Darling River

Our gravedigger was not altogether bowelless, and out of respect for that human quality described as feelings, he scraped up some light and dusty soil and threw it down to deaden the fall of the clay lumps on the coffin.

He also tried to steer the first few shovelfuls gently down against the end of the grave, with the back of the shovel turned outwards, but the hard, dry Darling River clods rebounded and knocked all the same.

It didn't matter much.

Nothing does.

Second, Nijni-Novgorod, Russia.

Third, Wilcannia, Darling River, Australia.

Fourth, Valparaiso, Chile.

Fifth, Nagasaki, Japan." "He is evidently a great traveler and a most mysterious person." "He's more than that," said Eastover with conviction.

Second, Ninji Novgorod, Russia.

Third, Wilcannia, Darling River, Australia.

Fourth, Valparaiso, Chile.

Fifth, Nagasaki, Japan." "He is evidently a great traveler and a most mysterious person." "He's more than that," said Eastover with conviction.

That silence would return decades later, like an echo that he could not escape.

In 1828, he joined Charles Sturt on an expedition that reached the Darling River.

On that journey, his ability to work under a leader he respected was evident.

His rapport with Aboriginal groups was particularly strong.

Lots of texts on this as well, and I'll try and get through some of them.

This person saying, another good reason to put a channel into the top end of the Darling River and bring tropical water south.

Chris saying, why do we grow rice and cotton given the amount of water needed? But Matt's saying it's extremely frustrating when people say that.

People have associated rice with high water use for a long time, but it's really about the water going downstream to water the almonds, which have got greater water usage.

That's coming up.

And we'll have a look at the state of the Murray-Darling as well, the Darling River as well.

But first, we'll get the latest in news headlines with Matt Coleman.

Good afternoon.

So we're hopeful that that's going to be an opportunity for us to sort of broaden our investment in things like fish passage, in things like stopping fish being removed from the system through irrigation diversions.

We've been doing some work around screening off those offtakes to keep fish in rivers you know we're doing work around cold water pollution to stop water coming out of dams at you know 10 to 15 degrees colder than it should be coming out and doing things like putting snags big logs back in the river so our native fish have got habitat so all these sorts of things combine you know to to make up sort of a restoration program and we're hopeful we'll be able to roll that out in the coming years

That was Cameron Lay from the Department of Primary Industries speaking about the health of the Murray-Darling River and the Menindee Lakes there with Em Jensen.

That's all we have time for in the program today, but there's a lot more you can catch up on at the ABC Rural website.