One of the big exploration issues in Sydney back in the mid late 1820s was where did the western flowing rivers go? Where did the Murray, Murrumbidgee, Lachlan , Macquarie end up. It was thought that a big inland sea was the plausible answer. So a bloke called Sturt set off to see if he could resolve the issue. He wandered around a bit following the course of the Macquarie and Murrumbidgee Rivers. Amongst all the stuff you would carry with you, helped by horses, was a whale boat in pieces to assemble when needed. From what a I can currently glean Sturt and his party launched the boat in the Murrumbidgee up stream from present day Balranald. And set forth to see where it would take them!

Any of my readers who are of a similar vintage will no doubt recall during their late primary school years drawing maps and plotting the course of NSW/QLD rivers and all the European explorers. This was around the early mid 1960s. We did it for weeks in social studies! Little mention of the Wiradjuri people and their place in this landscape, how times have changed in these parts.

We are in the Balranald Van Park beside the Murrumbidgee. We were here a couple of years ago when the river was in flood, much higher up into the camp grounds.Like Sturt we are here to see where the Murrumbidgee goes. The problem is that river fronting properties prevent us from following the river further, we get a look at it at the Balranald weir but there is no closer accessible point.
The answer is to back track down the highway and go across the Murray River at Tooleybuc and travel down to Boundary Bend, a small town on the Murray River.

Just short of the town a track takes us off to the Murray/Murrumbidgee river junction. It is not far on reasonable dirt tracks to come to the junction of the rivers.

A bit of a scramble here and there makes it a fun drive. The river junction strikes one as a special spot in Australia. Our two longest rivers come together in a remote place.

Probably doesn’t look much different to when Sturt surged out of the Murrumbidgee into the Murray in his whale boat way back in 1830.

He went on to where the Murray flowed into the Southern Ocean in South Australia. And so solved the riddle of the rivers. The rivers all flowed west for sure but ended up in the Murray and then into the sea. The irony is that something like 60 (? check) million years before the rivers did flow into an inland sea, Sturt and the boys were just s bit late.

On our way back from the river junction we stopped at the Tooleybuc hotel for a late lunch, just made it. The hotel had won the best parmie award back in 2023 so Allthego had a go, not bad. Homealone checked out a steak sandwich, couldn’t quite get past the 200 g of steak and pile of chips on a big piece of sourdough. Allthego helped out by swapping some parmie for the steak.

So we have come to the end of this part of the journey and now turn back for home. For starters we are going to follow the Lachlan River upstream to its source behind Goulburn in the Southern Highlands of NSW.