Australia's Largest Inland Island — Federation to the Sea

Added: 2026-05-23

[00:00:00]There is a small little bridge leading you into the largest inland island in the southern hemisphere and it's within driving distance from Melbourne.

[00:00:13]>> [music] >> We've come to Gunbower Island on our next stop along the Murray River. The Murray River forms the northern boundary of this island and the Gunbower Creek forms the southern boundary of this island. Absolutely chock-a-block with red gums. Now, along this island, you've got the towns and this is this is absolutely my local my local digs, if you like. This is where I go camping all the time. At the northern end of this island, you have Koondrook. And in Koondrook, it's all about The town of Koondrook started with with with with red gum with creating all that fuel for the paddle steamers, the the timber for the colonial settlements that happened all over the country.

[00:01:04]Sheep, wool, cattle, wheat, all these things came to Koondrook. And there is a bridge at Koondrook, the Koondrook-Barham Bridge.

[00:01:14]Koondrook-Barham is again the twin towns either side of the Murray River. And when when us locals think of it, just like every other local of every other bridge along this river, you think of them as the same place, really. You go Koondrook-Barham or Barham-Koondrook.

[00:01:29]You go Echuca-Moama. You think of it like that. Now, down from Koondrook, as in or further upstream of Koondrook, you have Kyabram, my hometown.

[00:01:40]And Gunbower Creek runs right through the middle of that there and I'll show you that a little bit later. And on the southern end of this, you've got Gunbower itself, a small little country town there. So, the the river track for camping sort of things, the river track starts up here where I am right now and it drives and I've done videos about this it drives all the way down to Torrumbarry to the Torrumbarry Weir and it's it's a decent track. It's It's something you can do with most caravans. In the summer you're going to do it fairly well. In the winter when it's wet probably not so much. The island wasn't carved out by a big flood. It's the work of a restless river wandering, winding and twisting all through the countryside over thousands of years cutting a new channel here, abandoning an old one, leaving a strip of high ground in between the two water courses and you ended up with Gunbower Island. The red gums out here need periodic inundation to regenerate. Their seeds only germinate in very wet conditions. Their roots reach down to the water table but without the floods the forest slowly dies. There are many places out here where you can look at trees and you can see flood marks on them, flood lines from from years gone by. In 2022 there was a massive flood through here. We We didn't get flooding at our place but certainly out in the golf course around the Gunbower Creek and stuff in Koondrook they flooded out there. A lot of flooding all the way up and down the Murray River in that in that flood event.

[00:03:06]And the the river the the forest around here, this red gum forest, used to survive on that and now we need to manage it very very closely so that it still has that same sort of condition to thrive in. The Murray has been regulated since the 1930s. There's locks, there's weirs, there's diversions. All of it is designed to smooth out the peaks and troughs of the requirements of that water downstream.

[00:03:33]It's mainly used for irrigation and for towns.

[00:03:35]Um that regulation was essential but the forests that are downstream pay the price of of of us us people interfering with that.

[00:03:46]On the flip side of that without that water all the towns that we've been to all the way along here, wouldn't be there.

[00:03:54]All the industry that is out here, especially the agricultural industry, just wouldn't be here without that water. Less flooding means less new trees coming up, and as the new one as the older ones die off, the new ones aren't there to regenerate the forest.

[00:04:08]And when you see if you come out here just once and camp out here just once in the red gum forest out here, and you'll be blown away. It's it's a very, very, very special place. I have done a separate video on this channel about flooding the Gunbower forest and how it's done and how long the water seems to hang around for and how it's managed, but that argument between environmental flows and water politics, that context lives there on that video. This here, I want to show you what's here. The town of Koondrook started because it was a river crossing.

[00:04:42]The town of Cohuna started because it was a creek crossing for people to get in and out of Gunbower Island or use Gunbower Creek for passage, and and very quickly that then turned into a supporting town for the rural agriculture that is around Cohuna. Now, like most towns along the Murray River, Koondrook started because it was a crossing of the river. The the red gum industry that's here, and there were a few sawmills through the Gun Gunbower forest. There's no more in here now. The one the remaining one there is actually in the township of Koondrook. And it still operates today. You can buy sleeper logs and also water red gum from there. In fact, we go uh and get our [clears throat] home fireplace, our wood fireplace at home, we get the offcuts, the mill ends of red gum from um the sawmill there, and that does us for a season. We get a few meters of that delivered home and de-season it for a year, and then it goes into the fireplace.

