Two Wars, One River Town

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:00]We are well north of Swan Hill now. I've stopped to grab a bite to eat. Put a uh sausage roll in the old travel buddy.

[00:00:11]Pulled up next to the Murray River to chill out for a little bit.

[00:00:14]Pretty funny the uh >> [clears throat] >> this when you're using a travel buddy you get hungrier and hungrier as the day goes on because your car smells like a bakery.

[00:00:27]Today we're going up to Robinvale.

[00:00:30]Robinvale is a place that's got some vineyards and a servo. It's kind of something that you a town that you drive through on the way to Mildura.

[00:00:40]But there's a story at Robinvale that is worth more than just seeing it through your windscreen.

[00:00:47]It's actually an interesting story. By the time the Murray reaches Robinvale, it's changed its character somewhat. The timber country that we've been through all this time, that's all behind us now. The paddle steamer ports of Echuca and Swan Hill are and those places, that's all behind us as well. Up here is mallee country.

[00:01:03]And this country was was pretty much written off by history like they they they considered it to be too dry, too remote, too hard to do anything with. Then, somebody somewhere worked out that this water in this river, if they could get this onto the mallee dry land, you would turn this whole region into a massive food bowl for the country.

[00:01:30]So, they went about doing that. The town of Robinvale is named after a fellow named Robin Cuttle. And his father was the man who started the town. Now, Robin Cuttle was actually a uh an air force pilot during World War I, and he was shot down in France uh at Villa Villas Bretonneau, I think it's called. And that's got a tight tie to this town in the history of it because of where he was killed. Now, they weren't the first Europeans here. I think the first European here was Charles Sturt in in about No, 1830, I think it was. A little bit after that, Major Mitchell came through here on his track. So, uh there's a bit of history there behind it. And where I am right now is at What is the name of this place? It is the uh Every other place would call this Anzac Square or something. This is the war memorial here in Robinvale. But, I'll show you through here. It's a It's a decent um war memorial here before I will get on to show you why the town still exists now. But, uh I'll take you over here and show you. So, there's an anchor here for the for the possums out there, the navy guys. This is uh the anchor from HMAS Success from uh 1986 to 2019. This was used in East Timor, I reckon. Yeah, it was. Part of um uh the Australia's deployment to East Timor. This is the uh anchor off that ship. Let's head over here to the main part.

[00:02:58]>> [music] [music] [music] >> Now, I'll tell you what.

[00:03:35]That's one of the That is one of the better war memorials I've seen in a small country town.

[00:03:42]I've actually been through here before with her veteran motorcycle club that I was with for a while.

[00:03:48]And we stopped here. I remember stopping here and getting a big group photo in front of the uh the Rising Sun badge over there.

[00:03:56]But it's kind of cool to have a town named after uh a young fellow who went off to the Great War, died in the Great War, and that town that he died in is like the sister city to this town. I think that's very cool.

[00:04:15]But the the layout of it of this war memorial is is very neat. And it's so tidy. Now, given Anzac Day was what's 4 days ago or 5 days ago, so you would expect it to look pretty pretty neat and tidy, but there's not a single wreath laid over there.

[00:04:33]So, it's all been cleaned up since Anzac Day, and all the gravel is raked and everything. It's just it's really nice.

[00:04:38]It's really well done.

[00:04:40]It's a credit to them.

[00:04:42]Whoever looks after it, if you ever do see this, good job. That's you do really well.

[00:04:47]You've done a really really good job with this place.

[00:04:49]Anyway, let's go and find a lock.

[00:04:54]There's one thing that really strikes me about this area as as I drive through it, it's very very much barren sort of area. The there's it's it's very dry country out here. And if it wasn't for this irrigation system, there'd be virtually no greenery anywhere.

[00:05:12]In fact, um there's a heap of almond farms up this way, and I remember a little while ago working on my neighbor's farm, was helping him out do some doing some hay, and at the time the water price was around it was around $1,300 a meg. Now, a meg is I think old school thinking, a meg is 1 acre of water 1 ft deep.

[00:05:39]And and that's that's generally the way that farmers will work out how much water they need for their for their property.

[00:05:46]Uh we might water our place at home and it might it might take us, you know, um, 4 and 1/2 meg to water all of our place.

[00:05:55]But anyway, um, the water was really expensive and it was not long after the the government, um, bought a lot of water off farmers.

[00:06:04]Farmers were in dire straits in a lot of situations with the with droughts going on and so forth.

[00:06:09]And, um, Sorry, I just had to concentrate there while I so I wasn't getting geographically embarrassed.

[00:06:17]So, the government had bought a lot of water off farmers.

[00:06:21]And a lot of farmers were then buying temporary water to water their pasture for their animals.

[00:06:28]Now, at the time that water was it was it was like, let's just say $1,400. It was about $1,400.

