Murray River Paddle 2016 Day 2 Dights Hill (d/s Albury) to Howlong Common Oct 17

The second day is often one of the most difficult days on a long journey like this. The tiredness from the first day kicks in making the challenges faced in the second even harder. It takes a couple of days to get your gear sorted as well. To find out what goes best where, particularly when you're using a different boat. This affects food and drink as well: if they're out of reach you don't do enough of either. Calling into the bank is the usual way around this; find a nice sandbar to stop at access gear, repack, have a stretch and move on. Post flood this is not as easy as it usually is. The river is still high by normal standards leaving the beaches covered. The tops of the banks are easy to get to, however most are still saturated and many are muddy. So tonight I am pretty drained. Two hours to eat my dinner. Couldn't take it in any faster. I hope race fitness kicks in tomorrow.

About to set off

 

The stretch between Dights Hill where I camped last night and Howlong is in many ways one of the most beautiful along the Murray. There are parts which are just as windy and fast as below the Hume and others where the river widens out and where you gain a glimpse the hills that border the valley through which it flows. There are numerous islands mid stream with luscious vegetation, prettyish kinds of little wildernesses, free from the footsteps of man or beast. There are numerous lagoons, billabongs and anabranches through which the river rushes having found an easier way. In other parts of the river these are usually short joining meanders which have worked their way together, however here they run for tens of kilometres. Where these features occur, the forest has a healthy diversity; river red gum are present as saplings, young trees, mature specimens and ancient guardians. Forests intersect with grazing land, forming a kind of landscape mosaic of cultural and environmental significance. In these landscapes the mature red gums don't seem to mind the cattle however where there are cattle there is little regeneration, resulting in a park like landscape.

River Guardians

I seemed to spend quite a bit of time today spinning in the middle of the river. This was not on purpose. Though I managed to miss the massive whirlpool just downstream of Dights Hill, where a 10 meter diameter section of the river spins and is visibly lower than the rest, I was caught in many lesser eddies and swirls of the current. This is what happens when you continually looking at the landscape through a camera. It is the canoeists equivalent of walking into street signs: rather embarrassing.

Sloan and Tonk!

The soft soil and strong winds meant that tree fall was an issue and campsites needed to be chosen carefully.

About 20 km from Howlong the river is suddenly flanked on one side by an eight meter high clay bank. Is the nearest thing that the Murray has resembling a cliff for the next 1000 km. It is a riddle to me why it is there, but there are clues to the answer on approaching Howlong. Whilst the hills that mark the edge of the Murray Valley have long since retreated from view, the valley through which the river flows seems to be narrowing at Howlong. In the course of the day the river has changed from flowing through a wide floodplain to the restricted valley. It seems a confusing thing to say as the river moves away from the mountains which are its source, until you realise that the valley through which the river is now restricted is the bed of a much, much larger ancient stream. It's massive 15m high banks are occasionally visible through the trees. It's on these ancient banks that most people build their houses and the reason why the old towns and farms are safe when the river rises. With floodwaters unable to spread out, the confined river floods easily, however those frequent floods and changing beds contribute to some of the healthiest forests along the entire river. Rarely will you see as magnificent old gums as in this section of the Murray.

Camp on Howlong Common: still damp from the floods and full of mossies!

Tonight the wind that has been my companion for most of the day has dropped. The skies are clear, a pleasant change from the storms of last night. I look forward to getting to know the river between Howlong and Corowa in more detail tomorrow, before meeting the Ovens River at the edge of Lake Mulwala the next day.

Murray River Paddle 2016 Day 1 Hume Dam to Dights Hill (d/s Albury) Oct 16

First day on the river in my paddle to the sea.

Hume Dam: ready to go.

There were times today where I thought I must be mad. Why am I doing this again? It hasn't gotten any easier, that is for sure. The truth is that living on the river and paddling the length of the Murray back in 2012, I thought I saw patterns of decline. The questions that have come out of that trip eventually morphed into this trip, the data gathering part of a PhD looking at the resilience of the river banks of the Murray River.

