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| It's
a Small World, Heron Island |
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| Toni Brown
is an example of how small the world really
is for even on a planet with five billion
people, everyone is networked.
I first met Toni on the Heron
Island trip in December 1987. When I
introduced myself, Toni indicated that she
knew someone with the same last name, Sherrie
Lonker. I exclaimed, "Sherrie is my
sister in Philadelphia, but how do you know
my sister?" Toni had the traveling
bug and a year earlier was trekking across
India and Nepal with a Irishman named Kenneth
Ruddell. Ken spoke constantly about his
American friend, Sherrie Lonker, who he
met while she was cycling across Ireland.
A few years later, Sherrie and Ken got married.
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| This is
where I recommend places to see in Australia.
I won't dwell on the obvious, sites like
Kakadu National Park, Sydney Opera House,
and Uluru/Ayer's Rock. Instead, I'll describe
places that may not be familiar to people
outside of Australia. |
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| In southwestern
New South Wales, there are seventeen dry
lakebeds that constitute the Willandra Lakes
World Heritage area. Between 45,000
to 25,000 years ago, the lake level
fluctuated between full and dry conditions.
The lakes dried up 15,000
years ago. There are steep escarpments on
the western perimeter of the lakebeds with
crescent-shaped dunes deposited from wind
called lunettes. The layers of clay and
sand in the lunettes are like a weather
gauge recording past periods of wet or dry
climate. Lake
Mungo is a magical, mythical place preserving
50,000 years of continuous Aboriginal
history and environmental change. One
of the most famous lunettes is the "Walls
of China", which rises 30 meters above
Lake Mungo and runs 30 km around the eastern
shore. The alkaline sediments preserved
fossils of giant short-faced kangaroos,
Tasmanian tigers, hippopotamus-like Zygomaturus,
and other Pleistocene megafauna. Aboriginees
lived, fished, hunted, and occasionally
were buried near the lakes. Lake Mungo is
also the site of the oldest Aboriginal occupation
(shell middens at 34,000-37,000 years ago, charcoal hearths at 31,000 years ago); oldest example of human cremation
40,000
years ago, perhaps younger;
and the oldest
mitochondrial DNA sample extracted from
a human skeleton (40,000
years, possibly younger).
Ochre, which covered a body in a burial
ritual, was traded from at least 200
km away. Almost every piece of silcrete
stone found on the dunes is an Aboriginal
artifact. Lake Mungo is also a great place
to see mallee vegetation. Herds of red
and western
grey kangaroos and emu
forage on the lakebed. |
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