[00:06:37]And farmers just couldn't make that work.

[00:06:40]You can't make that math mathematically work to make a profit on your on your herd.

[00:06:47]But downstream of us in Kyabram is this area.

[00:06:52]And this area is a there's a lot of, um, almond farms here. Like, a lot of almond farms. I flew the drone up and they were almonds almost as far as the eye could see. There's a lot of vineyards around here as well, but almond farming is is huge around here.

[00:07:09]And almonds versus dairy farming, dairy farming you can kind of uh, raise and lower your your need. So, in a good period of time, you might say, "Well, you know, um, um, I I can I can bring in more animals and make more money, um, milk more cows."

[00:07:33]During hard times, you go, "I need to reduce my herd because it's costing us too much money here to to keep the water up to the animals." And on a dairy farm you use water to for animals to drink, you use water for um animals to uh uh for for for pasture, to grow pasture.

[00:07:53]So, you you use water for all these types of things.

[00:07:55]Um and you use a lot less water for a liter of cow's milk than what you do for almond milk. So, almonds I I reckon I might be wrong in this. So, by all means someone fact check me in the comments.

[00:08:09]But I reckon almond milk needs about 600 odd liters of water to make 1 liter of almond milk.

[00:08:17]Um But anyway, the big the biggest issue around it is with dairy farming you can kind of ramp up your production and lower your production.

[00:08:29]With almonds, you can't. You you They're they're in the ground and you have to keep water up to them so that if you don't, they die.

[00:08:38]So, at that time when so much water was being uh taken by the environment, and that this is this is the only time I'm going to talk about this in this whole whole series.

[00:08:47]I was driving a tractor, probably uh sorry, a truck, maybe 200 k's to pick up hay to feed the cows that were back on the home farm. So, that's like a 400 k round trip.

[00:09:00]And the hay that I was getting was cut with a with a tractor um towing a mower using diesel, then raked with a tractor towing a rake burning diesel.

[00:09:15]Um then you had a baler baling that hay burning diesel. You know where I'm going with this. And then it me in a truck going out there loading it up with a with a front end loader burning diesel, loading it up on the truck burning diesel to bring it back, put it on another tractor then to go and put it into a paddock to feed cows because water was so expensive. And a large um part of that was the amount of water that was taken out of the irrigation system for environmental watering. And I remember at the time thinking, I'm burning all this diesel to bring hay back for cows that we used to just literally turn a tap on and grow the feed yourself.

[00:09:56]And I remember thinking, this isn't that environmentally friendly.

[00:10:02]Anyway, that's There's a lot of talk we can do about watering. As everyone has their own opinions on things, and these days you can find enough facts around to back up your argument in so many of the cases. Regardless, the the forest needs water, farmers need water, and regardless of what type of farming you you have you have you all need water. So, what is the solution? Bugger if I know.

[00:10:30]We are now at Lock 15. I'll go and show you this joint. Now, from Robinvale, this here this is Lock 15. This sits just down the Murray a little bit, and it's the last lock on the on the system from what I've just read.

[00:10:49]And this was built to pull the water upstream of this, so it could pump water all over or we could pump water out of it for all the irrigation system that's around here. And this was built in 1937.

[00:11:02]So, the infrastructure here was built 1937.

[00:11:07]The land's here, the water's here.

[00:11:11]All it really needed then was for people to come here and really make this place thrive.

[00:11:19]And then World War II kicked off.

[00:11:21]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Now, after the Second World War, the government made a promise to all the servicemen that went there, well, almost all of them.

[00:11:44]And that was 7 and 1/2 million acres of rural land was going to be given to returned servicemen to make a go of it after they'd sacrificed so much in the Second World War. And what the government gave was land, was water, and a way for them to make money and give it a go for themselves. And Robinvale was selected and chosen and given to many of these soldiers because it land was ready, the river was close.

[00:12:12]The first blocks were allocated in 1947.

[00:12:14]Men who fought in the Pacific and in Europe arrived to find a tent, a sandy hill, and nothing else. One settler who had just been given his land, surveyors followed him in because they were sorting out the route for the Sturt Highway. So, even back then, uh government would give them something, government would take it off them almost straight away. So, he upped his tent pegs and off he went into find somewhere else to go. Now, these blokes had just come back from the war. They've already proven that they can handle things falling apart around them.

[00:12:44]And I think that's why maybe the government sent them here in the first place cuz this was never going to be easy. I suspect that if it was given to any other group of people, it probably wouldn't have worked out as well because yeah, the the the veteran mindset of embraced the suck. It was never going to be good, it was never going to be easy. There would be no immediate gratification. There would be a a massive element of hardship. And perhaps that's why they were chosen to give it to. Now, to be fair, it wasn't just returned servicemen who built this joint.

