The mouth of the Murray River cuts a peninsula of sandy and treeless land just a few hundred metres wide in two. The looming Southern Ocean makes the elongated banks of sand look as fragile as the shallow flow of river water.
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The ocean is moody, sometimes volatile and regularly hurls beach loads of sand to block the comparatively powerless river's escape. But today the ocean is calm and we will get close to the Murray's mouth, to a great Australian geographic mark.
Goolwa is the closest town to the Murray's mouth. The riverside town is around just 80km southeast of Adelaide.
Without your own boat the most accessible way to cruise along the Murray's final kilometres might be on the Spirit of the Coorong, a small cruise boat which my daughter and I have taken passage on. There are 45 other passengers on board this six-hour, 70km round-trip cruise from Goolwa's historic wharf.
Skipper Matt Irvine and first mate Dave Bowden will not only get us close to the Murray's mouth but also take us into the Coorong National Park. The park is all water, a wetland of international significance. Birds and twitchers come from all over the world to the Coorong.
The Murray's mouth is about 10 kilometres from Goolwa but to get to it we have to pass through one of four barrages (essentially, long concrete retaining walls) built in the 1930s to keep the salty ocean water from mixing with the river's freshwater. As we exit the lock within the barrage, seals are lounging on timbers warming themselves in the morning sun.
Further upriver two barges are at work dredging and removing sand the ocean ships in on an incoming tide. The river's not running fast enough to flush the sand back out to sea without help.
There are beaches of sand hereabouts. They're often shifted by tides and brutal seas. The current mouth of the river is roughly some two kilometres north-west from where it was when Captain Charles Sturt, its European discoverer, found it in 1830.
As Matt gets us within a few hundred metres of the ocean the Murray's renowned and distinctive brown colour mixes with the sea's blue. The combination is subtle, almost unremarkable, yet has an extraordinary beauty, one that is based partly on the Murray's tale of survival.
The Murray River rambles through three states for some 2530 kilometres from its source in the Kosciuszko National Park to the Southern Ocean. Just an estimated 15 per cent of the water flows to the mouth, the rest is used for irrigation and other water uses and provides food for many of us. The decade-long drought, which ended in 2010, marked the most recent of the river's near-death experiences.
Our skipper provides detailed commentary on chapters of the Murray's life as well as steering the boat through unthreatening, white-capped shallow waters. But stories of the Murray are not the only ones told on this cruise.
The tale of John Francis Peggotty may be as extraordinary as the Murray's fight for survival. According to Matt, Peggotty was a bushranger, a small one, the size of a jockey perhaps.
Peggotty spent time in Africa, became a little familiar with ostriches and on his return to this part of South Australia discovered the birds were being farmed hereabouts. According to the tale, Peggotty took ownership of some "wild" ostriches and began to ride them, quite fast for a while.
Matt tells us Peggotty held up coaches, then fled with the loot on bird back – until he was fatally shot and took the secrets of where he hid his cache with him.
At Meningie, a small town on the Coorong's Lake Albert, there is a statue of an ostrich with a plaque briefly recounting Peggotty's lawless and fantastically flightless tale. I'm still not sure whether this is a great Australian story yet to be widely learnt or a lore created by someone who, while writing their version of history, simultaneously works as an author (fiction perhaps).
Earlier, Dave has passed out an information sheet on which the names of 177 birds found within the Coorong are listed. The area is recognised under the international Ramsar Convention (a treaty negotiated to protect wetland habitat for waterbirds in the Iranian city of Ramsar in 1971).
When we cruise into the Coorong proper, ostriches are not one of the birds Matt calls our attention to. The Hoary-Headed Grebe, the Australian Pratincole and Latham's Snipe are just three of the birds on our fact sheet who rest, sun bake, and search for food on the numerous sand bars.
Pelicans are almost ubiquitous, even more common than fishers chasing the prized mullaway. The 1976 Australian movie Storm Boy, featuring Mr Percival (a pelican), was based around the Coorong.
Dave, our first mate, is a part-Ngarrindjeri man. The Ngarrindjeri are the region's original inhabitants and Coorong is reportedly a corruption of their words that may mean "long neck". It describes the narrow lagoon like waters of the Coorong.
With Dave leading the way we leave the boat (Matt steers the bow up onto the shore and we step off the steps at the bow onto dry land) for the first time near Barkers Knoll and walk towards the ocean. Dave shows us a little of the local foods the Ngarrindjeri harvested including native currents and an apple berry (a rather efficient laxative when eaten at the wrong time of the year).
On the beach that stretches some 150 kilometres south-east to Kingston, Dave digs up cockles from the wet sand. Soon after, as an entree to lunch, Dave and Matt cook up Dave's catch back near the boat. They saute onions, add garlic, then the cockles and white wine to the pan and then serve them up to their passengers. Cockles are commercially harvested from the beach for good reason. The simple meal is delicious according to my daughter, Milla.
Dave shares his first name with perhaps the most well-known Ngarrindjeri man. David Unaipon was an author, poet and inventor. He lodged some 10 patents and produced a sheep-shearing handpiece. The fella is pictured on our $50 notes.
Some of the largest sand dunes along this coast have a Saharan countenance, yet there is abundant fresh water here.
When it rains the water filters through the sand but doesn't penetrate into the salty water table under the dunes. The freshwater sits atop the saltwater.
Near to the most easterly point of the cruise Matt again pulls up to a shore. We walk up a dune, past a site of Ngarrindjeri burials, places where pulgis (humpy like homes) were built, and a sprawling midden of sun-bleached cockle shells, to a point where, to the south, the ocean again opens before us, and to the north are views of a dozen islands (Hindmarsh Island is the largest) and the 580 kilometre square Lake Alexandrina.
Rather than soak in the surrounds, Matt digs for water. After a sweatless dig some 600mm into the dune he strikes water, fills a glass and passes it around. Some of us drink what Matt describes as perched water.
The water is potable, despite the layer of sand in the glass, because it perches atop the salt water. Due to the plentiful water and tucker the Ngarrindjeri were far less nomadic than many other Indigenous mobs.
Our return to Goolwa closely charts the way we have come. Back near the mouth of the Murray, Matt pulls in close to a yacht whose skipper is attempting to sneak along the shallow waters.
Matt has just steered us through a section that in places is barely 800mm deep. He lets the yachty know the water is too shallow for his boat but the advice is ignored. Boats regularly run aground here.
"Some people come for a day and end up staying a week," says Matt with a smile.
TRIP NOTES
MORE INFORMATION
GETTING THERE
All major domestic airlines operate frequent flights between Sydney and Melbourne and Adelaide.
STAYING THERE
The Australasian Circa 1858, 1 Porter Street, Goolwa, near the Goolwa Wharf is an award-winning small luxury hotel with chef-prepared breakfasts delivered to your room. Rooms from $395 per couple per night. Phone (08) 8555 1088; see australasian1858.com
CRUISING THERE
The six-hour Spirit of the Coorong Adventure cruise departs every Sunday at 10am and Wednesdays from October to May. Adults $110, children $76, including lunch and afternoon tea.
DINING THERE
Bombora@Goolwa Beach Cafe is at Goolwa Beach and is open Friday to Monday from 8am to 5pm and every day during school holidays. Phone (08) 8555 5396; see bomboragoolwa.com. There are other cafes and restaurants on the Goolwa wharf near where the Spirit of the Coorong departs.
Greg Clarke travelled at his own expense.
