Day 2 Saturday 13th July, A boring Day and a beautiful afternoon

The river looked stunning this morning but the glassy conditions were not enough to entice me out onto it in the kayak. It was a little too cool. We headed north trying to escape the cold, stopping at Mildura for fuel and a little bit of shopping. On Wiki camps we read up about a lovely station stay 20kms out of Balranald called Paika. It has a very interesting history, environmentally. There had been a large lake here, up until 1906 when due to the large irrigation development further up the Murrumbidgee no water flowed into the lake. This meant that the property had to build levees etc had to be built to ensure water for stock. Over the years the property became marginalised due to the water situation. In the late 1980s better water management followed by ecological river management and in 2008 the Lake Paika regeneration partnership was established. In 2011 water once again flowed into the lake for the first time in 105 years. So here we are in a stunning setting on the edge of the lake admiring the bird life and sunset. We are the only people here apart from the lovely owners who we’ve chatted to and have given us a little of the history of the station. The lake is now a draw-card in the area for boating, bird-watching and swimming.