Paddling Down the Darling

By Tony Pritchard

If you go back to a place laden with its fond memories it can be disastrous or it can be marvellous. In the 1970s I had drifted down the Darling River in western New South Wales. An eighteen month trip in a ten-foot boat with no motor. I had adventure, found love, and experienced a personal awakening (sometimes referred to as a breakdown). Then in 2010 I returned to the Darling. I paddled a fifteen foot canoe from Menindee to Wentworth and just in case I missed something, I did the same trip in 2012 and in 2013. All three trips went beyond marvellous. In 2010 the river was low and I relived memories, created new ones and made a life-changing decision. I decided to retire from teaching and write a book about the seventies trip. And as well as the adventures and the solitude, even though they were tempered by deep melancholy, I went searching. I wanted to find God and I thought I had done so. But there were still questions of doubt. In 2011, South-east Australia was pretty much under water and I rode the flood down the Darling. But there were dangers; not particularly from brown swirling water, wild pigs or snakes, but from ants. Camp sites were only available on the outside bends and bulldog ants were in charge. And they weren’t happy to share. Give me aggressive pigs and snakes any day. I also changed my view on the God I thought I had found. The moments of divine ecstasy came without a reference to a religion and these changed into a deeper spiritual feeling. I couldn’t stay away and in 2012 I paddled the same section of the river. Even though the canoe could find its own way along the Darling, each bend brought a new experience. It was a trip of characters, birds and of water-rats. And it was also a trip of letting go and accepting life as it unfolded. This brought the feeling of the 1970s Darling, (albeit then a quieter slower paced era), into today’s fast-paced world, into today’s digital and ever-shrinking world, because spirituality and meaning, although personal, can be found anywhere. Maybe I should plan another canoe trip down the Darling just to be sure?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tellwell Talent
• Release date: Mar 7, 2017
• ISBN: 9781925595390

Tony Pritchard

Tony Pritchard was born in Dubbo, New South Wales, in 1952. He has travelled extensively and rates the Darling River as the best place in the world. He currently lives in a shed in Brisbane and is sometimes home to feed the chooks, water the chokoes and to make more lists. His wife loves him.

Book preview

PADDLING

down the

DARLING

Tony Pritchard

This is an IndieMosh book

brought to you by MoshPit Publishing

an imprint of Mosher’s Business Support Pty Ltd

PO BOX 147

Hazelbrook NSW 2779

http://www.indiemosh.com.au/

Copyright 2017 © Tony Pritchard

All rights reserved

Cover design by Peter Harris

Licence Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favourite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the author and publisher.

This story is entirely a work of fiction. No character in this story is taken from real life. Any resemblance to any person or persons living or dead is accidental and unintentional. The author, their agents and publishers cannot be held responsible for any claim otherwise and take no responsibility for any such coincidence.

The book before this one is called

Drifting down the Darling

In 1976, I drifted over a thousand miles down the Darling River in western New South Wales in a ten-foot boat. I had no motor or oars, and the trip took around eighteen months. I went fishing and birdwatching, I stopped at towns, did a bit of station work, met some of Australia’s finest people and all the while looked for adventure and answers to life’s question about where I belonged.

This journey, including its adventures, its love story and its attempted unravelling of a quest is told in Drifting down the Darling, published in 2015. It’s a slightly crazy recount, and one that is perhaps still unfinished.

Here are some comments on Drifting down the Darling that are all true.

Your writing has many layers which provide the reader with not only prosaic descriptions of your physical journey, but equally important a vision into your personal world. This honest flow of memories and emotions and how you blend it with your journey is really quite magical. Simple parts of your story take on larger meanings, like your description of laying flat on your boat as you glided under a low bridge. Lonely, adrift and unsure…you put me in that scene. Probably most of us.

Thomas Harty, Buffalo.

I met Thomas on kibbutz Ginosar not long before I went down the river (about a year I think it was). It’s like, if I saw him tomorrow (which would be approximately 40 years since the last time,) the conversation would carry on from where we left off. There we’d be having a beer and Thomas would say, ‘So Aussie, why did you think for a minute we could climb Mt Arbel?’

I found Drifting down the Darling an intriguing insight into the mind of a lost soul as he sought the meaning and purpose of not only his life but life in general. In choosing the solitude and peace of the magnificent Darling River, Tony meets with the generosity and honesty of real Aussies in the outback. A brutally honest interpretation of life as Tony drifts from the present, to past demons, as he openly seeks his purpose in being. A great read especially if one enjoys the humour and playfulness of the genuine Aussie.

