Brett Hooper – January 25th to 27th, 2007

Living in North Western Victoria gives us the perfect opportunity to enjoy the Murray-Darling Rivers and their associated creeks.

A few friends and I decided to do a boat trip to explore the Wallpolla creek that runs from and to the Murray River below Wentworth. We also explored the Frenchmans creek and the mouth of the Darling Anabranch. The route of our trip is shown on the map below.

Unfortunately for this trip we didn’t know anyone with first hand knowledge of Wallpolla creek and we really need to know whether we could get our aluminum punts down the creek without too much trouble.

Jason and Nigel the organizers of this trip decided that it would be a good idea to log onto Google Earth to view satellite imagery of the creek to see if we could get through or not. The Satellite pictures showed a wide creek with plenty of open water so we thought it’d be a safe bet to get through.

We started out trip at Fort Courage located about 18kms West of Wentworth where there is a small caravan park on the Murray River and a good boat ramp.

Once we all launched our boats we headed down stream on the Murray until we came to the small creek which runs in-between the Murray river and Wallpolla creek.

This section of the trip was pretty slow going because of the narrow creek and the number of snags in the water. Maneuvering through this creek though was one of the most interesting parts of this trip and it didn’t take too long as it was a relatively short distance.

Once we made our way out of the small creek we came to the Wallpolla creek which was actually quite large and was a surprise to most of us.

Once on the Wallpolla we didn’t have to worry about snags too much in the relatively deep and open waters. As we started our trip in the afternoon we didn’t put in too many miles on the first day. We made camp around 1 hour before sunset and then went out fishing and to see if we could catch some yabbies.

On this trip I chose to take my OZTENT RV3 which packs up into a long and narrow bag. The OZTENT took up very little room in the boat as I could sit it along side me on the seats and pack other stuff under it.

The main reason I like taking the OZTENT is that it takes only 30 seconds to set up and combined with my inflatable mattress and sleeping bag it
really didn’t take up anymore room than the other boys swags.

I also had room for a foldable table and chair in the boat which made camping and cooking much easier while not taking up too much room in the boat. Another product that come in really handy for the trip was my small power pack and LED lights.

The LEDs shown in the picture draw only 0.2 of an Amp per metre, meaning that I only need a small power pack for the whole trip and did not have to worry about recharging the battery pack somehow.

The next morning we got up and had a cooked breakfast and then set off again.

I was really impressed at how wide this creek was and how little trouble we had motoring down it, we were really able to make some good distance while still having time to enjoy the trip.

Occasionally we found the odd obstacle to get around but nothing too difficult.

After quite a distance we reached a folk in the creeks, this was where Mullaroo creek branched off from Wallpolla creek. Judging by the size of each creek and the map I had it seemed better to continue to follow the Wallpolla creek.

However because of the boys checking out the whole trip before we left on Google Earth they new before hand the the Wallpolla Creek got very difficult to navigate just before it came out onto the Murray. The satellite image did show however that the Mullaroo creek gave us a good run into the Murray without too much difficult.

It just goes to show how much time good planning can save you, without the satellite images we would have continued down Wallpolla on to meet a dead end.

It was getting pretty hot by this time of day so we tied the boats together in the middle of the creek and went for a swim.

We continued on down the Mullaroo and to its mouth where the Mullaroo, Wallpolla and Murray meet just up stream of Lock 9.

We continued on down to Lock 9 to have a look and then turned back up stream to follow the Murray back to our starting point.

On our way back up the Murray we decided make our way up the Frenchman’s creek.

The Frenchman’s is very well know in the area for excellent Golden Perch fishing at the regulator further up the creek.

Once we reached the regulator we spent a few hours fishing and caught about 4 really nice Perch between us on stump jumper lures.

After having enough of the fishing we made our way back down the creek and went back out to the Murray and continued on up stream.

That afternoon was very windy and we took quite sometime finding a suitable camp spot protected from the wind.

Once we made camp we had a late lunch and then spent some more time fishing and swimming again. We actually caught some really nice Perch in this spot too.

Another really good product that I took on this trip was the EvaKool fiberglass icebox. I had Jason take it in his boat as he had more room than I did, but it did a really good job of keeping the meat and beer cold even sitting in the direct sunlight all day.

I took a little plastic Esky in my boat as well but the ice had totally melted by the end of the first day. Fiberglass is a much better material for iceboxes and it reflects the heat rather than absorbing it as plastic does.

My little cast iron fry pan also did an excellent job on this trip, it was small to carry and cooked well on the fire and on gas.

At that camp site I also went for a walk in land a little to find a back water as shown on my map. The back waters of the Murray are really beautiful and are usually teaming with birds.

The next morning most of the boys wanted to head back to the Frenchman’s to do some more fishing at the regulator. But Joe and I want to head up to the Anna branch of the Darling river just below Wentworth.

It took us a little while to get to the mouth of the Anna branch and we had a little trouble getting past its mouth as it was low and full of water plants.

Once we got past the early stages it was quite good motoring up the Anna branch and we headed up to the ten mile bridge that we had crossed in the vehicles on the way to the boat ramp.

There are actually two bridges, the new concrete one and the old wooden one. Joe knew the spot and actually showed me some old World War II plane parts that are located under the old wooden bridge from the days when Wentworth hosted a training airstrip for the Air Force.

The Anna branch was beautiful with its red banks and it was totally different to the banks for the Murray we had traveled.

We reached the first regulator in the Anna branch and had a look around on foot. Once we had done this we headed back down, back to the Murray and back to Fort Courage to meet back up with the other boys and headed home.

This was a really enjoyable trip that took only one full day a morning and an afternoon. I would highly recommend doing this river trip to anyone.