the journey continues

On our first night on the boat we moored at Sunnyside. Early the next morning I got up and went for a walk.

This photo was taken from the bank looking back down the river. In these reeds were many tiny bright blue headed wrens and their mates - it never seems fair that the males get all the good looks. I struggled to get a photo but there are wrens in those reeds.

Birds were a feature right along the Murray River, the captain told us there are over 90 species- we saw many during the trip.

And of course there were Pelicans!

Amazingly there were Sulphur Crested Cockatoos nesting in holes in the cliffs. Not just a few but many many cockatoos.

The river passes along huge sandstone cliffs that somehow manage to change from one side of the river to the other. The other bank is often lined with Weeping Willows that were planted in the 1920's ( not sure of my facts here) to define the levy banks as the river was often wide mud flats.

The ecology of the river has altered drastically with the introduction of European Carp. These fish have no natural preditors. The carp are sucking fish so suck up the river reeds pulling them out of the mud, this decreases the oxygen in the water and removes feed and shelter for other fish. Our native fish apparently are biters and chew off the reeds but leave the roots intact in the soil.

This carp was about 2ft6 inches long - no idea what that might be in metres but a bit under one I think. When carp are caught they can't be returned to the river even if they are killed and this one survived over night in the crate with no water. The cook put it on the bbq in case we wanted to taste it - but it smelt awful and looked pulpy and I'll usually try anything different. When it was cut open they discovered about1,4000 eggs so the crew was very happy to dispose of it. Several passengers tried their hand at fishing but these fish are hard to catch, again because they suck, and it's hard to get them to take a hook.