BOURKE TO TILPA (400-450KM PADDLING)
14 days on the river
The Darling River was my first big trip on a packraft. I had no experience whatsoever, so spending 2 weeks in the middle of outback New South Wales was quite a step up. I'd cycled from Sydney to Bourke with all my stuff, so the cycling gear had to double up as pack rafting gear.
In terms of luggage I tied a pannier bag to the back and a larger rack pack bag to the front. These were then filled with camping items and enough food for a week. I had spent the previous couple of days with a local family, who were kind enough to drive me to the river. They watched me inflate the raft, put the oars together and then finally I floated away.
The trip from Bourke to Tilpa took 14 days altogether. There was a dirt road running adjacent to the river the entire time, roughly 5-10km away, so there was always somewhere to get help just in case. Most day involved 8-9 hours of paddling as the river moved so SLOWLY.
IT WAS INCREDIBLY SLOW. As you can see from the pictures there was virtually no flow in the river so it was ALOT of pushing flat water. I'd only ever done a few hours of paddling before, so by the end of the first day my shoulders ached. The first night was pretty exciting, until I realised that my MSR water filter wasn't working. I ended up just pouring the mud brown water through my towel and into a saucepan, luckily I had water tablets.
Not a vast amount changed from day to day, apart from if I came across any animals (mainly wild goats, pigs and pelicans) and when I occasionally met people. I got some strange looks from the locals; one guy shouted from the river bank “Where are you going on that thing?”, “Tilpa”, “Why?” the guy replied. A few hours after this exchange I did wonder what had possessed me to think it was a good idea.
After a week of paddling I arrived in Louth, population 103. It had a pub, with a small shop attached, a school of just 5 pupils and a teeny church! If you wanted anything else it was a 100km drive on unsealed roads to Bourke. Once it had been bigger with sheep farming, but it still felt like civilisation. I had sent a weeks supply of food to the pub, so after setting up camp on the banks I collected it.
I also had my first shower in 7 days, don't judge me, bathing in the waters of the Darling would have only added to the dirt. I met Salty (a travelling blacksmith) and Jim (who was visiting the grave of Mary Matthews, an Australian national monument). The evening was spent having dinner and drinks with them in the pub, which left me with a mild headache the next morning.
The river section from Louth to Tilpa was a lot quieter, I didn't see any people for the first 5 days. It was the closest I had felt to nature in years, one day a huge swarm of birds flew overhead and took up every space in the sky above me. Another day there was a big pod of pelicans, a terrapin sunning itself on a rock and a giant perentie lizard resting on a tree.
On the fifth day from Louth I came across a man in a canoe, Tony Pritchard. Tony was in his early 60s and in the late 1970s had drifted the entire length of the river in a canoe, from the Macquarie Marshes to the Murray mouth. He claimed that he simply filled some drums with supplies and headed off, the journey took 18 months!
Tony was a little bit mad, I think to spend 18 months drifting down a river you have to be, he didn’t even paddle! Now every year he returns with his canoe to spend a little bit of time drifting, contemplating and bird watching. We spent a nice evening camped up on a bank together, cooking and sharing stories. He had written a book called ‘Drifting down the Darling’ which he gave me a copy of.
Tony Prichard, author of 'Drifting down the Darling' and probably the only person to canoe the length of the Darling and then follow the Murray to the sea.
The end was in site now, two days later I pulled up at Tilpa, population 5. The 'town' had a couple of buildings and a PUB! This made me incredibly happy. I unloaded the packraft, carried it to the pub and rapidly enjoyed a pint. Jim and Salty arrived and after another pint they took me back to Louth. A hitchhike ride later and I was in Bourke. After 2 weeks paddling, it had taken just 2 1/2 hours in a car to be back at the beginning. I then posted all my packraft gear to Sydney and set off cycling again. This time to South Australia!
