Backward Down the Murray

Once home, the boat was parked in the backyard and never used. Cycling was my passion and with training, racing and running races with the Norwood Cycling Club there was very little time for other things like sailing. We had a neighbour with a beach house at Goolwa which had a large shed. With four sons and a daughter, I asked if they wanted the boat as the Murray River at Goolwa is great for boating but is regularly windy and with their family, it was more likely to be used than with ours. I gave them a quick lesson on rigging but again, the boat never saw action. After a few years, I met someone who was looking to buy a Mirror and given its lack of use, I sold it to him for the same price I paid on the condition that it get some use. And this is when rowing started. Michael had to pick a sport at school and his mother's only advice, primarily based on the training start time of 5:30am was don't choose rowing. So Michael naturally chose rowing. Given Deb worked at the same sch...

You don't just wake up one day and decide to do something like row down the Murray, the seed is planted somewhere and germinates over time. I don't spend a lot of time reading, much of what I do read is bought for me by my wife, it's generally biographical and often with a cycling theme of some other form of adventure. The Unlikely Voyage of Jack de Crow As mentioned previously, this book was the primary influence for such a voyage. And to answer the question I asked myself, where could you do that sort of thing in Australia?, the Murray River is the first place that came to mind. Whilst I owned a Mirror Dinghy at the time, with a narrow river, trees overhanging and many bends in every direction  sailing down the Murray isn't a realistic option. Many people have kayaked and canoed and in the past many would have rowed prior to the uptake of kayaks but in recent times, there are very few who have rowed its length. Ian and Beverley Dodd In March 2002 my uncle Ian and his ...

So the desire to travel down the Murray is there, the next question, what to do it in? As I didn't own a boat anymore, it meant that the options were open. Sailing something like a Mirror dinghy would be too much of a compromise, rowing without a sliding seat would be a laborious exercise, y ou could fit a sliding seat unit into a Mirror but the position of the dagger board would mean you were up high and with a reasonably wide boat in rowing terms, leverage would be reduced. Sailing comes with the need to constantly tack and there's plenty of trees to catch a sail. Maybe possible in the South Australian section of the Murray but forget it further up. Not an option. A motor boat such as a tinnie would be a good option if you could ensure a reliable supply of fuel. Either petrol or electric are possible options. The immediate downside is boat weight, at night it will never be far from the water and porting a tinnie isn't an easy thing. It doesn't take much research to w...