For four cold days in June 2020, a group of bushies used canoes to explore the water ways of the Eckert wide Waters just south of Berrie

There might be many lochs in Scotland, but the only one I know of in SA is Loch Luna, in the Riverland. This trip, centred on the loch, commenced in Moorook where a motley bunch of canoeists assembled in early October and headed off upstream to look for Blackfellow’s Creek. A strong tail breeze negated the flow, which was considerable and promised that the backwaters would be flooded and open. After probing around we eventually found this pleasant creek and paddled up it for several kms, before reeds closed it off.

The “Wollz” was a vernacular term coined by Paul Godfrey to shorten the “Wallpolla”, an intricate, interlacing system of waterways just upstream from Lock 9, and south of the main Murray River (downstream from Mildura/ Wentworth). There is a boatramp with sandy edges just east of the Lock, and only a short paddle to enter the maze of creeks. The first creek is the Mullroo that takes off north after a major lagoon system. This twists and winds and has various blind ending offshoots before joining the Wallpolla Ck. Trevor Moyle was the other member of the exploratory team and had spotted the waterways on a topo map.

The River Murray is the 15th longest river in the world (2,520 kilometres) and the 3rd longest navigable river – 2,224 kms from the bottom of the Hume Dam to Goolwa - but in fact a kayak or other (very) shallow vessel is capable of starting from Bigarra located between Khancoban in New South Wales and Corryong, Victoria, thereby adding some 200 kms to this figure. While still 100 kilometres from its true source, this part of the “river” is not navigable because it is little more than a stream over rocks.

A trip report of a kayaking expedition down the “Toop” - the Toupnein Creek - a centrepiece of canoeing in the Lindsay River Area, an offshoot of the Murray River.