River Murray, Murray River or Mighty Murray (it’s known as by all three names) is one of two rivers mentioned in the “I’ve been everywhere” song. The river is Australia’s longest at 2,375 kilometres (1,476 mi) in length so this gives plenty of opportunities to see it at some point between its start point in the Australian Alps and its mouth at Lake Alexandrina.
I decided to view the river at Albury. Albury is a large inland town alongside the banks of the Murray. Interestingly it also happens to be the spot where the first Europeans exploring the river, a Hamilton Hume and William Hovell crossed the river where Albury now stands in 1824. The “Hovell Tree” which marks the crossing point was marked by William Hovell and stands alongside the Murray in Albury to this day.
Hume named the river the Hume River after his father but in 1830 Captain Charles Sturt reached the river after travelling down a tributary and named it the Murray River in honour of the then British Secretary of State for War and the Colonies Sir George Murray, not realising it was the same river that Hume and Hovell had encountered further upstream.
The Hovell Tree