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Published: October 3rd 2014
Crossing Murray at Barham
The old wooden draw bridge. From Dash CamTime flies when you are having fun, and it is surprising the blur in the memory of what happened where and when. Lucky we have date and time on the camera shots, and have found it useful to photograph signs at various places, both for location and spelling.
In the area around Koondrook there are a number of red gum carved statues depicting the people and history of the region. We stopped and took a couple of pics, but with the sun still quite low, found the shadows a little hard to deal with. The journey was to take us to Lake Boga, Swan Hill and then to Nyah.
The story of Lake Boga really has its origins in Broom WA, and it was there last year we saw the devastation caused by a Japanese air raid in the II World War. Broome was the base for a fleet of Catalina flying boats which had been used by the Australian Air Force to evacuate people for Rubal and parts of New Guinea as the Japanese army advanced. Up until the bombing, this had been a successful mission, but cut off in a night.
It was decided that a
new safer base for the remaining Catalinas should be built, and Lake Boga was the chosen and secret base.
The lake is well south and inland, so was thought to be a safe service point, and that proved to be true. The only original building from the base is the bomb proof underground communication bunker. Over the remaining three years of the war, the service centre not only serviced the Australian Catalinas, but also some Dutch Dormer aircraft, and American Catalinas and Empire Class flying boats.
At the end of the war, there were three brand new Catalinas ready for service, but never commissioned. They were offered up for sale, but alas, no takers were found. They were apparently chopped up for scrap metal. There are only two or three of these aircraft left in the world in flying condition. One is currently for sale for $USA 3 million.
There is some original equipment from the base on display including the Caterpillar tractor that pulled the flying boats up onto the service area and hangers. When you look at the Bunker photos, spot the inappropriate item if you can.
The other odd feature of Lake Boga
is that it is almost exactly round. We haven't found any suggestions as to why.
From Lake Boga, our Journey carried us on through Swan Hill (Victoria) and on to Nyah, also in Victoria. It can be quite confusing in this Riverina Area as to which state you are in. Several of the towns have settlements both sides of the Murray River. I mentioned Koondrook and the town of Barham is on the other side of the river. We met a lady who's children go to school, one on each side of the river. The only problem is that the school holidays do not match.
There is all sorts of history through this region. There is a dash cam photo of one of the old bridges with a lifting centre section that allowed the paddle steamers to pass. You may have noticed in the previous blog just how high above the current water level that the wharf at Echuca stands.
We stopped at the Nyah Recreational Reserve camp site for one night before leaving Adrian fishing and David wishing, while we headed through Robinvale, Euston and then to Lake Benanee.
We visited the info centre in
Wedgetail
At Koondrook Robinvale, and came out armed with maps and info PLUS some very tasty roasted Almonds - Spicy flavoured. YUM!!!
We had noticed an ever increasing level of orchard production from Nyah to Robinvale. One of the continuous orchards would have been the best part of 10ks of road frontage.
This is a very fertile area, and with irrigation, very productive. The area grows almonds, avocado, apples, vegetables and grapes. The area around Robinvale produces the scarlet table grapes for Australia. The vines are just in leaf now, and it wont be long before they get very busy. There is a caravan park just opposite one of the biggest growers with on site vans to rent. This week quiet, but not long before back packers will find work here in the vineyard.
Robinvale is also the location of a large fish breeding centre for stocking the river with Murray Cod, Silver Belly and other fish. They are centred at the Euston Weir which not only controls the river flow down stream, but has a navigation lock as well. No boats wanted to navigate the lock while we were there, but when we get to lock 11 on the
The old rail
At Koondrook river, boats pass through the lock several times a day.
The unique feature of this weir is the Fish Ladder. It has electronic sensors and records the ID of the passing fish as well as the associated date, time and water temperature. The fish might have Baa codes if a kiwi had built the ladder. Here many fish are caught and tagged and released, but move up and down stream on a regular basis.
We had lunch beside the Euston Club in a riverside park. This would have to be one of the swankiest clubs out west with great views over the river.
For the night, we back tracked a little and camped on the edge of Lake Benanee. On the 14th May, 1888, nothing happened here, and as far as we can tell, nothing since. However, there is an interesting phenomena on the lakes edge. There are many very old River Gums with massive dead outer branches but a living centre growing even higher. One would think that in a serious drought, the trees have shut down sap flow to the outer limbs to preserve the core. These trees are the ultimate widow makers with 300mm
dia branches just waiting to drop. For those more keen on true history, this lake was used by drovers bringing cattle south from Queensland to the Victorian gold fields. They would stay a while if the Murray River was in flood. It was fenced, and if you know where to look, some of the old fencing remains today.
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Mum & Dad
non-member comment
Great effort
Another enjoyable effort. Pity about the new Catalinas going to scrap heap. Tiger Moths at Rongotai went for a song like five hundred pounds. Later sold for thousands but no one had the money in those days.