Featured In: Australian Traveller – June 2020
In 2019, travel writer, Laura Waters and her mum, Lesley, joined us for a Murray River Walk. Together they saw they saw a different side of the Murray, one that was beautiful, serene and one Laura imagines resembles a Murray of long ago.
Laura shared her story with Australian Traveller in June 2020, part of which we've shared below.
The full article can be read by clicking here.
Excerpt from Laura's Story
Combining houseboating and hiking may just be the best of both worlds. A wonderful outdoors hike with no tenting at the end of the day.
From our clifftop perch, pale blue skies and ochre dirt collide. Forty metres below, bands of gum trees push through a sea of mist to reflect in the still mirror of snaking water. It’s an Australian icon, yet I don’t recognise it. This isn’t the Murray River of waterskiers and paddle steamers, it’s a scene from another age, another time – a time, perhaps, when the Erawirung people lived here exclusively.
I’m bundled in a down jacket and beanie, taking in the view from the top of the Headings Cliffs, my toes turning numb in the sub-zero dawn air. Next to me, my 80-year-old mother’s face beams in the burnt- butter light cast by the rising sun. Vast and timeless, the land seems to act as a spirit level, emanating peace and creating a space for shared wonder.
Our second morning on the Murray River Walk is hypnotically beautiful. The day before, our wanderings had taken us over trackless bushland where emus and kangaroos watched from a distance, and winding oxbows lay scattered with pelicans, egrets and herons. We’ll walk 40 kilometres over four days and cruise 70 kilometres along a stretch of river upstream from Renmark in South Australia, close to the Victorian border.
Home is a houseboat, a modern and cosy two-tiered vessel with five cabins, lounge and rooftop spa that we share with eight other guests and three crew. My mother’s desire to connect with a quintessential piece of Australia has brought us here, on our first holiday together since I was a teenager.
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Click the button below to read the full article written by Laura Waters,
published on the Australian Traveller website (June 2020)
