finatic 1 Posted July 10, 2009 Report Share Posted July 10, 2009 Took a short road trip to Blanchetown this week, promised the kids a day out in the tinny & a quick flick of the old spinnerbait.Arrived expecting the water to be slightly low & to my amazement, found the downstream ramp deep end some two metres above the water level, this was just the beginning.Found another temporary ramp further downstream & launched.Ventured cautiously toward the lock in less than five feet of water, 2 kids on board & a Jack Russell, took a couple of shots as shown & comparative to yesteryear what a disgrace. My guess, at least 2 metres lower than the long term average pool level.It gets better yet, we ventured downstream past the shacks, saw a couple in one & a family in another, not a cracker in the other 80 or so shacks & it's school holidays. I bet the region is really suffering. Found 2 deep holes @ 42 & 38 feet opposite side at the cliffs but shortly after the end shack I struggled to stay within the channel @ 8 feet & getting less rapidly. We swerved left to right trying to keep in the channel & found depths in the range of 5 - 3 feet. Ok for a tinny but not much else. Anyhow a short distance, approx 3 kms later, we ground to a halt in less than 2 feet of water. Here I was with 2 kids on board, in a tinny that draws 40cm of water, on our great river, HIGH & DRY in the middle of it, more importantly not in the middle, I was in the deepest part & it wasn't 2 feet.Off with the tweeds & shoes, manipulated the tinny back to a floating rest & contemplated what next.I slowly swerved thru a maze of recently installed foam bouys in less than 2 feet of water to arrive at a large sandbar slightly downstream of the obstruction.We sat in the middle of the Murray, on pure clean sand & ate our picnic lunch whilst I tried to explain to my kids under 4 how I used to train weekly on this stretch of river that was once water.SAD, SAD, SAD. Pics attached, you make your own mind up as to how our nation is handling water distribution.I may stand corrected, but, doesn't 40% of Adelaide's water come from Mannum??? Sorry, ain't no water going to make it down there soon & we've just had great winter rains. Whats with that.And this is what is was like.For mine.Finatic Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Softy 2,991 Posted July 10, 2009 Report Share Posted July 10, 2009 WOW that is a lot worse then i thought it was up there. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Cal 480 Posted July 10, 2009 Report Share Posted July 10, 2009 Agree with you 100% Kim,a total and complete disgrace in every sense of the word.The powers that be need to be dragged down there by their #### and nailed to the best Red Gum for a few days facing those scenes.So the image is firmly etched into their heads.....frigging stop grandstanding,get off their arses and actually DO something.Cheers Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Del 245 Posted July 10, 2009 Report Share Posted July 10, 2009 a picture really does speak a thousand words..ive been in adealide for ten yrs now.. and never really had much to do with the river.. but that certainly shows hwo bad it is getting! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
carps 1 Posted July 10, 2009 Report Share Posted July 10, 2009 finatic i dont know how to do links but if you look back through my posts i posted photos of the exact same spot you got stuck as our shack is one of the 5 there but you may be amazed to hear that the water is actually up about a foot now that entire sand bar across the river there was only ancle deep it is bull s**t they sit around talkin crap and doin nothing to help the strugling river it really is a shame .... Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Steve-Bream-Fishing 4 Posted July 10, 2009 Report Share Posted July 10, 2009 Its a bloody disgrace the state of our river the pollies aren't gunna wake up they haven't yet Penny Wong is all wong and can't get it right and Rann seems more interested in talking tough to bikies instead of fixing our river, stand up Rudd although they inherited the problem as those before them done nothing .I can remember 30yrs ago experts were saying if something is not done we will have problems with the Murray running out of water, yes 30yrs ago I can still remember it like it was yesterday and they laughed "its the Murray river" "it will never run out of water".My favorite holiday destination in the whole country reduced to this its a very sad state of affairs .Someone stand up (a Polly) and do something, not just the river but the Rong (coorong) also Quote Link to post Share on other sites
carps 1 Posted July 10, 2009 Report Share Posted July 10, 2009 we joked about 2 months ago that if the river drops another 2 feet instaed of seeing jet skis on the river we will be riding our motor bikes up and down it not really that funny when you think its already dropped a good 2 and a half metres by our measure :S wats 2 more feet Quote Link to post Share on other sites
pescados 1 Posted July 11, 2009 Report Share Posted July 11, 2009 Well that's what you get if one state depends on water which runs through other states.The other states don't give didley squad about SA as long as they get want they want.High time for the Feds to take control and tell the individual states to toe the line or else.Thanks for the pic's finatic, maybe we should all send them to Brumby and Rees and stuf up the email systems like they stuffed up the Murray Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Del 245 Posted July 11, 2009 Report Share Posted July 11, 2009 a lot of it is illegally taken, which causes a huge drain on the available water coming down the stream..so many unmetered pumps running off the river. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Steve-Bream-Fishing 4 Posted July 13, 2009 Report Share Posted July 13, 2009 I wanted to add a pic that I took at Walkers Flat while fishing with Scorpion last year to help show the plight of our river Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Softy 2,991 Posted July 13, 2009 Report Share Posted July 13, 2009 Here is a couple of pics from Walkers Flat over new years on the houseboat, you can see how low the water is, and we struggled to get the houseboat up that far because it was bottoming out. Tho out in the middle of the river there was some 20M+ sections. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Terowie 3 Posted July 14, 2009 Report Share Posted July 14, 2009 The situation is appalling, the politicians are all piss and wind, nothing will ever get done because the affected areas don't have the voting power.Rann, words cannot describe ( there are but not suitable for young ears that may read this forum )his incompetence and spin, Wong, Krudd and Garrett more of the same, Labour promise the world and deliver nothing.The other big problem is apathy the curse of modern society.It's up to Mother Nature to fix up what greed has stuffed up. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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