[00:13:19]There were many, many, many immigrants after World War II that helped build this joint. After the war, many Europeans came over. Italians, Greeks, they all came here because the climate is very similar, the horticulture is very similar. In fact, driving up and down this highway, you can absolutely see that European influence in so many of the the the businesses, the farms that are around. You drive for for miles with just brown nothingness, and then you come across this European vista of perfectly manicured lawns, poplar trees, or or conifer trees, I should say. All very manicured. It looks amazing. And and it's not just one or two, there's there's so many of them. You can see that influence here. And after that, then the Tongans come. Tongans came here to help with harvest, and many stayed.

[00:14:14]So, you've probably heard of the backpacker pickers and things like that. That's where that sort of thing started from, I guess.

[00:14:20]After the Tongans, the Vietnamese came here.

[00:14:23]Uh Filipinos, but it is absolute melting pot. And you look around this joint, and you go, "It's working." They're all They're all working for the same sort of goal. In fact, in um harvest season, this town that is meant for like 2,000 or 3,000 people, the population goes up to like 8,000 with all the pickers that come here.

[00:14:48]And the only reason that any of this is possible is that Murray River.

[00:14:55]So, anyway, tonight, where we're going is another hip camp.

[00:14:59]So, I'm going to punch it into the GPS as to where I'm going, and we'll see you soon.

[00:15:36]>> [music] [music] >> This is our hip camp.

[00:15:51]It looks just like bush camp.

[00:15:56]So, this one here has no facilities at all, I don't think. I am at campsite number one. It's There's no toilets here. There's no Pretty sure there's no water. I'm I'm almost certain you can buy firewood from these folks. You're not allowed to cut any firewood here. You've got to buy it from them if you're going to use it. And the the instructions basically say come through that gate. They gave me the code for the gate and just said follow the track until you reach your campsite. So, that's what I'm doing. So, they've got um There's You can't collect firewood, but you can buy firewood. They had a note there saying about a woodshed.

[00:16:32]This is a woodshed.

[00:16:36]It looks like um You got some rules here.

[00:16:45]Water refill. It's a 15 bucks for a bag of firewood. The bags of firewood look like a decent size.

[00:16:54]Honesty box.

[00:16:57]Very good.

[00:16:59]It's like we can throw our cans and there's also a rubbish bin under the back there.

[00:17:05]Oh, we'll keep heading down to the campsite. We're set up now. I'll tell you what, it's a pretty good campsite.

[00:17:11]Looking around here Oh, look, I'm like 3 m from the Murray River there. There's a good meter and a half drop there, so I'm not worried about any sort of flash flooding and stuff, not that that happens on the Murray.

[00:17:21]But it's a ripper spot. This is I think I this site here you've got I'm pretty sure it's six different campsites. I don't see any any other campsite.

[00:17:32]It must be a fairly good size area, this one here. It's as I came down the the the road, the main track, and the instructions were pretty clear.

[00:17:41]It said follow the signs to campsite number one. There was a sign for number one, so no other sign for two, three, four, five, or six.

[00:17:48]And follow this track down here for maybe 500 m or more.

[00:17:55]And there's not another soul here. And the site that's here, you could probably you could probably fit three, maybe four like medium-size caravans in here. And and it's this close to the river.

[00:18:11]How good is that? It is a ripper of a spot. It's got a fire pit here.

[00:18:16]Um yep, fire pit, couple of seats here, log seats, another one over this side here behind my setup there.

[00:18:23]It is a really impressive campsite.

[00:18:26]There are no facilities here. Um you you can get firewood up on the way in. And I think you can arrange um some water for a caravan, like they'll bring water in to you. But all of these things are at a cost.

[00:18:39]Um but there's nothing else here.

[00:18:41]There's no toilets here. There's There's There's no power here. You're You're all off grid here.

[00:18:47]So it's a It's a pretty decent spot. Um and the good thing about it is that you just book it and you're you're here. You know you've got a spot here um when you do get here. Anyway, that's That's Robinvale. I'm I'm pretty impressed with the town. I'm really impressed with the um with that uh memorial park sort of thing that is kept really really well.

[00:19:12]I like the history of the town, and I like that the history of the town is still maintaining now. Like, what it was set up for is still what's happening here. This isn't like a big tourist town or anything like that.

[00:19:25]It is an industry town. It's an agricultural town. And that's how it was set up, and that's how it still is.

[00:19:31]Definitely worth having a look on the way through. Um and especially that uh that that that memorial park. Even if you're just passing through Robinvale, pull over and have a look at that. It's It's well worth looking at.

[00:19:43]Anyway, I'm going to get um some dinner sorted out.

[00:19:47]And in the morning, where are we going tomorrow?

[00:19:50]We follow the river further downstream to Mildura.

[00:19:55]See you then.

[00:19:58]>> [music]