Before we reached the starting point, we stopped for a few minutes at Moorook – just on sunrise.

We kept right on going for a further 10 minutes (make a note of that time) and arrived at our starting point for the day and started getting ourselves organized for another day on the river.

It didn’t take too long and we hit the water just before 8am with the temperature in the low 20’s again and the wind at our back – which is both a blessing and a curse!

Again, this is a section of the river I have paddled a few times now, and can only really remember a few very small details about it.  It is pretty amazing when doing a marathon, you seem to focus on catching the person in front and not so much about the journey.

Yes, can’t believe it – 5 days in a row we hae perfect conditions for being on the river and paddling.

Not long after we left I spotted another first for me

This is a Canoe tree.  A canoe tree is one where the Aborignals carved out a section of the living tree bark and turned it into a boat.  The tree keeps growing and you end up with the distinctive “canoe” on the side of the tree.

Most of today is fairly flat country – compared to the leg into Loxton, the river slowly widens and slows.

For the first part of the day, we did wander around a few gentle bends, and again, spotted the odd Kangaroo and Wallaby drinking from the river.

Just past Gerard, an Aboriginal Community that sits on the side of the river was our first sign of a hill and the oranges we have seen a fair bit of to date.  As you can see, it was still fairly still and really quite nice on the water.

After we passed 466, just before the right hand bend we take at the entrance to Pyap Lagoon we are face to face with the 7 Mile reach!  At this stage we have just paddled about 16 km from Pyap, only to end up at Pyap Lagoon!

Yeah, the river is wide, the land is predominately flat and it just seems to go on and on and on and on and on! But at least we had the wind to our back and it had picked up to around 15km/h.  Blessing as we were being pushed along, curse, because that wind was on our back and not cooling us!

About 4km into this long almost straight stretch we had a quick stop at New Residence where we could meet our land crew, before heading back off to Moorook. New Residence down to Moorook is a further 10km, and basically at the end of the 7 mile reach (give or take). We arrived back at Moorook at around 11:45am – and yes, that was just over 3 1/2 hours of paddling for what it took us to drive those 10 minutes in the morning!

In this section, being a weekend, we started to see a few more people out enjoying the river – a handful of ski boats which we had around for the rest of the day.  Didn’t have too many issues, but just had to deal with a bit of wash from them.

Back underway after lunch with the temperature now in the low to mid 30’s we had similar flat country, but now with a few bends.

When we came around a bend and I spotted the first bit of colour since we had turned into the 7 Mile Straight before lunch.  Now this is a feature that I remember, it is the cliff where we turn right at and head under the Sturt Highway at Kingston on Murray.

Interesting Trivia – In this area of the river it is over 70 feet deep – and probably the deepest part of the Murray river – well apart from the Hume dam!

We only did a further 4 km and just after we passed the 436 Marker we pulled into the Kingston on Murray boat ramp and called it a day with about 45km for the day.

Again, we made the decision to end the day here – even though Lock 3 is only 4km downstream, then the next river access is a further 6km beyond that – the drive around is about 40km and decided to call it a day.

So, after 5 days, we have now paddled in 3 States, passed thru 3 locks, passed under 3 bridges and past 1 Ferry.  We have seen quite a bit of ever-changing scenery, taken the time to enjoy the scenery of parts we have paddled already and are around 1/3 the way from our start to the sea.

Day 4, after 4 days back at work, we hit the river again today.

Like every other day, we started out from where we left off last time – and hit the water in Berri  just before 8am.  Conditions were again near perfect on the river with the temperature in the mid 20’s when we started and almost no wind.

Just after we started we passed the 526 River marker on the old ferry and then headed under the Berri Bridge.

Even though I have paddled this section of the river before during the RPM 200 I have almost no recollection of any distinguishing features of the river!  Sounds crazy, but when paddling a marathon you are in a totally different mode!

The river was flat and the early morning low angle light makes for some spectacular contrast of colours – from the water, the cliffs, the trees and even the sky.

Before we knew it, we were in lock 4 and the flow meter looked very encouraging for a bit of extra water once we passed thru..

In a few short minutes the lock-master had pulled the plug, we had dropped another 3 meters and we were on the way.

Once we passed thru the lock, I looked back and could see the water coming over the weir – very encouraging indeed!

It was very obvious within a few minutes that there indeed was a decent flow on the river which was quite welcome! We made the most of it – as this section f the river is actually quite narrow – rarely extending to 50m and often only 20m wide or less as we came to a bend.

Speaking of bends, we were going around a gentle sweeping left hand bend and spotted this tree – and it was covered in birds.  There were a few other trees around and we are still wondering why this tree?

As I said, I could not really remember anything much about this section of the river between Berri and Loxton, and it varied from the wonderful sandstone cliffs to lowland both with old and younger river gums right up to the edge.

After a quick stop at Rilli or is it Rilii or is it even Riley Island (yes, an exercise for the reader – as we had 3 different maps all with different spelling of the place name) across the river we spotted a significant (for us) 500 marker.  It was interesting that this section of the river we spotted most of the markers as we came down.

After a short lunch break in Loxton we headed back out for our next leg for the day.  I sort of remember this section of the river – a few sharp turns, some wider expanses and cliffs – but not the rally big ones.

We have to make a decision on how far we will go each day – and that is dependant on where the next accessible part of the river is for our landcrew,  We had excellent access at Pyap, just after the Katerapko Creek re-joins the Murray, just past the 482 Marker.  The lockmaster at lock 4 asked if we were taking the creek or the river – as it branches off the river about 5km from the lock and is in fact about 20km shorter!  .

As the next spot we can access the bank is New Residence, a further 20km downstream, we decided to call it a day after about 46km.

The temperature had risen to the mid-30’s, and the wind was still almost non-existent when we finished for the day.

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.