Day 39: 595 km Heading Rd. Renmark
Rain - Life in a tent - Natural splendour - River rising - Chowilla Woolshed - Kangaroos
It rained much of the night. It all began while we were cooking dinner. At first quite lightly, forming perfect circles on the surface of the water just beyond our boats. It was so light that we could more see the rain than hear it, but it was enough to begin taking short cuts whilst cooking dinner. Not long after we had all the ingredients in the pot, it began to rain more heavily. I suggested to Anna that she take shelter in her tent and I joined her once I had made things tidy and weather safe enough outside. With dinner on a slow burner we joked and told stories till it was ready. There is something very comfortable about a tent. Once you’re inside it is like your cocoon, your own bit of civilisation, a grown up sort of cubby house. The rain continued well into the night. In the early hours of the morning, when it stopped, the moon and the stars were so bright, the air so still that they are fixed in my memory. This is what camping in the bush is like. The night cooled off, so much so that when morning came, mist was rising and travelling in a layer above the water. Washing my face and hands in the water I could feel that it was warm. The mist continued to rise for the next hour. First it seemed to be driven downstream by the sunlight, but increasingly, as seems to happen in this part of the river, it was driven by the morning breeze.
There are so many birds here that I cannot put a name to them all. Perhaps because, like a big family at the dinner table, they are all trying to talk at once. The number of bird species reflects the diversity of landscapes that intersect here. Here the red gum and black box woodlands that have been part of the character of the Murray for most of its length are joined by mallee on top of the cliffs that jut into the river channel. Callitris pine grow on the steeper faces, grasslands and pasture on the gentler higher slopes and reeds form thick beds that stretch for hundreds of meters along the waterfront. We saw reed warblers singing so loudly they did not see us approaching, honeyeaters squabbling amongst the foliage, ring-neck parrots flying swiftly from tree to tree. Grass parrots investigating hollow logs, apostle birds moving as a group through the woodland. Spoonbills sat in their nests, messy imitations of the whistling kites, surprisingly close by. Young magpies practising their songs, somewhat shyly still. Nesting darters that looked like they were into their second sets of eggs. Whistling kites dived on fish swimming near the surface of the water. Herons picked at shrimps gathering near the water’s edge. More than once we were caught in eddies whilst starring into the trees and spun in the opposite direction to where we wanted to go.
The river is still rising here, not as quickly as the 4 inches a day that some people reported around Mildura, but steadily. It is now at the top of the lower banks and smiling into the forests beyond. When it does this, you can see that the river sitting within its natural levees, is actually higher than the forest - not as extreme as in the Gunbower-Perricoota-Koondrook Forest, but still higher than the land beyond. The nearer you get to Renmark the narrower the available land the river seems to have to travel within. Cliffs and high ground begin to appear on both sides. It was these cliffs that prompted the south Australian Government in 1968 to propose that a dam be built on the Chowilla Station that would back water up, all the way to Wentworth. The dam was eventually knocked back because of the amount of good land that would be covered, the number of towns inundated and the decision to build Dartmouth Dam on the Mitta Mitta River. Had the dam been built this most beautiful part of the river would have no longer existed.
Anna and I pulled into Chowilla Woolshed for lunch. The woolshed has group accommodation and caters for special occasions. They have pictures of wedding tables being set inside. Anna did not think this was a good idea. “You would all smell of sheep” she said. I tried to explain that they have a great atmosphere and are something completely different, which people are often looking for, however there was way she was going to get married in a shearing shed, she said. Chowilla, together with Calperum Station are part of the Bookmark Biosphere reserve. Both are functioning stations, but are run to preserve the cultural, historical and environmental heritage of the area. Rotary send school students to Calperum Station as part of a Murray Darling Basin Freshwater Research Initiative to expose secondary school students to issues along the Murray River. La Trobe University send their students there to understand the arid zone. The name ‘Bookmark Biosphere Reserve’ comes from the name of the original station in the area. Bookmark was later divided into Chowilla and Calperum. Now, they are working together to preserve our heritage, like so many other private initiatives and groups along the river. Inside the shearing shed were photos from the late 1800’s. One showed sheep being driven across a floating bridge, others showed paddles steamers loading wool. The people in the pictures looked healthy, but thin. They always wore their finest. In many of the photos they looked like they were on a picnic. They may have wished to show family how well they live in the bush, and how civilised their life is, despite the challenges. It was these challenges though, rather than the lace, that defined them. It comes through clear as day int he pictures that depict their daily life.
At Chowilla station a creek enters the river. it was not flowing quickly, but its contribution to the river was made more obvious by its colour. It pushed a brown cloud out into the dark Murray water. These flows dilute and aerate the blackwater in the river. It may be happening more often than we give credit. We noticed today that we had not seen any fish gasping for air. For the last week we have seen a small species of fish swimming near the river’s surface, mouthing at the water’s surface. We hadn’t seen any today. Like on other days, we saw quite a few dead cod, all yellow, showing that they had died some time ago. Putting these two things together, it seems that the cod deaths are happening upstream and the fish being transported down the river. This may change in the coming weeks, but seems to be what is happening here now.
We pulled into a campsite frequented by round Australia travellers on the downstream side of Heading Cliffs, about 30km out of Renmark. Here the steep cliffs retreat inland several hundred meters, allowing a river flat to form at their base. We gathered speed and launched our kayaks up on the shore, then, finding a spot between two black box, pulled up our boats and set up camp. Endangered white breasted tree-creepers flitted around us whilst we cooked and whistling kites practised their manoeuvres on the ever changing breeze. We walked up to the top of the cliffs to see the sunset, stopping to watch some young red kangaroos on the way. From the top of the cliffs, the sun set as an orange ball. Its light bathed the valleys between us in a golden light. The birds were quiet now. There was just the light. Over the river the sky turned blue and green. The swirls caused by the current picking up some of these colours on its otherwise dark surface as it continued its journey on to the sea.
Tomorrow we make for Renmark. It will be Anna’s last day with me. Having her with me has been a real highlight. It is not often that a father and daughter have a chance to do something like this together. When your daughter lives on the other side of the world, it is even more special. For Anna, it has been a real dose of Australia. Its wilderness, its isolation, the harshness of its environment and its gentle beauty. She has brought me within 600 km of the sea. Not long to go now.
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