Water everywhere as the rivers rise

It’s a wet, wet time in western NSW but so far we’ve managed to stay ahead of the flooding.

We left Adelaide by the back door, heading up the Adelaide Hills through lots of lovely little towns, including Gumeracha, where we visited the big toy factory there, and admired the gia-a-a-nt rocking

horse at its entrance. Further east we crossed the Murray River by ferry at Walker Flat, and drove north along it to Swan Reach where we then headed east to Loxton.  It was all really interesting and a lovely day, and we stopped for the day at Berri, in a caravan park right beside the mighty Murray.

The next day we explored the Renmark area, went on to Mildura and historic Wentworth and eventually stopped yet again beside the Murray, at Robinvale in Victoria. We’ve vowed to return to Robinvale and Berri as those caravan parks were delightful. Keeping the river theme, we planned to spend a night at Darlington Point, beside the Murrumbidgee, after driving east through

The mighty Murray below Swan Reach.

Balranald and Hay.

The immense Hay plains were looking as green as they could be after recent rains and we realised that the Murrumbidgee was oozing into the country outside its banks when we drove around Hay. This proved really true when we approached Darlington Point, with lots of flood water rushing under the bridge over the river. And sure enough, the water was creeping into the riverside caravan park so the road into it was closed.

So on we drove to Narrandera, with lots of water almost lapping the sides of the Sturt

Just some of the many houseboats and a paddle

steamer on the Murray at Berri.

Highway in places. The Newell Highway intersects the Sturt at Narrandera, and there had been road signs further back that it was shut because of flooding.  We’d heard on the radio this morning that Forbes on the Lachlan River was being evacuated, and obviously the water from that river will find its way into the Murrumbidgee, and then the Murray, so we calculate that we’d made our run across western NSW at the right time.

Next stop: Cootamundra, via the Junee liquorice factory, then Canberra.

The Murrumbidgee in full flow at Darlington Point.