Where there is a will there is a way.

Food planning: each pile is one day's food.

Back in 2012, the millennium drought had come to an end, and much like now, there had been a high river and, in some areas, prolonged flooding. And yet the river red gums did not seem to be recovering. Was it climate change, collapsing banks, river regulation, or lack of natural flood events that was causing this? The jury is still out, but it makes for an excellent pub conversation. Everyone has an opinion, some insight, or some concern. What it does show is that the issue is important to people. Rivers are our lifeblood.

If I could identify patterns and back this up with evidence, then perhaps we could respond to and care for the river in a way that shows respect for its grandeur. I don't mean to argue against change, or for looking areas off from the public, but perhaps we could be more clever in how we run our river, support its recovery and use it in a way that does not degrade it.

Longitudinal studies like this are rare. They tend to cost a lot and tend to involve a fair degree of discomfort. Given this, I focussed on two things I really enjoy doing, canoeing and photography. I would create a photographic record of bank condition (with an emphasis on river red gums) from Lake Hume to Lake Alexandrina. It sounded good to me. Today I began to realise how hard it was, especially in the twisty, turny river that the Murray can be up here.

I decided to try and write a record of the journey. This is the first of those records. How it will differ from the last time I don't really know. For sanity's sake and out of interest I want to keep writing about the people I meet and the things I see. I would like to delve more into the history too.

These descriptions match the photos I have uploaded with this post.

Water being released from the Hume is all going through the hydro valves, causing a massive spray on the downstream side. The river has dropped about a meter and a half. Most of the banks are intact, though a lot of trees are down, their roots unable to hold the weight in the soft soil. Current is fast, helped by water draining back out of the billabongs and wetlands back into the river. I found a nice spot to camp on high ground just beneath Dights Hill, about 50 km downstream from the Hume. It is a grassy island, which remained above the high water level in the recent floods. it is also relatively free of trees, which, given the thunderstorms and wind gusts tonight is a good idea.

At the base of the Hume.

I have included a few shots from the day so that you can get a feel for what the river looks like post high water. The river varies from wide sedentary stretches to fast flowing channels around islands. It is a much more cultivated landscape than further down the river, with tall poplars and willows a feature of the area. The later, although initially stabilising the bank, eventually seem to strangle the gums. Trees nearest billabongs and floodplain mosaics seemed to be in the best condition, whilst those closest to Albury appeared to suffer the most. I can't explain this, as it was not always a question of how high above the water they grew, which is what conventional wisdom will tell you.

Running for a number of kilometres downstream of Albury is a walking track, along which artwork reminiscent of how indigenous people used the landscape. The large fish basket is an example of this. All along the river people seemed to be breathing a collective sigh of relief, and at the same time were keen to get out on and near the water again. In Albury, 5 boys swam loudly in what really is still a pretty cold river. Around the corner music from a river-side swimming carnival echoed through the trees long before I could locate where it was actually coming from. From Hume to Albury was full of fishermen, one determinedly, if not that successfully, casting into the wind.

Fish trap sculpture honouring the aboriginal use of the land.

That same wind turned me round a few times when I paused to take photos. The great thing about this boat is that its stability means that I do not have to focus whilst taking the photos of bank condition which is what this trip is all about. It also packs a hell of a lot of gear without too much fuss. It does catch in the wind though, and it takes a long time to get going again.

Behind the wind were rolling dark clouds. With these approaching I was happy to reach the spot I had planned to camp and had time enough to eat a hearty meal and, explore my island. It really was quite remarkable watching the water drain out of the wetlands and back into the river. The strength of the flow made it clear how much water is stored there in flood times. They must have a moderating effect, protecting communities downstream from flood peaks as well as providing habitat and summer pasture.

Tomorrow I hope to make it to Howlong. Hopefully the rain will ease and the sun come out like it did at times today. Howlong will it take me... I don't know. I guess I'll get there when I get there. Sorry - couldn't resist that dad joke :)