Observations of a River

After visiting friends in Waikerie we headed off to explore further down the Murray River, or, The River Murray as they call it in South Australia. We found a delightful camp spot right on the banks of the river at Swan Reach. After setting up camp and sitting by the river with a cuppa we remarked to each other that even though we had seen dozens if not hundreds of boats during our journey along the river, we had not seen much boating activity, with most just moored to the banks. Well, no sooner than we had made this remark the river seemed to come alive with activity. For the next two hours we were constantly entertained by the passing traffic of all kinds. From small tinnies to cruise boats and paddle wheelers, and a number of rented houseboats. The rented houseboats varied in size from pretty big to bloody enormous. We were sitting there wondering how much it would cost to hire one of the large ones, when up the river came one such boat (pictured in the foreground below) and attempted to moor to the bank opposite.

The approach seemed to be a little fast requiring some serious reverse revving of the engines. Although it did not contact the bank too hard the skipper then selected forward gear with the wheel turned hard to port and gave the engines plenty of revs. This caused the boat to slew violently sideways and the tall superstructure crashed heavily into the upper branches of the very large gum tree you can see behind the boat. What can't be seen in the above picture is a large rope swing attached to the tree which only moments before was being used by a group from the other boat seen on the right. There was much loud screaming and the crashing of falling branches but eventually they managed to straighten the boat up and get it tied to the bank. Thankfully it seemed that no-one was hurt and so those on board began to assess the damage. Even though the houseboat was littered with broken branches there seemed to be little damage except to the fancy new rented ski boat lashed along side. A very large branch crashed right down into it totally destroying the canopy and almost causing it to sink. The branch required the strength of several men to lift it out of the boat and this, along with the rest of the debris was simply thrown into the river. The group on board seemed to be an extended family and judging by their general demeanor seemed the type that had more money than sense. This was later confirmed when they began to use the high powered ski boat to do high speed violent manoeuvres in the river in an attempt to dislodge the rider of a ski tube being towed behind. Later that night they held a disco party on board using the boat's very powerful music system and lots of flashing lights. This very noisy music blasted until very late much to the annoyance of all of us camped opposite. By the way the houseboat moored next door, that had been there first, could not take these antics and shifted several hundred metres downstream.