A river through time

Australia’s longest river cuts a slow course from the remote Snowy Mountains of New South Wales through the Outback to the Southern Ocean. More a meander than a mighty waterway, the Murray’s banks are nonetheless lined with monumental stories that have shaped the continent — plucky tales of immigration, determined irrigation and visionary agriculture that today incorporates some of the nation’s finest vineyards

- DAVID WHITLEY

“ The less you paddle, the more you enjoy,” the kayaking guide calls out from across the water.

“Just stay in the middle of the river and let the current take you.”

There’s a cost to not following this simple advice: I find myself drifting towards the riverbank, getting tangled in the snagging branches of overhanging willow trees and capsizing while trying to battle free. The kayak overturns. The camera in my shirt pocket takes a fatal dunking. The flailing struggle to get back on board is considerably complicated by duplicitous currents and teeth-chattering water temperatures that bear no resemblance to the warm spring day outside the murky soup that is the Murray River.

This unsolicited swim pierces the serenity somewhat. Until that point, the drift downstream towards the centre of Albury had been a magical slice of Australiana: kangaroos standing to attention on the riverbanks; a platypus coming up for air after scurrying along the riverbed in search of tasty yabbies (small freshwater crayfish); and tiny turtles sliding off logs for a dip. Australians call their country’s longest river ‘the mighty Murray’, although in truth its 1,570-mile course deals in meek, apologetic meandering and stoic survival rather than ferocity and grandeur.