Day 5

Today was a big day with long driving distance of more than 500 km, while it’s also an interesting day.

At 7:00 am, we departed from Swan Hill for Waikerie. On the way, it’s often to see groups of sheep and occasionally several emus running through grasslands, which was actually exciting and amazing. The only pity is that we cannot find wild kangaroos. There are different landscapes along the road. Some are large areas of orange orchards, vineyards and wheat crops, and some are lean lands because of water shortage and salinity.

Orange Orchards

Land affected by salinity


We had breakfast at Mildura, a small town. It is a flourishing town indicating the crucial importance of water, by comparison with the salinity and other desolation. Water creates life, economy and a healthy environment for this small town.

Breakfast in Mildura

After breakfast, we arrived at Wentworth to see the confluence of Australia’s two greatest rivers, The Murray and Darling Rivers, which stretch 2530km and 3750km respectively and joints each other here. There are a total of 13 locks and weirs along the Murray River. We visited Lock and Weir No. 10. From the water ruler in the photo, we can see the historical record of flood levels. The inundation occurred in 1974, which is the largest flood in recent years.

River confluence

Lock 10

From the background information, we know that wetlands are one of the important environments in the MDB. Some of the water that would have been consumed by wetlands and the floodplain under natural conditions is now consumed by irrigation or is evaporated from reservoirs. The current situation provides 6970 GL/year for wetlands and the floodplain, which is a reduction from 10960 GL/year under average rainfall conditions. From Mildura, we then visited the McCormack Centre, with its artificial wetland. The centre was established by, donations from an American organization, and its major function is to provide environmental education and awareness.

McCormack Centre

Next stop was the vineyards of Banrock Station, to view their natural wetland and vineyard operations. The wetland at Banrock Station is a RAMSAR listed wetland, and until very recently was completely dry. Banrock Station recently purchased 600 ML of Murray River water and released it to the wetlands, with an additional 200 ML provided by the government. These small releases to the wetland will last till November 2008.

Banrock Vineyards


It’s really interesting to visit Liz Frankel’s house as the last activity today. Liz is an artist, environmentalist and children’s author, whose house is built on the river from recycled material. Both Liz and her husband are artists devoted to art production for environmental awareness. Liz gave us a lovely children’s story book she had written. It’s worthy to mention that they seldom use air conditioners and are planning to utilize the solar energy for electricity in the future. Finally, Yang Libin and Steve gave presentations about the Yellow River and the Murray-Darling Basin Trip respectively. Liz and her family were all interested in those.

Liz’s House

When we left Liz’s house, it was almost 7:00 pm. Although it was a busy and long day, we are all happy with that. Tomorrow is another day, and we are looking forward to the new trip.

By Fan Jie & Shuangyan Jin