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.