The Holiday We Didn’t Have

Bill and I were expecting to spend the first week of February (2023) on the 18-cabin riverboat Proud Mary out of Murray Bridge in South Australia. We were to spend five nights cruising upstream to Blanchetown (SA) and back, with daily excursions. Here’s the itinerary if you are tempted.

Proud Mary on the Murray River, SA: Source /www.facebook.com/MVproudmary. Also see: http://www.proudmary.com.au

Fate – in the shape of climate change – had other ideas, as the record-breaking rains we had through most of 2022 found their way into the system of the mighty Murray River. Floodwaters and potential damage to levees meant river traffic was banned from the beginning of December until only a week or two ago.

The Murray is Australia’s longest river, being 2,508 km (1,558 mi) in length. It rises in the Australian Alps (Australia’s highest mountains), drains down the western slopes, and then meanders northwest, forming the border between the states of New South Wales and Victoria, and then flows on into South Australia where it drains into the sea near the Coorong (as in the 1976 film Storm Boy if you have seen that). Along the way, several important tributaries feed into it, the most significant being the Darling River, which rises near the New South Wales / Queensland border and flows southwest from there. The amount of water it poured in at its confluence with the Murray River at Wentworth is part of the reason that the South Australian Murray River residents copped so much flood damage.

I found this clear and simple map on http://www.melbournemotorhomes.com/melbourne-to-the-murray-river-scenic-route.htm, but it, in turn, has been lifted from a government website.

I didn’t have many blog followers when way back in 2012 Bill and I set off on a road trip to follow the course of the Murray from its source in the Alps – Corryong was the nearest town accessible by car – to as far as we could get in the time available before I started a new job. We reached Swan Hill, well short of the South Australian border. I wrote a series of about six posts, beginning with the below link. In my biased view, I think they contain some interesting “stuff” about what you can see and experience in this part of the world.

Following the Murray River: Narooma to Corryong

So! with a hole in our diaries for February, Bill and I decided to set off on an entirely different short break, and headed west into New South Wales country. But I’ll save all that for the next post.

By the way, it’s 5.45pm on a warm, sunny day in the beginning of our autumn (fall) and a huge flock of corellas has just flown past my study window on their way to bed for the night. They’ve been doing this for a couple of months now, and they are definitely noisy about it. There’s always a straggler calling out not to be left behind. I haven’t worked out where they go yet, but there is a botanical garden nearby, and also lots of bushland and trees in the foothills of the escarpment behind us (part of the Great Dividing Range). Corellas are medium-sized white cockatoos, with a pink patch on the head and blue-ringed eyes.

If the below link will play for you, this is exactly what they sound like. A second flock is just coming through now, so I best not play it, or I might send them off-course!

https://freesound.org/people/danieldouch/sounds/179210/#:~:text=All%20week%2C%20flocks%20of%20Corellas%20%28a%20type%20of,in%20the%20neighbourhood%20look%20outside%20their%20windows.%20noisy