Travelling through inland Australia: Day 6 Wentworth

Monday, 25 May

Happy Birthday Ollie,

Today we drove over the river to Wentworth and had a good look at this little riverside town.

Wentworth is situated at the confluence of the Murray and Darling Rivers, the fourth largest river drainage system in the world.

We drove down to the actual confluence site which is a very attractive and well-maintained park. We decided to have a lunch here at the very pleasant spot. I could not help thinking, as I munched on my ham and cheese roll and enjoyed the sublime peace and quiet of this spot, that God really knew what he was doing when he created the confluence of these two beautiful rivers.

The town fathers had the foresight to build a viewing tower in the park. From the top of the tower you get a very good view of the two rivers joining into one. When both rivers are flowing (to my overseas readers, Australian rivers do not always flow all of the time) you can see two distinct water colours in the joined stream. This is because the Murray flows over a sandy base, while the Darling flows over clay. At the moment the Darling is not flowing and so we could not see this differentiation.

We also took the opportunity to have a look at Weir and Lock 10 just below the confluence. Weirs were built across the Murray starting in the 1920's as a means of maintaining a constant river height. This had to be down so that river traffic would be able to travel at all times.

Here are today's photos.

Wentworth Gaol

Punishment Block. If you tried to escape or refused to work, you were chained up here for long periods in all weathers

Male Cell Block

Giant Goanna - ancient magafauna

Wentworth Museum - it has a very good section on the disastrous floods of 1956 when much of this area was inundated for months

Confluence of two rivers, the Darling of the left, the Murray on the right

Weir and Lock 10

A houseboat entering the lock. When the boat enters the lock the doors close, water is pumped in to raise the boat the the level of the river on the other side of the weir, the doors at the other end of the lock open and the houseboat sails out.