[00:05:40]Now, the town of Cohuna was was started with uh the crossing of the Gunbower Creek, but it was there to service the surrounding towns.

[00:05:50]Um first of all with the the red gum industry, but now it's all about agriculture. The whole Everything around Kyabram now is agriculture. It's It's dairy farms. There are many many dairy farms. Not as many as there used to be.

[00:06:02]They used to all this a lot All up through here was different areas of up here was soldier settlements for after World War II.

[00:06:08]So, the plots of land were in those sizes. And over the years and over the generations, they've sold off farms.

[00:06:15]What we have now is a a heap of family-owned dairy farms that are much bigger than what they used to be.

[00:06:21]Uh and and that's That would be the number one employer in this sort of area. I've worked on dairy farms.

[00:06:27]Everyone in town has worked on dairy farms or with dairy farms or with some sort of business that connects to that dairy farm. There are still hospitality stuff and things like that in here, but most of what happens around Kyabram and Gunbower is is dairy farming.

[00:06:50]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> On a long weekend, which this is, but not everywhere, [music] not in Victoria, but New South Wales is right there.

[00:07:59]This place would normally be busier.

[00:08:02]Insane that because of the dispersed camping that you have on Gunbower Island, >> [snorts] >> you can camp anywhere. So, it's a matter of finding a track. Don't go making new ones, but there's plenty of tracks out there to just go down and set up camp. Uh where I am right now is I I am Let me show you my campsite.

[00:08:21]I'm set up right there.

[00:08:23]And there's the water. Like that's to get up in the morning, drag yourself out of bed, and you've got waterfront.

[00:08:31]It's pretty bloody good. My morning is pretty well done now.

[00:08:36]I think uh well, today we're going to head up or downstream further to a decent-sized town on the Murray.

[00:08:42]Again, it's one of the crossing points.

[00:08:47]But before we go, I'm going to duck into Kyabram cuz I'm pretty sure today is the local market. And this is the case in many towns up and down the Murray, all the small towns.

[00:08:59]They'll often have farmers' markets.

[00:09:01]And if you're on the road for a little bit, it's all well and good going into the you know, Coles and Woolies or IGA or whatever, but getting stuff from people who make it, uh that's that makes your bush dining experience somewhat better. I do have um >> [gasps] >> I've got I'm almost due to do another shop.

[00:09:22]Um I do have plenty of protein there. I want to get some bread. There's a bread maker that goes in there. Probably get some sort of spread to put on it as well, and some fruit and veg. They should have that sort of stuff there.

[00:09:33]I will see what they have, and we'll go to some. I'll get this all packed up and then we'll head into town.

[00:09:39]>> [music] [music] [music] >> Picked up some goodies from the Kahuna market.

[00:10:05]The got some sourdough and >> [clears throat] >> some nice fresh fruit and veg.

[00:10:14]Should be good. I got some some stuff to make up a bit of a pasta as well. So look, we're on our way to Swan Hill now.

[00:10:22]Swan Hill is kind of where the Mallee starts.

[00:10:25]The [clears throat] the awesome red river gums that we red gums along the river I should say that we've been in the last 24 hours around Koondrook.

[00:10:35]And that that will cease to be the case up here. There will still be some along the river, but just step away from the river a little bit and it's an entirely different world. All set up now at Nyah.

[00:10:46]Got the Ozpig going.

[00:10:47]I'll show you what I got today. I've still got some sausages here that um I'll use up tonight. I've got some cherry tomatoes.

[00:10:57]Um some broccoli, some garlic. Potatoes, potatoes I'll use them a different day, not today.

[00:11:07]And the same with the broccoli, but I'll use some garlic and I'll use some cherry tomatoes.

[00:11:12]And I've got This is This is the clincher of these sorts of things.

