Crossing the River: The Free Ferries of the Murray

There is a particular pleasure in driving onto a Murray River ferry. You roll down the ramp, the deckhand waves you forward, and then — quietly, without fuss — the river takes you. The ferry hauls itself across on cables you cannot see, the far bank drifting closer while the current tugs at the deck.

South Australia is unusual in keeping its river ferries free. There is no toll, no ticket, no timetable to speak of. You arrive, you wait if you must, and you cross. It is one of the small civic generosities that defines the Riverland, a region that has never had much money but has always had the river.

A working tradition

The ferries are not heritage curiosities kept running for tourists. They are working infrastructure, the only practical way across the Murray for whole communities. Lyrup depends on its ferry to reach the Berri road; the orchards across from Waikerie rely on theirs. Drive any of them and you'll share the deck with farm utes, school runs and the occasional stock truck.

That they happen to be wonderful is almost incidental. The crossing at Cadell at dusk, when the water goes to glass and the pelicans come in, is as good as anything you'll pay money for elsewhere. Morgan's ferry runs beneath the cliffs of the old port, where paddle steamers once queued. Walker Flat crosses under a wall of ochre stone.

The river sets the pace

What the ferries teach, more than anything, is patience. You cannot hurry a cable ferry. If it's on the far bank, you wait. If the river is high, it may not run at all. The Murray sets the pace, as it always has, and the ferry simply obeys.

That, perhaps, is the real lesson of the Riverland. This is a place that runs on the river's time, not yours. Cross a ferry or two and you start to feel it — the slowing down, the letting go. By the time you reach the far bank, you're a little more on river time than you were. And that's worth more than any toll.