With heavy rains in New South Wales and Victoria making it difficult to forecast the extent of high-water levels in the Murray River, it seems some travellers are – understandably – being pretty cautious about planning to visit.
In the South Australian town of Loxton, the ABC reports that about 150 camping spaces and 15 cabins at the town’s caravan park were inundated when the river flooded part of the site.
Manager Sam Obst said his team was busy trying to open up more camping spots on dry pieces of land.
“We opened our gates to our floodplain which is coming directly from the Murray, which is what is causing the issue at the moment,” Mr Obst told ABC Radio Adelaide. “We had to do that because the ground water comes out the ground and that’s due to the high river at the moment, so it was inevitable we’d have to open the gates.”
Water levels are high on the Murray River in South Australia. PIC: Clarko1959 / Pixabay
He said the high river was ‘scaring’ some tourists, but he was determined to keep operating however possible over the warmer months.
“We’ve had many phone calls over the past couple of weeks in regards to how the river is affecting us, which means we’re going to have a large shortage of sites for the next few months,” he told the ABC. “Not only is it the high river, but also the rehabilitation that comes after that’s going to cause problems.”
River Murray flows over the South Australian border are currently sitting at 79,000ML a day and SA State Emergency Service incident controller, Stephanie Zakrzewski, said flows were likely to be greater than 90,000ML per day after November.
“We’re very mindful that the rain that is interstate is adding to the water levels that are coming downstream, so we’re asking people to be mindful of those rising river levels and to be aware that it’s likely they’ll continue to rise,” she told the ABC. “Trying to forecast further in advance while that rainfall keeps occurring does make it a little bit harder to provide any longer-term forecasting.”
Water typically takes four-to-six weeks to reach South Australia from the northern parts of the basin.
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Sitting @ Martins Bend for the past 3 nights, just extended for another 2. River is high, but a fair bit to go before becoming troublesome. The forecasted storms appear to have gone North and bypassed here.
A good spot to camp in Martins Bend
I will give it a miss this year, we usually go to Cobram, and stay three week’s, so, we will wait and see for next year.
With lots of deep mud, mosquito born diseases like Ross River Fever & Japanese Encephelitis prevalent I think we’ll give it a miss.