[00:11:16]Um this one here is Nana's Kitchen Chilli Plum Sauce. So in my head, what I'm going to make is >> [clears throat] >> a few things.

[00:11:28]Um tonight for dinner, I'm going to make a a pasta like a creamy pasta and I'm going to use sausage mince as the the the protein in there.

[00:11:39]It might work.

[00:11:40]It's okay to be a bit um What's the word I'm looking for?

[00:11:45]Experimental.

[00:11:48]>> [clears throat] >> Um So, with what I've got, I'm going to use those that the cherry tomatoes, some sausage meat, some garlic, and some of this chili plum sauce, and uh maybe a little bit of cream in there and some onions.

[00:12:04]And I'll cook up some spaghetti as well.

[00:12:06]And that should all come together, I think, pretty nicely.

[00:12:10]And a little bit of me goes, I should be doing like a little bit of maybe garlic bread. I'm going to try something with that. All of this stuff, I have no plan as far as pre-planned. I've just kind of found things at the market, gone, I think that'll work together, and we'll we'll make it up.

[00:12:26]It's okay to do that. It's okay to just to experiment a little bit. You don't need, I think I think what happens with with camping is um I think a lot of people will go camping and then go, "I'm going to get the best steak that I can find and go and put on the fire."

[00:12:46]And you cook on the fire rarely, so you end up ruining that steak and you say it's delicious cuz it cost you 50 freaking dollars. It's okay just to experiment a little bit. Like um I I guarantee you this chili plum sauce wasn't designed to do what I'm doing it with, but it's okay to do that. Um so, I'll chop up some of the the garlic and the onion.

[00:13:11]Once that Ozpig's heated up, get them caramelized, get some pork mince in there. I'll use the gas cooker in the um escape pod to boil the the water for the pasta.

[00:13:23]And it should all come together pretty well.

[00:13:25]We'll see. Also, I do cheat a bit now with the Ozpig. I don't know if I've explained this to you guys.

[00:13:33]Um there's some heat beads.

[00:13:36]So, I get the fire crack-a-lacking with regular wood and put a basket up the top there with heat beads.

[00:13:42]This does does two things. One, it gives me good sustained heat the whole way I'm whole time I'm cooking with the heat beads.

[00:13:50]And they last for a long time.

[00:13:53]Two, I don't need to carry nearly as much wood. So, I've got on the front of the camper I've got a bag of firewood and a bag of heat beads.

[00:14:02]And that should get me through most of this 14-day trip. Should do.

[00:14:06]If I need to buy some firewood, I need to buy some firewood. If I need to buy another bag of heat beads, I need to do that. No big deal.

[00:14:13]But, I found that having that less amount of weight that I'm carrying, I still get the smell of the wood smoke, which is nice. I like that smell.

[00:14:23]And I get the sustained heat from the beads.

[00:14:27]All right. So, once those beads catch on, we'll get things cooking.

[00:14:38]Found some peas as well. Throw some peas in there. I've got the spaghetti going on there now.

[00:14:46]I'll get this sauce made up over here.

[00:14:49]So, I think I want to get some liquid into that first. And the best bet is probably going to be some pasta water.

[00:14:58]So, I'll do that first.

[00:15:03]That'll help get those peas going. It's funny when I was talking to the lady who makes these sauces, she actually had pasta sauce there.

[00:15:11]And I was like, "Yeah, want to think a bit outside the square here and do it a little bit different."

[00:15:19]So, I've got that going in.

[00:15:22]And little bit of thickened cream.

[00:15:30]And this should be pretty darn good.

[00:15:34]Let's have a look at this.

[00:15:38]It's looking pretty darn good.

[00:15:41]Put some pasta in there.

[00:15:43]I'll mix it around.

[00:15:45]This will be delicious, I reckon.

[00:15:47]How good does that look? Bit of sourdough from the farmers market.

[00:15:53]Couldn't make that look any un- uncool good, I?

[00:15:59]Bit of sourdough from the farmers market.

[00:16:03]It's really good bread.

[00:16:13]That is delicious.

[00:16:15]See you in the morning.