The first week: Biggara to the Hume Dam

The first stage of paddling is over. May this not alarm you, though, because despite their eventful nature I have only experienced five days on the river so far, there are over sixty remaining.

I haven’t been alone this week. During a book tour in Queensland early in 2008 I met a local councillor named Peter Dowling, who seemed to enjoy my lectures about skateboarding across Australia and threw his hat into the ring for my next adventure. Murmurs of a Murray paddle had already begun to surface, and Peter told me that if it went ahead he would join me for the first week, and maybe the last, too. Now, in late 2009, Peter Dowling has two new letters after his name, MP. Knowing this, you may be surprised to hear that he stuck to his word, drove for eighteen hours from Brisbane to Corryong, and was there at the Biggara drop-in dressed head to toe in yellow waterproofs. Amazingly, this wasn’t Peter’s worst miscalculation, for his craft, a sit-on-top kayak that I had been informed performs fairly well in the ocean…well, Peter’s kayak was a tub. Half the size of mine (not that it matters), twice as wide, designed primarily to float, and secondly to go forward. When I saw the beast upside-down on Peter’s Ute’s roof rack the chewing gum shot straight into my nasal passage. Our MP had a challenge on his hands.


With my greatest awe and admiration, the challenge was met. Yes, the Upper Murray after the confluence with the Swampy River churns out water at such a pace that we could stop paddling and still clock around 8kmph, but Peter had the task of driving a tank through an unpredictable minefield and as the first day drew to a close only one thing was worrying him. An electrical storm had brewed from the leaves of numerous rain showers and as we approached Tintaldra the heavens opened, hail the size of marbles began to bounce off the spraydeck and into my face, the water around us was turbulent and frothing and poor Peter was bent forward protecting his paddle, for the lightning was striking and his paddling pole was metallic. Great.

What a feeling to finally get on the water. Dramatic as it was to wade through several feet of snow on a series of remote hillsides, this expedition has always been about the paddling. It was also prepared with the friendliness of the locals in mind, and disappointed I am not. My kayak has been sheltered on a farm in Biggara, and it was here that the water journey was to begin. Tom, the farmer, his wife Sally, Sandra Hubbard who along with husband Richard so kindly put me up at Mother Hubbard’s B&B in the beautiful Corryong, and Tim Staunton, Peter Dowling’s brother in law who was to drive alongside on the river all week.

There is a peace to travelling on water. The Murray was flowing strong, the Swampy River had only just merged around the upstream bend and we could afford to sit back and admire the green hills. For 46km we flowed that day, absorbing the river, its surroundings, our new homes. And then the electrical storm struck, a thunderous way to end the first day.

That first night was spent in the company of a poet, Betty Walton, but not before a fine spread was provided by her daughter, Diana. Betty runs a B&B and the Store in Tintaldra (Aboriginal for ‘young man by the water’), and she has a wonderful outlook on life. Clasping her hands she lilted, ‘The past is history, tomorrow is the future, and today is a gift, that’s why it’s called the present.’ I could listen to her for hours, and if you happen to find yourself in the Upper Murray region of south-eastern Australia do pay her a visit.

Peter and I meandered westwards, met by Tim along the way who had rigged up tarpaulin to Ute and trees and provided mugs of coffee so large there was no possible way to finish it before the coldness seeped in. Peter had a close encounter with a Platypus, and from then onwards every little splash became a possible platypus sighting. These foot-long creatures, so rare and elusive, are here in abundance in the Upper Murray, a hybrid of duck and otter, snuffling the river bed for nutrients. I was yet to catch a near glimpse.

Gael Evans is a tall Welshman who grew up in France. Or the other way around, I’m not yet sure. A talented cartoonist with photography skills to match, Gael once took one of my favourite ‘journey photos’, a rear end view of my scrawny self pushing a longboard towards Lands End, just seconds from becoming the first bloke to skate the length of Britain. Gael appeared on the afternoon of Day Two and will join the expedition for two weeks, no doubt adding some passive spice to proceedings. He paddles along spotting birds and other small creatures that my clumsy eye wouldn’t have noticed. With Peter’s dry Queensland wit and Gael’s well informed company, I was in good hands as I acclimatised to the River Murray becoming my home for the next two and a half months.

We all slept early at Jinjellic, apart from Tim, who caught me in the morning and said to take a look in my camera bag. He had rustled up a crowd of middle-aged bikers, sucked money out of their pockets and extracted a cheque from the Jinjellic Hotel, as well. The AV Foundation were $75 better off, and we had visual proof, too. ‘Take a look at the video camera, there’s some footage of the old boys, bit drunk,’ said Tim. He’s a dark horse, and a great camp cook. The man could skin a fish with three fingers and makes bacon and egg sandwiches the meal of the future. His tented camps are blessed for a trio of mouldy paddlers, and when the flow was weak and the platypus sightings few, we paddled on merely to see his stubbly face and taste his latest concoction.

I’m glad to say, it wasn’t Tim’s food that caused an upset on night Three. We had made the upper reaches of Lake Hume, but the water wasn’t high enough to divert attention from the original path of the river. We camped alongside the flowing postcard (a term coined by Ro Privett of www.murrayquest.com) and deep in the early hours my insides began to crumble. I won’t detail the mess, but I now consider myself foolish for drinking the waters of the Murray even high up above the effluence of large townships.

By now I was a veteran of confirmed platypus sightings. So close I have been to their little duck-bills that I could have reached down and picked them out of the water. Two of the frisky creatures even jumped clear above the surface, whether they were playing, fighting, or pursuing the raptures of platypus multiplication I will never know, and although we have all captured brief showings and splashes in the water, I have reached the conclusion that the platypus are considered one of the most elusive species not because they’re rarely seen, but because they are horrendously camera shy. The day you see a platypus in Vogue…well, that’s the day I stop travelling.


Rainbows marked our day’s end on more than one occasion. The most wonderful rainbows combined the strength of the sun and the rain. Full arcs of which we could see both ends, quite remarkable out here where people are few and our road is a river to become mighty. As the week drew on the Murray lost itself in the mass of Lake Hume, the product of the Hume Dam, a 1930’s wall designed to preserve the Murray and control irrigation flows downstream. Of course, when a dam is built, a flood is created behind it, and in this floodplain thousands of trees perished. To the testament of the strength of Australia’s natural flora, despite their drowning many trees still stand. It creates an eerie, beautiful image. Spiny black fingers poke up out of the Lake, the larger trees dominate the surface, it’s exhilarating, mesmerising, sad. We paddle across a cemetery for two days, into a headwind, kilometres from the banks, poor Peter in his short blue tub was like the Duracell bunny, non-stop arm movement with such little reward, but finally we were there, passing beneath the bridge that crosses the lake, and just around the corner from the Dam Peter rose from his boat for the final time, Tim joined us, we clinked four bottles of Clearskin, and our Queensland friends drove home.

Just Gael and I left, camping just a couple of hundred metres from the Dam, wondering just how the heck we were to get around it with all of our kit. A 32 Small Ships war veteran’s reunion in the local resort provided us with a free feed thanks to a pair of lovely couples, and we retired to our canvas replete. The next day, we were to go below the Dam, a new stretch awaited.

Click Image to Enlarge

Great Big Paddle | Murray River Source to Sea Expedition 2009 http://www.thegreatbigpaddle.com Mobile: 0429 010825 Please donate @ http://www.j Member: My Profile  My Blog  Send Message