Loxton sits on a high bank inside a great loop of the Murray, with pioneer stories on the riverfront and the Katarapko floodplain across the water. How to spend a proper weekend in the Garden City of the Riverland.
Friday: the town the river watches
Loxton calls itself the Garden City of the Riverland, and arrives at that title honestly: the town sits on a high bank inside a huge loop of the Murray, with the floodplain of Katarapko filling the view across the water. Settle in, then walk the East Terrace riverfront as the light goes — the river below, the wide lawns, and the first of the town's stories standing right there on the bank.
Two of those stories are trees. Loxton's Pepper Tree marks the site of the 1878 boundary rider's hut that gave the town its name — William Charles Loxton lived here three years and accidentally christened a city. A short stroll away, the Tree of Knowledge wears the painted high-water marks of a century of floods, 1956 towering implausibly above them all.
Saturday: the village and the floodplain
Give the morning to the Loxton Historical Village — dozens of furnished buildings recreating the district's pioneer and soldier-settlement era, staffed by volunteers who treat the place as the working town it pretends to be. Loxton's modern shape owes much to the soldier settlers who came after the Second World War, and the village makes that double history — pug-and-pine hardship, then post-war optimism — unusually vivid.
After lunch, cross into the green half of the weekend. The Katarapko section of Murray River National Park wraps the far side of the river loop with creeks, red gums and campgrounds; drive in via Lock 4 at Bookpurnong, where you can picnic at the free barbecues and, with luck, watch a houseboat step through the chamber. Walkers should add the easy Ngak Indau wetland loop and its bird hide.
Sunday: tastings and the slow road home
Loxton's fruit country deserves a slow exit. Cellar doors in and around the town pour the Riverland's honest, underpriced wines — Mallee Estate is a reliable first call — and the district's almonds, citrus and stone fruit fill the farm stalls in season. If the almond blossom is out (late winter), the orchards north of town are quietly spectacular.
Then take the river road rather than the highway, in either direction: downstream curls toward Moorook and Lake Bonney, upstream toward Berri's lookout tower and riverfront. Loxton is the Riverland at its most settled and self-assured — the town the river watches, and the right base for the region's green heart. For the produce story behind those orchards, read citrus country.