Robert Shanks, Dubbo.

Robert and I played rugby league for Dubbo Macquarie. He was really speedy and did all my tackling. Thank you Robert.

After much consideration & conflicting advice from family, friends & complete strangers on the street, I have enclosed a review of Drifting Down the Darling. Also my shrink said by speaking of & getting it out in the open I should recover from the unfortunate experience of meeting you.

I thought my mind was warped, but you are completely insane mate. From that fatal error of dining with you at the Port of Bourke Hotel, attending your book launch, then finding out you’re from West Dubbo & went to South Dubbo High, I feel the Gods have dealt me a rather savage blow. Praise the Lord I was unaware of all this while on the Poets Trek, otherwise I may have had an inclination to swan dive off the top of Mt. Oxley. The only saving grace being that I was younger & so evaded a fateful meeting with you. By the time I had moved to Dubbo you had not only left town but also the country itself. Mental anguish for decades was delayed but in the end there was no avoiding you. You paddled down the Darling and had adventures and I was flung headlong into your book, all the time drifting in & out of the real world & sanity for that matter. I’m now being bombarded with your demented texts & emails. Is there no escape? At times I find myself waking from a stupor in the foetal position while dribbling & muttering incoherently. You’re probably lucky our family didn’t reside by the river in your travels, as if you would’ve glanced sideways at one of my older sisters my old man would’ve accidently on purpose shot you like a mongrel dog, disposed of your body and you would never have been found. I’d say most of the wildlife of those areas had a blissful existence cohabitating with each other in tranquil surroundings & only turned feral after having their peace shattered by a half crazed & naked ex-pigeon racer deciding he wanted to do a Harry Butler in the wild. All of those poor animals traumatised just so you could get back to nature and find your inner self. You also have to consider the scarred minds of citizens who had the misfortune of bumping into you along the way. Some may still be reeling from the brief & unavoidable encounter they had.

As for your current jaunts around the countryside of New South Wales, all towns & communities have been forewarned of your impending arrival, so if you find yourself being handcuffed & quickly ushered out of town you’ll know why. You have my permission to quote any of the above ramblings in the pursuit of fortune & fame. If questioned I shall immediately deny all of it. My only request it that my real name is never to be used, I have never had any association with you in the past, present & with a bit of luck not the future either. You are one sick little puppy. In saying so, not a bad sort of a bloke to have an ale & chat with, you crazy bastard! Thank you linesmen, thank you ball boys.

Lawrence H. Freyburn.

Lawrence writes well. He’s probably a poet.

Disclaimer

This book is my version of experiences before, during and after paddling down the Darling River from Menindee to Wentworth in 2010, 2011 and 2012. My recollections are occasionally factual. I have made a huge effort to make contact with those I met (or their descendants, estates or next-door neighbours) to ask for permission to use names, places and events. If I have misquoted you, spelt your name incorrectly, or said things about you I maybe shouldn’t have, I apologise. I have also changed a few names because I don’t like being threatened or thumped. To use information from books, songs, poems, photos, various artworks, websites and the odd piece of graffiti from the side of buildings, I have attempted to contact all copyright owners. Any responses have been generous and I thank you all. Errors in facts, opinions, or what actually happened, are unintended but still mine. If you see any, please don’t tell me.

TP

Map courtesy of Brayden Dykes

from the Murray Darling Basin Authority

First bit

This is a story of three trips on the Darling River in Western New South Wales. I paddled a fifteen-foot canoe from Menindee to Wentworth in 2010, 2011 and 2012. In the seventies when I drifted down the Darling in a ten-foot flat-bottomed boat, I turned right after Menindee and went down the Great Anabranch until I reached the Murray River and so missed out on that final leg of the old river from Menindee to Wentworth. So here now is that last bit of the Darling, done three times in case I missed something.

I thought I had moved on from the Darling River, particularly after living next to the rainforest for fifteen years followed by a move to Brisbane. And even though the Darling called out to me, I did my best to close my ears. I don’t know why I continually delude myself, it never works.

