Murray River by Dinghy

Many people do this every year. Have a look at Murray Meander.

When I did the top third two years ago from upstream of Corryong to Echuca it was in a 14 ft tinny with a 15 horse donk.

The middle third is from Echuca to Mildura.

This year they went from Mildura to Lake Alexandrina.

Bob

Echucan Bob
My intention is to start at the Hume Dam spillway and travel to Goolwa in one sitting
12 foot dinghy, 70 litres of fuel, swag (in case I get stuck between towns, I plan to stay in the local pubs - meet the locals)
When they open the spillway they tell me it takes approximately 3 weeks for the water to get to Echuca
Been told thet the water level comes up about 2 mtres after they release the water - would this be correct
Any local knowledge and advice would be appreciated if you have any
Regards Sash

Way way back in about 1965 or 1966 my brothers and I and a mate of ours did a "Huckleberry Finn" on a raft made out of 3x 44gl drums and 4x3s and fencing wire , starting point was just down stream of the Hume weir wall and finished near the 1st bridge just before the old fruit fly station between Albury and Wodonga ,, took 3 days just floating along …...

I love your enthusiasm Sash but i wouldn't be leaving your boat / motor moored somewhere while you spend the night in the pub. Might be a short trip. At the moment the river is low from the wall to at least Mulwala. I think the water authorities nearly got caught out last year when Dartmouth was full , the Hume was nearly full and the river was running high. They have run the dam down to about 36% so they can do something with the water if we get too much. If we have an El Nino year though , I won't be skiing much this summer. All the best.

Hey Sash, Justene said you are too old to be doing this, but when you get to Picnic Point give me a call and I will get a mate from Mathoura to bring out a frosty one for you. Cheers Ray
PS. Pretty mean looking tinny in those pics you sent and we are in Derby at the moment

I think you had better do your home work a bit more on the Murray river, it is not just one long straight stretch of water...there are numerous locks to negotiate and some of them are miles from nowhere and at the moment the river is very low, we are just back from up near Mildura and there were places there that we were hitting sand in our 12ft tinnie and we had very little load on, loaded up you would have no hope of getting through and back further near Wemen it would be worse...good luck

Get onto the sea kayaking forum or http://www.akff.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=62231 for info on depths, camping spots, local drunks and all the rest. You'll get much better info from those who've done it by water.

We used to call Spring "high tide" because you had a decent level of water in the river. Autumn/Winter were "low tide" where the water went down so low that it'd scare the water skiers when they saw the huge logs just below the surface!! (ie oh my goodness is that what I was skiing over the top of a few months ago?!) I doubt if you'd get very far and very easily in winter/low tide time.
A down side to Spring's high tide was the fact that it was the snow melt and sometimes flooded/ran a little fast.
Summer was a good time to hit the river because it was still fairly high and calmer and so cool on a hot day. There were some interesting kayak races/rallies in summer in the 10 years I lived on the Murray.
Don't know how many locks/weirs etc that would pose obstacles along the Murray's 2000+km (if my memory serves me correctly from wandering along Echuca's wharves) but I do know there's another one at Torrumbarry (between Cohuna and Echuca).
We often talked of boating a bit down the length but satisfied ourselves with just being able to drive the 3km through the bush tracks and sit and veg out on the bank with our camp fire and camp oven roast...
Damn. The simple pleasures that suburbia doesn't do!
:)