Drinking Water
Treatment guide and known town supply sources along the river
Past Murray River Expeditions
The song of the river ends not at her banks, but in the hearts of those who have loved her.
An honourable mention to others that have made the trip before me.
Upper Murray: Poplars to Bringenbrong
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26 to 29 Jan 1988
Kevin Moody, Lou Sommer, Mike Grant, Kate, Kent & Bill
Lilos to Tom Groggin, later coming back with a commercial raft guide through the gorge and 2HP motorised raft to Bringenbrong Bridge.
Archived webpage -
late 2001
James Castrission, Justin Jones and Andrew Crawley
They stated that they were to pick up their kayaks 40 km downstream. From the source, it's 20 km to the Poplars and 60 km to Tom Groggin, so I am uncertain where the guys started from. Starting the river section on 10 Nov 2001, they experienced high flows and cold frigid conditions. All of their gear got drenched and they were dangerously hypothermic. They are accredited with the first kayak traverse of the Murray River from the upper Murray River.
Book: Crossing the Ditch -
6 to 12 Jan 2010
Rod Wellington (solo)
Kayak, SOAR S12 inflatable canoe (23 kg). Hiked from Mt Kosciuszko to the source, before trekking tracks down to the Poplars. Kayaking down to Tom Groggin and limited details regarding the gorge section. Hints that he came back to traverse the source to Poplars section of the river on foot.
Archived Blog -
24 to 31 March 2013
Karen Cody, Bob and Mike Bremers
Epic 8 day trek, partially within the river and partially on surrounding tracks.
Wild Magazine Article
Blog -
14 & 15 Dec 2017
Mike Bremers, Richard Swain, Kristian Cargill, Sarah Davis & Matty Hunter
Inflatable kayaks. Two days from the Poplars to Tom Groggin, three more days for Bringenbrong Bridge.
Blog -
Nov / Dec 2019
Xavier Anderson and Jason MacQueen
Source to sea journey as part of the Health of the River Murray project. They walk in with packrafts through snow along the Cascade Trail, and the AAWT / Limestone Ck track to the Poplars (?) before pack rafting down to Tom Groggin and ticking off the gorge soon after.
Blog
Instagram -
20 Dec 2019 to ?
Sarah Davis & friends
Unbeknown to each other, our journey nearly intersected on at least two occasions, missing each other by a matter of days, if not hours!
Sarah's source to sea journey started with Mike Bremers, Richard Swain, Chris Cahill to hike from the source down to the Poplars. Unlike me, she used her brains and she decided to delay the leg from the Poplar to the Bringenbrong Bridge when there are higher flows sometime in autumn through spring 2020!
Facebook
Website -
21 to 25 Dec 2019
Alan Davison (solo)
Inflatable kayak, 1 person Sevylor Rio (11 kg). After a gear drop was hiked in by myself via the Cascade Trail, I parked the car at Tom Groggin, hitched to the Cascade Trailhead and walked (3 days) / kayaked (6 days) the Rio all the way to Bringenbrong Bridge and hitched back to the campground. Poplars to Tom Groggin took 3.5 long days, two long days (20 hrs total) down the gorge and flats to the Bridge.
Lower Murray: Bringenbrong to Sea
These will be too numerous to mention and I've only added a select few that were also known to have done the first leg as well plus a couple of the fastest known journeys. I was the 400th person that had registered their trip with the Inland Rivers National Marathon Register and their records likely miss many paddlers.
The Bremers Murray-Darling Journeys book covers many rowing and paddling journeys on the rivers of the Murray-Darling Basin from 1817 to 2016, and the Inland Rivers National Marathon Register details many others.
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21 Oct to 7 Nov 1992
Michael Allford
17 days, 20 hours from Bringenbrong to Goolwa. He had a great flow of around 50,000 ML/day at the SA border but he was about a month early for the peak flood waters seen 1992.
IRNMR Facebook -
28 Oct to 13 Nov, 1993
David Armytage
The fastest known trip is 16 days, 6 hours and 58 minutes from Bringenbrong to Goolwa. This is just a tad over 140 km per day and represents a very remarkable effort!
Flow above the Hume was around 10,000 ML/day, 30,000 ML/day below, 55,000 ML/day at Torrumbarry and a staggering 100,000 ML/day at the SA border! This was the last recorded major flood on the Murray River at the time of writing.
IRNMR Facebook -
12 Oct and Dec 2009
Dave Cornthwaite (solo)
While Dave only paddled from Bringenbrong Bridge (sea kayak), he hiked to the source via the Cascade trail and published a fairly complete travel vlog of his trip that is worth a watch.
YouTube VBlog -
16 Jan to March 25 2010
Rod Wellington (solo)
Switched to a Dagger Halifax 17.0 sea kayak and made his way successfully to the sea in 69 days.
Archived Blog -
16 Dec 2017 to March 2018
Matty Hunter (solo)
Completed his journey started with Mike Bremers, et al.
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11 Dec 2019 to Feb 2020
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29 Dec 2019 to Feb 2020
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13 Dec 2020 to 20 Jan 2021
Alan Davison (solo)
The Mirage 580 was ready to go... but ended up taking the much slower plastic Prijon Kodiak.
37 days paddling and two rest days (39 days).
