A trio of adventurers has floated atop the latest river rise from Torrumbarry to Koondrook. Tuesday Browell, Harry Pugh and Terrance Hawken took 12 days going with the flow, a steady 4km per hour when unassisted by the only propulsion, a silent electric solar powered motor. 

Tuesday is very familiar with Barham, spending two years living here when she helped construct PS Emmy Lou in 1980. A trip down memory lane was had when Bervene Lake and Val McWhae climbed aboard ‘Wanambe’ at the Koondrook wharf. Bervene would drive the school kids out to watch the construction of PS Emmy Lou.

Tuesday describes herself as a river guardian. “It’s a tricky disposition, one of whinging nana, or that of wishing she had superhero river powers.”

Tuesday’s love of the river was poetically captured in her journaling of the adventure. 

“The hustle and bustle of nature is loud and piercing. Screams from cockatoos, trills and whistles from kingfishers and the gobbledegook of friar birds, as well as the tweedling of parrots from on high.

“The winds come in blusters and the rain descends like fairy floss onto the smooth inland waters, making dimples and bubbles as they land. There is a party going on in nature and I’m witness to the fanfare.”

The words reflect an often overlooked characteristic of the political water fiasco, the true nature of this life-giving artery of our land, seemingly a lower priority for foreign and domestic water traders.

“The high river is hiding the erosion,” said Tuesday.

“It makes it invisible, but the problem still exists, and we need action.”

The banks are telling us a story and we only need to listen. No ski or wake boats in our section of the river serve as a good yard stick for how ‘balanced’ the current objectives are.

Tuesday’s keen observations also captured the out of control weed infestation community groups have been lobbying those saving the forest to act upon.

“Miles and miles of Paterson’s curse, looking like the lavender fields of France, are a beautiful, yet shameful reminder of how rampant invasive weeds are along the Murray River. The native species of understory are dissipated and scant.”

The river is a special place, one worth protecting for future generations, ‘living art’ as Tuesday describes it.

“Today was almost a McGubbin painting in the morning and a Hans Heyson this afternoon. The light and the shadows, the greens and the golds, the breeze and the rain all add up to look like Australian living art.

“Life on the Murray River is rejuvenating.”

This article appeared in The Koondrook and Barham Bridge Newspaper, 14 October 2021.