We stopped here en route from Mildura on our way home. A delightful winter's day once the frost melted & we enjoyed a hot cuppa and took a break in this delightful little river town. This photo shows moorings for river boats, though not many were moored the day we called in. Note the beautiful blue sky in these Renmark photos! Today (Tuesday June 19) we have a blue sky just like this, but the wind has a chill straight off the south pole!

***Hamilton Hume and William Hovell were the first white men to travel its banks in 1824, but it was Captain Charles Sturt who named the “broad and noble” waterway the “Murray River”.

The Murray quickly became a crucial communication and transport link for Australia. River ports sprung up to service the trade and passenger traffic that travelled its length. In the 1880s, at the height of the river trade, several hundred paddle-steamers and many more barges were operating on the river.

But the journey could be fraught with danger: the mighty riverboats could be rendered powerless when the river dried up into a series of ponds, or when it flooded and made the charts useless.