Sunday morning saw us back at Plushs Bend and ready to go a little before 8am.

It was already hot! at about 30 Deg.

As we were setting up there was an “interesting” canoe on the bank – yep made from corrugated iron!

Even though it was hot, there was not even a breath of wind – the river was like a mirror.

and again…

It was an unbelievable in the spectacular scenery we had to contend with these sort of views for around 18km this morning. We were not only fortunate in having a mirror-like river, but as we were down from the Lock, we also had a nice bit of flow for about an hour or so that really pushed us along.

After about an hour, we pulled in for a short 5 minute break to stretch the legs and again take in the spectacular views!

At this time the sun was rising and we did not have much shade from the trees each side.

We did not see many of the river markers today, we spotted 546, and 544 – if you look carefully, you can see a couple of ducks that took off as we passed the marker.

Today, whilst it was relatively flat, was so different and yet magnificent in it’s own way.

Before we knew it we were at the Lyrup Ferry, about 22km from our starting point.

We stopped just passed the ferry and met our land crew for a 10 minute snack and a cold drink and were surprised to note that the temperature had not changed since we started – it was still about 30 C

Around the bend and we saw our only Cliffs for the day

And we were also met with a headwind of about 15km/h as we turned the corner – the first sign of any wind for the day

As we passed the end of the cliffs the wind dropped right off – we surmised that the cliffs must have been funneling the wind right along this section of the river.

It was not long until we arrived at Martin’s Bend

As we were about 10 minutes earlier than we expected, we decided to do the 2km and keep going into Berri.

We passed our last river marker for the day between Martins Bend and Berri – 528

With the Berri road bridge, in sight we kept an eye out for the boat ramp.

Yep, it was pretty obvious where we were.

With our land crew in sight we were nearly done for the day.

After another 30.5km of the Murray and a total of just over 125km for the weekend, all that was left to do was to pack up.

The last 10km from Lyrup saw the temperature rise from 30 and it was well over 40 by the time we arrived in Berri.

Now, both Brad and myself have paddled the RPM 200 twice each, and in the same boats we are paddling in.  The next 200km will not bring any real surprises in the scenery, but we will have the opportunity to stop and grab some photos of some of our favourite bits of it!

When we packed up and got into the car to head home the temperature in the car had hit 47degrees!  And on our way back into Adelaide ran into a storm and saw the temperature drop to 23 degrees – why oh why could it not have been that temperature all weekend for us!

I’ll try and find a bit of time this week to put together a bit more of a summary!

Saturday, Day 2, we arrived back at our finishing spot and got underway around 8am

The first river marker we spotted for the day was 602

After a very hot day 1 and a predicted temperature today of 41, I was not really looking forward to getting back in the boat!  Again it was already over 20deg when we kicked off.

As soon as we were underway, and I had relaxed back into it and all of the tiredeness of the first day vanished.

Again the scenery is different around every bend in the river and there were a good selection of spectacular sandstone cliffs

The first couple of hours we were treated to views like this – and in the morning with the light just hitting them

A close up of the cliffs about 1 hour into our trip today – this is a really nice cliff that runs out to the Murbko Forest Landing.

The cliff started out around 50M in height as we first saw it and over about 1.5km it gradually tapered away to the Murbko Forest Landing, which was our only stop for the day we could call in and meet our land crew.

From here on for the most part the scenery was mostly flat for the rest of the day, and after the cliffs, it was a little bit boring!  Still, every bend we passed around offered something different,

Our first paddle steamer – going up river  By late morning, it was starting to get a bit hotter, but with a nice 15km/h headwind for most of the day, it really did keep us pretty cool and we made good time.

We made it back to Renmark, and it was only a few more KM till we arrived back at the Caravan Park – and a late lunch around 1pm.

Given the weather – we expected to cop a lot of ski boats on the river, but we were fortunate and only had a few pass us and no real problems.

We had a nice leisurely lunch and a good look at the maps and decided that after the 40km we had just done, we could do a bit more. we settled on just doing a further 5 or 6 km to a spot where we could get off the water today.

Back on the water after lunch we  passed under our first bridge – and the only opening Bridge on the Murray at Paringa.

