Bottle Bend

On Thursday Sept 30th we took a trip to Bottle Bend. Bottle Bend is on the NSW side of the Murray, upstream from Psyche Bend. Though it doesn’t have as cool a name as Psyche Bend, it does live up to its reputation of being one of the particularly degraded floodplain areas of the Murray (see for example this article from the ABC). Due to the rain, the rancid orange soils had disappeared under the flow of water. There was even a bit of wildlife around, including ducks and even a pelican, and plenty of mosquitoes. But I did wonder whether some of that highly saline acidic soil is going to be floating down the Murray now that there is water flow into the area….