The Mighty Murray

Australia’s greatest river system as it is and was, with many stories about the people who lived on or in the Murray Valley. Includes archaeological finds, Aboriginal legends, riverboat traders and dam engineers. A highway, a border, a lifeline, an icon. The Murray starts as a trickle in the Snowy Mountains. It travels 2500 km through plain, forest and desert before reaching the sea.The Murray has been a busy trade route, with paddle steamers plying up and down, unloading at river ports; a fishing ground for Aborigines and white Australians; a highway and home for traders and travellers, hermits and hawkers, highwaymen and holiday-makers; a source of water for nearly three million townspeople, and for orchardists and other farmers, via pipes, pumps and dams; a border between two states, a network crossing one-seventh of the continent. It’s part of our history and our heartland.Yet we take out 80 per cent of the water. For how long can we do this? What to do about the Murray is a question for all Australians.