Students enjoy Aboriginal history tour
Year 2 students on placements in Mildura had the opportunity to see first-hand rare examples of Aboriginal history when they toured the Mungo National Park during May.
Mildura-based MUDRIH lecturer Rose Gilby together with Desley Reid-Orr took 14 students Mungo, to join in a discovery tour. The guide was Ricky, a softly-spoken Indigenous Parks Ranger with so much knowledge it was hard to take it all in.
Ricky first showed the group the initial work on the new ‘Footprint Exhibit’, which is a very accurate transposition of a collection of footprints found in a geological layer within the national park and only recently exposed by wind action.
The footprints are thousands of years old, and allow interpreters to tell a story of a one-legged man chasing a kangaroo; a group of women gathering food; and child who wandered away from the family group who was subsequently shooed back into the group by an adult.
The group was privileged to walk into the lunette – which is not publicly accessible – where Ricky led them through the stark lunar-like landscape, showing recently wind-exposed fireplace thousands of years old. The remnants of the fireplace show that it was used to cook fish and yams.
A tiny ear bone from a fish was sufficient proof of this claim and it also proved that hawk eyes are needed for this job!
Another fireplace showed evidence of being used by women and children, a conclusion drawn from the fact that it had been used to cook emu eggs. Ricky described the technique for cooking your emu egg evenly – standing it up in the sand in the edge of the fire and spinning it until it is done. Further along was the remains of a kangaroo intermingled with a raccoon which was a little bit of a mystery as these animals would not have co-existed amicably.
The group was honoured with much more detailed information than would normally occur. All were most appreciative of this fact and respected both the environment and the value of the experience and information imparted.
Mungo is famous for its eerie pinnacle formations, held within the eroding lunette. It was necessary to walk carefully throughout the landscape, but when the group arrived at the top of the dunes, the students were set free to frolic in the sand.
They also had a unique opportunity to view the cataloguing of artefacts on site by indigenous archaeologists and parks personnel. Many of the artefacts are tens of thousands of years old. The students’ hushed and respectful tones were testament to the value that each one placed on this experience.
Rose and Desley provided a barbecue lunch of hamburgers with students constructing their own with rolls, salad and sauces supplied. Back on the bus it was amazing to note just how many of the students fell almost immediately asleep for the return journey!
Students admire the sand dunes at Mungo, albeit hundreds of kilometres from the coast.