Just 75km from Adelaide, Murray Bridge is a thriving rural city and mecca for holidaymakers and

watersport lovers. It’s the majestic Murray River at its relaxing best – you can cast a fishing line, row a boat, try waterskiing and wakeboarding and even hire a houseboat and see where the river takes you. Before European settlement, the river provided abundant food for the Ngarrindjeri people. The Ngarrendjeri people believe the River Murray was formed when a dreaming ancestor called Ngurunderi travelled downstream in a bark canoe in search of his two wives, who had run away. “A giant cod fish (Ponde) swam ahead of Ngururnderi, widening the stream with sweeps of his tails. Ngurunderi chased the fish, trying to spear it from his canoe. The sweeps and loops of the chase created the Murray River.”

FAST FACTS

• Only the Amazon and the Nile are longer than the Murray River
• Murray Bridge’s famous bunyip is called ‘Bertha’. She was originally named Bert, but changed her name to Bertha when she gave birth to a baby bunyip in 1982
• Check out Saint John the Baptist Pro-Cathedral – the smallest cathedral in Australia. Built in 1887, it was once recognised as the tiniest cathedral in the world
• The town was laid out in 1883 and was first called Mobilong, before being renamed Edwards Crossing. In 1924 it changed again to Murray Bridge, named for the road and rail bridges that span the river here
• The first bridge to span the Murray River was built here in 1879