I last photographed along the Murray River in 2019 when I explored the area around Lake Bonney, Barmera and the Overland Corner in South Australia. This was just after I’d camped at Wentworth and photographed the lower Darling River up to Pooncarie. That was during the drought and I never made it to the Menindee Lakes.
I had intended to return to Lake Bonney with a large format camera, then the Covid-19 pandemic happened. I haven’t returned to the river since. It is time I did so, though the northern part of the Murray-Darling Basin is too far.
I’ve started reading about the river though. Doing some research.
Currently I’m eading Margaret Simons’ quarterly essay Cry Me a River, which was written in 2020 and based on her road trip throughout the Murray-Darling Basin circa 2019.
Her text is about the water politics in the Murray-Darling Basin and she describes the southern Basin as a tightly controlled plumbed landscape. Her judgment in 2020 was that the river system is at a breaking point. It could die. It sure looked that way to me in 2019 when I was photographing around the Lower Darling. It was the historical over allocation of extractions for the sake of economic development that was the central problem, which was made worse by the drought.
Nourishing Terrains 
Leave a comment