As well as seeking adventure, I went looking for God. How dumb is that? I mean, why wasn’t he down at the corner shop where I go and buy two litres of milk every Tuesday? Why would I think that sitting in a canoe for five-hundred kilometres would be a way of finding the old bloke with the white beard? And at which point along the journey might this happen? Anyway, why had God become just another notation on a list of things to do instead of life’s main focus? The God I searched for was not involved in any religion because of the corruption, bullying, murder, deceit, abuse and demeaning of others used as a means of fostering enlightenment. (Or have I just put too much emphasis on the positive?) My God would be pure love, and have a kindness of giving so beautiful that it would transcend earthly day-to-days (although include them occasionally, particularly when the dishes were piled up) and he would never yell at me. Or give anyone permission to do not nice things to me, again. Ever. Nor would he live in stone buildings with exclusive access. I was secretly hoping Jesus (not so much his old man) was everything. But then, why didn’t he do stuff that we all do? I would have warmed a bit if he would have had, you know, teenage anxieties, been married, had kids, dealt with a middle-age crisis (or two), been divorced and then remarried. Instead we get what, a bloke with limited free will already assigned a role?

I realised that to search for something, for example, the relatively easy concept of finding God, (which indicates that he was lost. I hoped he knew this.) was to also find other somethings along the way, because when you do strive for a particular something, these other somethings can possibly give you more benefit and create more truth than the original sought after something. (I had to read that twice.) Or maybe the original searched for things were always close anyway?

In 2010, the excitement of returning to a low Darling River after thirty years was tempered by the knowledge that I would get lonely. Not talking about, ‘Yeah I miss you hun,’ I mean the type that stops you from breathing. A loneliness that has been an occasional visitor and one who has made it hard to do the daily routine, let alone gaze in awe at the marvels of your favourite place on the planet. I see now that I may have predisposed myself, but does prediction always equal a given or is it merely a recognition of self-understanding? I suspect it’s a little of both. And along with being on the old river with its pigs, fish, birds and characters, I made the life-changing decision to retire from teaching and attempt to write a book. Not this one; the one before called Drifting down the Darling. This one came later. But you knew that.

The 2011 trip was completely different to 2010. For starters, the last number is different. Because of the summer of heavy rainfall in South-East Queensland, which is where the old river gets pretty much all of its water from, the Darling was over its banks. (Queenslanders, despite their two heads and myopia that make parochial seem worldly, are a generous and sharing people/s.) Riding a flood has many perils but the most dangerous thing on the Darling in 2011 was bulldog ants. Please do not doubt me here. Not saying I would ever take a flooded river lightly, and certainly not the Darling in any of its phases, but those ants are vicious, double-crossing, and cruel. Sort of like those in the hunt for the iron throne. If you were around in that era, and you didn’t play the game of deceit and favour, your head would be on a stick. Me, I’d have to keep a list.

Threatened to kill the Hound. (seriously reconsider)

Lied to Cersei. (don’t go near the castle thing ever again. Actually, book a plane ticket real soon)

Back-answered Joffrey. (immediately following morning tea, take the wee coloured pills that are sewn in the lapel)

Visit the blonde one. Just to see how she’s going. That’s all.

I discovered a story about some cranky shearers, a fishing rod of great personal value was taken from me, (probably one of them bloody Lannisters) and below Pooncarie I experienced an uplifting Easter, the significance of which was as much to do with Jerusalem as it was with campers. Anyway, they are all crooks, the Lannisters – except for the little bloke. Red wine and red cellophane over the lights may yet make an interesting leadership alternative. In Australia I mean.

When it became 2012, well I couldn’t stay away. If I had been watching cricket, I could have said May the fours be with you. I should have been doing many other things; like trying to write a book about the seventies river trip and not spending my limited superannuation on chocolates, magazines sealed in plastic, and DVDs of crime series. Or learning new jokes. But what can you do when your addiction kicks in? (One day they’ll invent a patch for reducing these cravings. I’d take it for sure. For the old river, not the other things.) I rode a 7,000 ML a day release from Menindee Lakes and reflected on life, nankeen night-herons and water rats. I met Bill and Barb Arnold from Bindara Station, I reconnected with a lovely man from Pooncarie, and I met Jodie Treverrow, a school principal whose grandfather had taught me, my older brother and my father. And I fell in love with Wentworth. Again.

And as I strived and questioned on these three canoe adventures, I slid from lunacy to the serious, from the happy to the lonely, and from the erratic to the lame joke. Occasionally all of the above were done in reverse. Being alone on the river, apart from the aforesaid hints at periods of loneliness, was an okay time. Apart from bird calls, kangaroo hops and bat squeaks, solitude is usually quiet, but often when I talked with myself, it often got too noisy. Way too many people talking at once. I discovered that in life’s musings, if you ignore the truth you know is right, it doesn’t go away. It just ducks behind the back fence and waits until you are ready to acknowledge its point. This is called being true to yourself and I think I’m almost ready to start an apprenticeship. Along the