September 2019 | SMITHSONIAN.COM 43ren Clark, an elder from the Paakantyi tribal group,
surveyed the bare asphalt expanse during his speech.
“This is not home for me, it’s not home for our ances-
tors, either,” he said, “and I’m sure their spirits won’t
rest until they are buried back on our land. Our peo-
ple have had enough. It’s time for them to go home.”LAKE MUNGO’S remoteness is central to its appeal
to travelers. “Only people who are really interested will
get there,” said Rosendahl of the World Heritage office.
He wasn’t exaggerating: The journey still qualifies as an
outback adventure. My jumping-off point was the iso-
lated mining outpost of Broken Hill, which I reached in
a small propeller plane packed with engineers. At first,the town felt like a time warp. An enormous slag heap
looms as a reminder of its heyday in the early 1900s
as the world’s largest producer of lead, zinc and silver.
Monstrous trucks carrying livestock rumble down the
main street. Buildings—old butcher shops, trade union
clubs, barbers—sport Wild West-style verandas with
ornate iron lace. But the retro illusion was punctured
as soon as I checked into the Palace Hotel, a Victorian
pub that was taken over in the 1970s by an Italian im-
migrant who fancied himself a painter and used every
interior surface as a canvas, including the ceilings. The
hotel pub was a set for the 1994 film The Adventures of
Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, about a trio of drag queens
touring the outback. Ever since, it has been a pilgrim-
age site for gay men, hosting weekly transvestite shows.
Today, the crusty mineworkers in flannel shirts andJim Bowler,
who discovered
Mungo Man’s
remains, often
uses his truck
for an office.