive calls in the river red gums but I never spot anything. 

Our second wilderness walk was at the northern end of the park - out along the old Cobb&Co coaching route to Wilcannia. We went out one night, then returned to the car for more water, then out again for another night in a different direction. There is a road out to New Tank - just so you know, don’t expect a corrugated iron water tank. A ‘tank’ is a dirt holding area for water (it looks like what us, out east, would call a dam. It is called a tank though because a ‘dam’ is across a watercourse. A tank holds water, in this case from a bore).

Journal entry:  We headed north to the wonderful cliffs of Peregrine Pass. What a great view - the old coach road and the creek winding through the pass far below us. The shadows of small clouds flitting across the dotted spinifex. Three roos jumped across the flat, wide valley. The plateau above Peregrine Pass is the most vegetated we have seen. There are healthy sized flowering mulla mullas scattered amongst the rocks. I feel happy in this place. We have just spent a few days at the main campground and a sort of sadness had settled into me while there. But as soon as we got out here, in the back country, I have felt so at peace and relaxed. Caz said he agreed, he definitely felt a change in the feeling out here. I’m not usually one for these kinds of ‘vibes’. A place is what it is - our perceptions of it are placed ‘onto’ it - and filtered through our own experiences, conceits, beliefs, interpretations etc. But I wonder if that campground area has been poisoned by disrespect and neglect.

Journal entry:  The hill we were walking along narrowed to a rocky prow above a watercourse that formed a shallow but steep-sided valley. From the many, many goats about we guessed there was water below. We could see goats walking in from further east and south. We dropped off the prow and began following the bed of the dry creek downstream. The goat numbers were the most we had seen in one spot. We stopped counting at over 60 and guessed at least 100. And yes, there was water. Two quite reasonable sized waterholes at the base of dry waterfalls. The second drop was stunning. About 5m below it, and downstream on river left, was a large ragged archway in the rock. The route down off the waterfall meant passing our packs and climbing between two pillars of rock. The dozens and dozens of goats retreated up the steep rocky sides and stood there loudly snorting and sneezing at us. There were several goat carcasses, one in the pool (as usual) and goat shit was thick everywhere. The natural beauty of the place was still there but hidden beneath the vandalism of these introduced animals. A wedgetail eagle cruised low overhead. I threw rocks and chased goats while Caz took pictures. It was beautiful and sad at the same time. The water was too risky to use and so we were resigned to returning to the car where we planned to restock and head north for another overnight jaunt. The walk back to the car was still lovely. We cut a corner through low rocky outcrops and hillocks of big red rocks. There were some lovely big old beefwood trees. Close beneath the west face of the range lay giant boulders that had tumbled off and now made nice shady grottos for camping. 

We had one final off-track walk in Mutawintji, north of the Split Rock car park to explore past Eagle Rock and into the hidden, gentle hills there. It was windy. We chose one campsite, then after an hour or so, and some exploring, decided to move to a more sheltered spot. We had to repack, move, set up again. It was worth it. I would build a house on that spot - there was a small peak in front that glowed red in the last light. There were pockets of woodland below the peaks. There were red-capped robins and parrots and colourful, patterned skinks sunning themselves on the rocks.

Journal entry:  Caz returned from his explore having found an overhang with wonderful hand stencils. So, I trotted off to have a look. The overhang is completely protected from the SW winds and also from any sun so the colours are remarkably preserved. There are lots of tiny hands, one quite chubby. Most are red, one is yellow. What a lovely find for us. Before we leave the overhang, we brush our footprints away so as to leave no trace or hint of our intrusion. Now, I am sitting enjoying the rich sunset as it lights up the rocky hills to the east. Mutawintji is all about rock in its varying states, sizes, shapes and textures. It's a land of time, a land of place and, consequently, a land of knowledge. In country like Mutawintji it is easy to wander many paths that have shaped the landscape over time. The ranges we have spent the week walking and sleeping on are now glowing. I wish this place were loved more. It is so very beautiful. 

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