Murray River Cruise 2022

[Grith]

Whilst an earlier cruise than our recent 8 plus weeks out in the Whitsundays I thought it might be of interest to some here.
In June 2022 old friends Eric and Flo in their Court 750 Erflo came to cruise with us here on The Murray River in South Australia. They towed their yacht right across the middle of Australia from Western Australia to join us here.
They have been touring and adventuring using their trailerable yacht for around 6 months each year for over 30 years now.
Without doubt they would be amongst the most accomplished cruising trailer sailers in this country and perhaps amongst us world wide.
Our Murray River cruise in company was my relatively new partner Clare's first really extended sailing trip having only done one 10 day cruise previously on a much larger charter yacht with my daughter acting as first mate.
That trip was her first ever set foot on a boat at all and was only in 2020.
Her joy in and ability on that trip cemented our partnership then Covid kicked in and changed the world.
The Murray River trip was to be our first extended cruise together and on our own yacht with it being planned to be 6-8weeks on board.
Having my old friends of about 27 years Eric and Flo along on our first extended cruise was a special treat especially given their advancing age now.
We set off up river from our recently purchased and retired to, very cheap waterfront home in Wellington East South Australia, somewhere/nowhere as Clare calls it. To be continued. You cannot view this attachment.
Eric and Flo's yacht Erflo on our pontoon jetty behind our home. 
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Bankside camping with mast down between two bridges. The river was in flood or we just would have made it under the bridges masts up. 
 

[Norm L.]

That sounds like a great adventure an your friends sound like they have spent an adventurous life staying one step ahead of the constabulary.    Many people could write a book about trailering a boat across Australia. That reminds me of the old joke about the grizzled old sailor who said when I retire I'm getting away from the sea. I'm going to walk inland with an oar over my shoulder until someone stops me and asks what it is.

Doing the Murray River where do you start? Up in the NW and go towards Melbourne?

And that boat ERFLO reminds me of Dutch yachts that are rigged to lay the mast and rigging down to get under thr many canal bridges. Even with a power boat doing the canals you have to know your air draft and plot you route to transit only where the bridge clearance is enough. Some of the clearances are less than 2 meters.

I've got a mate, a machinery and equipment appraiser, who lives towards you, in Adelade. Yesterday I was at the Internatinal Work Boat show and talked with an Aussie that represented an Australian company that makes the huge ship evacuation slides. It happened that he was also a St. Kilda fan so we talked about the draft and next year.

Keep us up on your adventure. 

[Grith]

We started our Murray River cruise from my home in Wellington East about 2nm upriver from Lake Alexandrina one of my regular sailing areas. Lake Alexandrina is an enormous body of shallow freshwater just inland of the mouth of the Murray River and separated from the ocean but a huge series of barrages keeping the lower reaches of the river and Lakes Alexandrina and Albert as freshwater and about 0.75m deeper. You access the sea via a loch and then a challenging passage through the sometimes breaking waves mouth of the Murray.
We however went upstream with the intention of getting to Swan Hill in Victoria and then coming back by bus to pick up our vehicles and yacht trailers to return for the yachts.
The river was in minor flood at that time making upstream progress often under sail a relatively slow affair.
The first town we encountered heading upstream was Murray Bridge home of the first bridges to span the mighty Murray back in the late 1800's and the only time we dipped our masts.
The river guide had the clearances just too tight especially with the raised river level due to being in flood.
It was the only time we needed to do this with the subsequent powerlines and bridges being set above our raised mast height to accommodate the huge paddle steamers which once plied these waters and a few now are used for sightseeing journeys.
More to follow. You cannot view this attachment.You cannot view this attachment.You cannot view this attachment.   

[Norm L.]

That is a cool paddle wheeler even if a replica. They did it well. But it is a bit pricey, but so are the similar boats that do the Mississippi, Red, and Columbia rivers. Many years ago I valued the DELTA QUEEN a near original built in 1926. The new ones are really plush and, like the MURRAY QUEEN the paddle wheels are hydraulically powered. The only other active paddle wheeler with steam power driving a Pittman arm is the NATCHEZ here in New Orleans. The Murray boat is run by Captain Cook Tours and I looked at the site. I want to take one of those trips as one morning they have a Bush Tucker Breakfast.

Kangaroo sausage
Double smoked bacon
Tomatoes flavoured with native pepper and samphire
Mushroom with coolamon herbs
Scrambled Egg with boobialla seasoning and ground saltbush
Aussie Dukka toast with assorted jams
Wattleseed pancakes with lemon myrtle butter
Eucalypt flavoured billy tea or coffee

All of that sounds good to me except as a tea drinker I don't want Eucalypt flavoring.

That got me so involved I missed saying to keep up the tour. The photos of new places is a plus.

[Grith]

We did actually also pass a recently relaunched original steam powered riverboat the Cannally which we were hailed from having met one of the restorers when refilling our water tanks with assistance from a council worker as the regular riverside tap was under water.
Our long journey up river against the growing stronger floodwaters was a very special voyage with lots of sightseeing, visits to historic river towns and many wild and beautiful places.You cannot view this attachment.You cannot view this attachment.You cannot view this attachment.You cannot view this attachment.