Some Time by the Murray River

I have enjoyed spending the last couple of weeks living on a bank of the Murray River just upstream of Barham.

The bird life is especially amazing with wood ducks in the river, white ibis, sulphur-crested cockatoos and galahs on the lawn, superb blue wrens in the bush outside my office window, swift parrots in the red gums and very black ravens drinking out of the bird bath.

I saw a lot of black swans when I visited the salt evaporation ponds at Wakool. I saw a shag in the Gunbower Forest. There were two pelicans at the Toorrumbarry Weir.

Just downstream of the Toorumbarry Weir, November 6, 2007

I have started most days with a large glass of Murray River water and on the best days finish with a swim in the river.

While many of the forests, tributaries and anabranches in this Murray Valley section of the long Murray River are suffering from a lack of water, the river itself is running strongly with releases from Hume Dam at the top of the system destined for South Australia at the other end.

Anyway, tomorrow morning I’m off to Sydney.

Thanks Faye and Ken for your hospitality! And Daryl, I took photographs at Riverdale this morning which I will post at this blog in the next week or two with comment from the MDBC report.