And for context, a photo from the bridge back towards the Caravan park.

Just around the corner from the bridge is Lock 5.

As we arrived a riverboat had just come thru upstream, and we were able to go right on in!

It was the same Lock operator today as yesterday, (he does Lock 5 on the weekends) and again, we dropped about 3m in pool height.

We go from a dark steel doors to the scenery opening up before you as the lock opens up.

Our final marker for the day was 560km and the GPS showed we did 46km for the day and we were off the water a little after 3pm.

I’ll put up some more maps from the GPS during the week.

A very quick update on Day 1.

We arrived at Higgins Cutting and got underway right on 9am this morning, and very soon thereafter spotted the 652km river marker.

It was pretty reasonable when we started – a steady 5-10km/h breeze and temp in the mid 20’s

Yeah, I know – finger in front of the lens!

We very shortly hit the NSW/SA Border

And on a nearby tree another sign for the border.

Not sure which one is the official sign, so grabbed a photo of both.

The next significant spot down the River is the SA/Vic Border – but it is unsignposted, but it is very obvious to identify – when you spot Border Cliffs.

After we passed Border Cliffs we stopped for a quick (well 20 minute) break at Customs House around 11am – at which point we bumped into the 6 Guys doing the whole length of the Murray – check their MurrayRiverMadness Blog

The temperature by this time was on the rise and already over 30.

The next significant point on the river is Lock 6

then inside the lock

The lockmaster said we would drop 3M to the next river level and in doing so, he dumped 4.3Million litres of water for us to traverse the lock!

You can see the high-water mark on the downstream door to the lock.

From here, our scheduled lunch stop was just 4km downstream at a public boat ramp – where we could be met.

By this time, the temperature had hit about 43 degrees! and we had done 34km for the day.

We pushed on and did a further 13km to the next place where there was river-bank access

The cliffs which signified our approach to Wilkinson’s cutting

and we turned left up a small backwater to the boatramp near the Woolshed Brewery to see the end of Day 1 on the River and 49km on the GPS.

We got off the water just before 5pm and it was still 39 degrees!

The final leg was very hot and we had a bit of an increase in the wind, which both slowed us a little and kept us bit cool.

And if you were not following our progress via the spot page…

Ill do an update during the week and put a better location to each of the photos.

Tomorrow, we are planning on doing slightly less – we will start off where we finished and all being well we will get to Plushs Bend  about 5km downstream of lock 5 at Paringa/Renmark.

I just spent a few Minutes talking with Meg on ABC Riverland about our trip – so take a look and listen.

ABC Interview

We have discussed doing a quick update each Monday as we progress down the River.

Before we get onto that, tune into ABC Regional Radio (Renmark SA) on 1062AM on Monday 29th (Feb) at around 10:30am, I will be having a talk about the trip.

A few years ago, a friend who was spending the day as land crew for another Marathon Paddler said:

Any Sport is Fun with Telemetry

Scott T

When we are out and about paddling down the Murray, both Brad any myself will be running SPOT satellite trackers.

Spot Tracker

What this means is that every 5 or 10 minutes, we will send a GPS “SPOT” to a satellite and that SPOT will appear on a web page – in near real time.  My SPOT subscription allows me to do 10 minute updates and Brad’s Subscription is configured for 5 Minute updates.

I have been using my SPOT while out on training Paddles on Westlakes and my public page can be found at Bob’s Border2Beach  The real-time data is available for 7 days.

Once we get going you can also Track Brad at his Page – Brad’s Border2Beach

As an extra, with the SPOT we can also configure real-time email alerts and that means when we are out and about, we can hit a button on the SPOT and it sends a short email to pre-configured email addresses along with a link to the page.

I have put together a mailing list – which you can subscribe to.  The list is a notification -only list – and subscribers will get an email whenever I push the OK button on my SPOT Tracker

Subscribe to the Border2Beach SPOT mailing list.

* Note, at the completion of our adventure, the mailing list will be deleted.

I will also have with me my APRS tracker and whenever there is coverage, simply check my Tracker page  for updates.  We will be running a portable Internet Gateway from the car, so we are likely to have at least some APRS coverage wherever we have Internet coverage from the cars.