Sweet Wayfaring

That man at the Temora aviation museum told us about the Catalina museum at Lake Boga near Swan Hill. I had to go see it because my Dad was an engineer on Catalina's during the war. We were disappointed to find the museum closed for renovations (Government stimulus spending at work) but they let us in anyway to see the aircraft. Catalina's are flying boats. I checked my Dad's Flight Log Book and while he did over 3,000 hours in Catalinas there were just a few hours in the A24-30. As it is today Lake Boga would not a be a lot of use for Flying Boats! But at least they could land on dry land so not as useless as the Yacht Club, Sea Scouts and other aquatic activities I saw a signposted at the Lake.

I had been bleating on all the way about the water wastage. I wondered why they only had Stage 1 water restrictions in place. I groaned when I saw signs saying "Irrigation Water in Use" which seemed to mean it is was OK to spurt water all over the place during the hottest time of day. But when we got to the caravan park at Swan Hill I insisted in a green grassy spot beside the river ... I'd had enough of the dirt patch we had in Mildura.

We were coming back into the vineyard country but here was a different crop ... the sign said cricket bat willows. Cricket is a particularly British sport which is very popular as a summer sport in Australia but I'm not a fan. I'd rather do lunch ... which was very welcome for a cool spot to rest when we reached Swan Hill.

What you are looking at here is salt. European style farming is putting our country out of wack. Here's the story behind salinity. "Ground water recharge is the amount of water being added to the ground water. If this is higher than discharge, which is the amount of water lost from the ground water, then the water table rises. As it does, the water dissolves salt held in the soil profile, and the salt becomes more and more concentrated as the water moves upwards. If the salty water keeps rising, it eventually reaches the surface and subsurface layers of the soil. The water evaporates, leaving the salt behind." There are two sorts of dry land salinity ... one caused by irrigation (adding too much water), the other caused by excess tree clearing (not enough to use the ground water up). Around the Murray tonnes and tonnes or salt are leaching into the the river every day. A recent Basin Salinity Management Strategy is keeping 17,500 tonnes of salt from entering the Murray an...

We're on our way back home (only 1000 kms to go), following the Murray towards it's source. The Murray River forms the boundary between the states of New South Wales and Victoria. Mildura is on the Victorian side of the border. Leaving Mildura we took a short detour south into Victoria's Mallee country before swinging back up to the river at Swan Hill. Mallee describes the growth habit of the eucalypts endemic to the area which have multiple stems rather than a single trunk and don't grow very high. Soldier Settler blocks were allocated in this area after the world wars ... a scheme to provide returned soldiers with occupation as well as developing rural areas. The settlers struggled -- no farming know-how, lack of capital for development, blocks too small, agricultural product prices low. If it was me I wouldn't have a clue where to start in this hot dry land.

We're hitting the dirt today going north of Mildura to Mungo National Park. Mildura is the centre of another huge irrigation area. Even more vineyards and orchards than around Griffith. The blub says "The district supplies 80% of Australia's dried fruit, 15% of its citrus fruit, 85 per cent of the state's [Victoria's] winemaking grapes and it possesses the second and third largest packing companies in the world." And the good news is the Wimmera Mallee Pipeline water-saving project nearing completion. The $688 million project has been building almost 9,000 kilometres of reticulated pipeline to replace 17,800 kilometres of inefficient open channels, saving around 100 billion litres of water a year. Beyond the irrigation zone the land is pretty desolate again, but it's actually quite green in a strange arid-country way.

We got our first look at the great Murray River at Euston and camped beside it at Mildura ... but as we plan our return trip to be along the Murray I'll save showing you the river proper until then. We've got our trip to Mungo National Park and another river to see first. We start out that way tomorrow.