The final stretch was a cruisy 70km dirt road deep into the outback. It was pretty isolated but out of the periphery of my vision, I glimpsed multiple dark shapes running alongside the car. I quickly turned to see four emus keeping pace and having a blast. I couldn’t resist the opportunity and had to stop to take the photo of my running mates.
Reaching the camp ground, I was pleasantly surprised to see, though quite basic, it had better facilities then I had expected. There were cold showers, great fire pits with rotating cooking surfaces in every site and even a pay phone to make calls as there was certainly no mobile reception.
The park is run and maintained by the Malyangapa, Wilyakali, Wanyuparlku and Pantjikali people and was the first national park in NSW to be handed back to the traditional owners. It’s dumbfounding to think that this only happened as recently as 1998. It’s now co-managed by the local mob and the NSW National Parks and when you’re there, you immediately get a sense of how precious a place it is.
Being an arid environment, the flora and fauna are as hardy as you would expect, but I was surprised to see how abundant and diverse life was in this Country. Besides emus, that were happy to chill with me at my campsite, there were numerous bird and reptile species, big red kangaroos, and rare yellow-footed rock wallabies.
However, like much of Australia, the park was contending with an invasive species that is destroying the ecology of the endemic wildlife. I was disheartened to see feral goats roaming the park and, with no natural predator, their numbers are a challenge to manage. Thousands of them consume the grasses that the native animals rely on. It’s this very reason why protecting our natural heritage is of utmost importance.
