It ticked all our boxes: an indulgent few days on a luxury Murray River houseboat, with guided walks each day over sections of the cliffs and floodplain, restaurant-quality meals and a comfortable bed. We found ourselves a generation removed from the other seven guests (and two generations from the two guides and the boat manager) but we folded easily into a convivial group.
The Murray floodplain north of Renmark offers a surprising wealth of interest. Our guides opened our eyes to the vegetation and fragile ecology of the Murray River basin, as each day we walked through an ever-changing lacework of wetlands. Floods upstream meant the river level was high, each day flooding more of the plain so our guides needed to adjust their walking routes to avoid new wetlands, with varying success. The first time we came to a floodway barring our track there was some merriment as boots and socks came off and the group waded through barefoot. Repeat performances caused less merriment.
First Nations people have left their mark: shell middens and canoe trees are frequent. At one canoe tree we stopped and a guide recreated a scene of a family group making a canoe. The work would involve everybody over the better part of a week. The men would carefully mark, then cut out a slab of bark with hand stone tools. To general jubilation, the thick layer of bark would be prized free and carried to the fire the women had tended. There it would be moulded and dried until it assumed the shape of a canoe and its ends could be sealed. It was a communal project; today only a tree-scar reminds us of a community ritual now lost.
Spectacular red cliffs, a long-dry floodplain awakening to new life, a connection First Nations… It was a memorable few days.
Burnside Writers Group 