A bit of catching up to do, with our adventures, so hope this makes up for it.
The Murray River is the third most navigable river in the world, behind the Amazon and the Nile - it is some 2765 kms long and spans 3 states - NSW, Victoria and South Australia. It has 4 major storage dams, 16 storage weirs, and 15 navigable locks.
Along with its tributaries, the Murray is part of the third largest water catchment on earth. The Murray River is the world's 16th-longest river at 2,530 kilometres near Towong and 2756 km from it source in the Kosiosko National Park. It is fed by several rivers on it's journey from the Australian Alps. The main feeding rivers are the Darling and Murrumbidgee Rivers. The Darling River (2739km) begins in the far inland of Australia (Queensland) and joins the Murray at Wentworth (NSW) then flows to the Southern Ocean through South Australia.
The Murray-Darling drainage area is one of the largest in the world and certainly the largest on the continent, draining most of inland Victoria, New South Wales, and southern Queensland from the western side of the Great Australian Divide. The Murray-Darling Basin drainage system has remained in virtually the same place for millions of years.
Paddlesteamers were used to carry wool, wheat, and other goods up and down the river system including the Murray, Darling and Murrumbidgee Rivers. Since settlement of the river basin was so late, the invention of the railroad came much sooner in the life of settlement of the river, meaning that the river didn't ever really find itself a booming source of trade.
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| Paddle Steamers in Echuca |
An irrigation system was introduced in 1887 by Canadian George Chaffey, greatly accelerating the settlement and exploitation of the river's water supply around Mildura (Victoria) and Renmark (South Australia).
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| Chaffey Wheel |
In 1918, it was finally agreed how to fix this. Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia and the Federal Government formed the River Murray Commission to control all development and works that were carried out on the river. The Commission coordinated the construction of storages, locks and weirs to reduce the effects of drought and flood. Today, the water flow is still managed by these locks on the river from Yarrawonga in Victoria to Blanchtown in South Australia.
So Blanchetown - thats not so far from where we are now. The rest of the journey down the Murray we will be covered in our next blog, right through to Lake Alexandria, where the Murray meets the sea.
We took the opportunity to stay in Renmark for a few days, and camped out at Plush's Bend - Camps book gives it a red tick?? It was good, but not sure that is deserved the red tick. Met up with some other happy campers whilst we were there, and they both ended up staying another couple of days, as they were having such a good time. The draw of the camp fire is always such a good drawcard. With little convincing, one of our friends - Ann - convinced these council blokes to drop us of some fire wood. From then on we had enough wood to last about a week.
We arrived in Loxton - where we lived from 1967 - 1970 - always loved this place- as it had something really special about it - a real community spirit, which is reflected in how the town presents itself and is so tidy and complete with gardens every where - it truly is a wonderful town. The locals always have a smile and a g'day, and the bakery has the best ever apricot slice - which just melts in your mouth. The town today has a population of around 3,500.
We stayed our first night in the Motorhome reserve in town, $6 per night, but no showers nor toilets and no water - paying just for the privilege of parking on the grass. Gave us the opportunity to drive out to New Residence to see whether we could get the bus down to the river. The whole of the Riverland area has been under flood for many months and it has taken a long time for the river to go down, and things to dry out. Been the best flows through the river in years, and it looks lovely and healthy.
With Wayne and Cynthia's help we got the bus down to the river via a side road, due to the the many low over hanging branches, we couldn't get down the usual road. So here we are camped by the beautiful Murray again, and here we have been now for nearly 3 weeks.
Have had a wonderful time catching up with people from our past and in particular the Voight family. We were lucky enough to be invited to a family celebration and enjoyed the usual Loxton hospitality. The food was just wonderful of course - so not a lot has changed since last we lived here.
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| The Voight Family |
Have also had the opportunity to meet up with a facebook friend who grows the most beautiful Sturt Desert Peas . Been great to meet Sharon and have had a lovely time catching up and sharing our love of photography.
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| Sharon's Sturt Desert Pea |
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From Loxton there is so many wonderful places to visit and we will document some of those at a later date, but in particular a few of note would have to be Maize Conservation Park, the Broken Cliffs, both near Waikerie, and some of the many wonderful lagoons and reserves around Moorook.
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| Maize Conservation Park |
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| The Broken Cliffs |
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| Moorook Lagoon |
Each day is a little different - but one thing doesn't change and that is the amazing sunrises and sunsets every day. No two days are the same and no matter how many you see , you never get sick of seeing them. The evening light that falls over the river is just magic and something to behold. The clouds, the colors all just sensational and something everyone must see once in their life time.
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| Afternoon Delight |
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| Lunar Sunrise |
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| Golden Reeds |
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| Cloud Reflections |
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| Sunlight Through The Trees |
Much more to see and do around the area, and will save the rest for the next installment of the bigredbustouringco.
beautiful series of photographs Lynne!
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