A Short Paddle Down the Murray

Written by Tim Hall

In the three months since I decided to spend a week paddling down the upper Murray River, one question has been asked to me more than any other: Why? 

It seems, to me, to be the strangest question one could ask. What do you mean, why? It’s not like I would be doing anything mind blowing. I’m not climbing an uncharted alpine route in the Hindu Kush. I’m not walking to the South Pole over the summer holidays. 

There are innumerable justifications for this particular trip, all of which require asking a different question. 

While I would argue that paddling down a river for a few days sounds like the definition of self-evidence, we can explore this matter further, even if just to prove once and for all that the question ‘why?’ Shouldn’t ever be applied to this form of travel again. 

For some, the desire to paddle stems from the desire to be on the water. Like the Elves inTolkien’sThe Lord of the Rings, once you get a taste of life on the water,it’s hard to think about anything else. 

For others, it comes from the innate urge to justify the pursuit of physical exercise as something more than simply the effect of a chemical reaction in the brain as a response to a set of inputs – in the same way that the corporate weekend warrior might settle down on a Sunday afternoon to write aLinkedin post about how setting aKoM record on Strava isjust like synergising perfect interface between customer demand and business capability. 

For myself, it arose because my partner’s mother’s ex-partner offered me a long-term loan of his fibreglass Rosco Sea Kayak, on the provision that I used to “do something cool with it, otherwise I’ll have it back”. 

For my companions on this trip, it probably came from their unflappable urge to suck the marrowout of everything that working a job in an adventure shop has to offer – one of which is the chance to be sponsored to float down a length of water for a few days with your colleagues. 

The Murray River is the longest river in Australia. At a touch over 2500 kilometres, it stands officiously between the Premier State of New South Wales, and the Education State of Victoria (also The Place To Be, depending on in which year you bought your car). The river, mythologised in the extreme, occupies an invidious corner of the Australian mind. At once a symbol of the scale and power of the Australian landscape, and also testament to the ritual degradation of our natural environment, this river emotes a sense of the dovetailing destinies of triumph and demise. 

 One of the most enduring images in my childhood was this large print that my grandmother had in her suburban house in Melbourne, of a dark, deep billabong along some backwater on the middle Murray. In the foreground was an impenetrably black water, surrounded by ghostly limbs stretching deep into the river red gum forest. Every time I looked at it I wondered whether any human had ever set foot there, or would ever do so again. 

It’s impossible not to see the Murray in full flow and not wonder what it would be like to flow with the river current from whichever point your feet first connect with its milky waters to the point at which the brine of the Southern Ocean starts to sting the nostrils, far off in South Australia. 

The decision to start at Khancoban came about due to the innate desire of humans to measure things so that they can compete against each other. The Inland Rivers National Marathon Register records Bringenbrong Bridge as the official start of any attempt to paddle the Murray River in the fastest time. As such, it is a common launch site for those who undertake paddling trips on this stretch of river.  

However, we, being four reasonably fit individuals with one eye trained on getting in as much of the river as we could in our four days, and another eye on finding places to safely park our vehicles, settled on starting at Khancoban, which is roughly eight kilometres up the Swampy Plain River from Bringenbrong Bridge. Starting at a town meant we could camp the night at the start if needed, and have easy access to as many Golden Gaytimes as we needed to stave off the November heat during the loading and unloading of gear. 

Finishing at Burrowye was a matter of convenience. As we would learn, there is no shortage of access points to the Murray in this area. But on the map, Burrowye Reserve seemed to be a pleasant distance away from the last planned night at Jingellic, and had easy vehicle access.  

We also took care to finish our paddle before the beginning of Lake Hume, as the diminution of river flow would make paddling on the lake less enjoyable. 

Why paddle so far? 

Another excellent question. And another one that is hard to answer. On the one hand, paddling 130km over four days is quite a long way, particularly if you have no current or flow to help you. Reading reports of paddlers tackling the Bass Strait (arguably Australia’s coolest kayak adventure), finishing 30km of paddling in a day under the wrong water conditions can be a challenging endeavour. 

On the other hand, given that the river flows at 8-9km/hr during high-water periods, paddling only 30-40 kilometres per day on this section of river is not an especially tall order. 

All our party were in agreement - while we wished to see as much of the river as we could in the time we had available, we also recognised that the great joy of through-travel adventures often comes in the time spent not moving at all. We looked forward to finishing a day of paddling with a swim in the river, a nap on the beach, and a long evening preparing a good meal. Pushing the paddling into the late afternoons was not high on the priority list. 

Overnight paddling, as opposed to walking or bike packing, gives the traveller a set of advantages not found in any other form of human-powered transport.  

Chief among these is the opportunity to avoid asking the question that keeps the outdoor industry awake at night – how do I save weight? Unlike walking, cycling, ski touring, mountaineering, or almost any other form of analogue adventure, kayaking (or canoeing) allows the individual to enjoy the cornucopic manifestations of living in an age of decadence while still experiencing the best of the outdoors. My 17ft long sea kayak has a recommended carrying capacity of 170kgs. If we subtract 100kgs of human flesh from that number, as well as a few extra kilograms of safety gear, spare paddles, and grasshopper debris from the drive to the start of the paddle, that leaves a comfortable 65kg of capacity for food, water, camping equipment, and extravagances.  

For four days of adventure, with potable water close to hand, the possibilities for indulgence are endless. In our case, this meant bringing along vast amounts of cheese, a slackline, far too many packets of crisps, and a regulation beach parasol. Even still, in hindsight, we should have fully realised our fortunate position and capitalised far more than we did. 

Overnight camping on this trip was a breeze. One other benefit of working in an outdoor store is that they sometimes toss you the keys to their newest toys. In this event, we took the new Mont Hypermid Tent for a spin. It proved to be a godsend on the second night due to the persistent rain. I imagine that the capability to fit four adults inside on a drizzly night was factored into the design brief. 

A fortune of drifting slowly down a stream such as the Murray is that the river has, over millennia, been used as a common meeting place. This was no more evident than when we paddled past the Jingellic Pub, on our third night. Like a freshly baked pie on a windowsill, the scent of beer and schnitzels oozed out of the establishment and pooled on the surface of the river, forming an unsurpassable barrier to those who would dare to push on. 

The availability of good food, incredible campsites, fresh water, immaculate sunsets, access points, and stunning wildlife really brought home the value of, nay, the necessity to experience paddling this great stream for at least a few days. It is an immersive experience – a scene that will pull the sadness and despair of the Anthropocene from your heart so that, just for a day or two, you might think that the strength of the river, the depth of green on the banks, the clamour of birdsong, might just leap clear of the Murray Valley and cleave the world anew, such is the power of its assault upon your mind and its senses. 

Yes, we did have a great time. 

If I had to do one thing differently, I suppose it would be to keep a closer eye on the weather. Not only did it rain every day (and at some points it really bucketed, to the point where a kindly farmer offered for us to stay in his house if it got much worse), but it also got so hot that our beleaguered vehicles suffered from overheating on the way to and from the river. Part of the idea of paddling a great river is to slow down and enjoy yourself, but some of the cars passing us as we trundled along at 60km/h on the Hume Highway seemed to not share that same state of mind, which made for unpleasant bookends to the trip. It also meant that we had to forgo a day of paddling at the start, as we only arrived from Canberra at 5PM after a 9AM start.