Goin' Feral One Day At A Time: Psyche Bend, Kings Billabong Park

Kings Billabong

For my birthday this year Sam and I decided to head up to Mildura for a couple of days. The previous day we’d spent walking out at Hattah -Kulkyne National Park. After a night in town, today I was keen to check out a little known walk called Psyche Bend. This is the spot that the Chaffey brothers started a huge irrigation scheme that would turn the desert into productive agricultural land, way back in 1889. The scheme basically involved pumping water from the Murray River into Kings Billabong from where it was pumped into surrounding irrigation channels. One of the side benefits of the irrigation scheme was that Kings Billabong and nearby Duck Foot Lagoon became a haven for the local bird life.

Sam dropped me off and headed back to town for some retail therapy.

Now while I was pretty keen to check out this walk Sam was a little less so, after dropping me off in the dusty car park on the western shoreline of Kings Billabong she headed back into town for a bit of retail therapy. So, with the dust of the ute floating away on the breeze I shouldered my pack and set off. My route had me crossing a retaining wall for the billabong, so straight away I was getting nice water views along with plenty of bird life. Once across the retaining wall I turned south along the eastern side of Kings Billabong, Tyrone Thomas’ old notes have a mistake here, they say to turn left but in actual fact you need to turn right.

Crossing the retaining wall for Kings Billabong I had views from the get go today.

Kings Billabong retaining wall.

The track now started a long walk along the eastern shoreline of the billabong, sometimes I was close enough to see the water or be able to make a short side trip to the shoreline, at other times I was inland a bit walking across the floodplain beneath a sparse covering of Black Box. For a lot of this walk I was following a bit of a local fitness trail and the crushed granite that I was following across the black soil of the flood plain made it easy to follow the track when pads diverged. After passing a pump house on the other side of the billabong and a bird hide on my side, my route arced around in a east - south - west direction and headed inland away from the water for awhile.

Sometimes I headed away from the water a bit, the track crossing a flood plain under a sparse campy of Black Box trees.

Kings Billabong

The old pump house on the western shore of Kings Billabong pumped water into the surrounding irrigation channels.

The drought is definitely creeping down into Victoria unfortunately.

The Kings Billabong inlet channel.

I was now heading for Psyche Bend, this is the spot that the water gets pumped from the Murray River up into Kings Billabong. The historic old steam powered pump house is still there but now days there are some flash new pumps a little further downstream that supply water for the billabong. The Psyche Bend Area with it’s historic irrigation infrastructure and picnic facilities would make a good spot for lunch I’m thinking. After poking around checking things out for awhile I set off on my stroll down steam along the Murray River.

After crossing this bridge I arrived at Psyche Bend.

The historic boilers that powered the old water pumps at Psyche Bend.

The historic pump house at Psyche Bend.

Psyche Bend on the Murray River.

My walk now followed a series of formal and informal paths and roads as I headed north along the meandering river under very old River Red Gums. Initially I followed a bit of a rough pad between the river and River Road, the pad staying right beside the river and passing through quite a few informal river side campsites that today looked to be occupied by either Grey Nomads or fruit pickers. After a kilometre or so my pad ended and I now was following River Road north, the go here is to stay as close as possible to the Murray River, sometimes that means walking the very lightly trafficked, dusty River Road, and sometimes informal pads where River Road moves a little away from the river.

Heading down steam along the Murray River.

Walking along the Murray River beneath the Red Gums, things were pretty informal when it came to the exact path to take.

There are some very flash houses on the New South Wales side of the river.

Murray River

With the water of Duck Foot Lagoon closing in on my left I crossed over to pick up a walking track again, this track is once again part of the fitness track that I’d follow off and on for the whole walk. After crossing a bridge with a regulator on the road, I again followed the water now heading north along Butler Creek. The walk now got a little convoluted as I headed further north, after following Butlers Creek for 15 minutes or so I headed off piste for a few hundred metres to pick up a continuation of River Road. There are quite a few similar tracks out here so I really had to pay attention to my map and notes on this section, first following River Road beside a billabong before once again meeting the Murray River at the northern extremity of my walk.

Duck Foot Lagoon

This bridge and regulator on the River Road is a handy reference point.

I followed Butlers Creek for a kilometre or so.....

....before heading off on a short off piste section as I once again headed for River Road.

After having a bit of a break here in the sun I gave Sam a call to let her know I was about half and hour away, and set off again. Following informal tracks again I passed a large marina full of houseboats on the other side of the river, crossed River Road again and started walking south down the opposite side of Butlers Creek, once again back on the crushed granite fitness track. When the track left the side of Butlers Creek I knew my walk was coming to it’s end, after crossing a long section of boardwalks I soon spied the ute through the trees and my walk was now over.

The northern most extremity of today's stroll.

Crossing Butlers Creek on River Road, you can just see the houseboats in the marina on the Murray River through the trees.

Walking back along Butlers Creek, now I'm heading south but I'm on the west bank though.

The Dirt.
According to my GPS I walked 17.1 kilometres and climbed 71 metres on this medium grade walk. This was an interesting walk with lots of history, bird life, wetlands and Murray River views. If anyone does the walk as I did it then be prepared to navigate, there are a lot of tracks running through the scrub, the crushed gravel track is easy enough to follow but once off that, things get fairly vague. The only walking notes that I know of about this walk are by the doyen of Australian bushwalking, Tyrone Thomas out of his 150 Walks in Victoria book, his mud map and my GPS maps are adequate enough to get me through the walk.

The boardwalk section of the walk was bone dry on my visit.

One last water view.

Sam was waiting with some lunch, a nice way to finish a pleasant walk.

I suppose I should say something about our accommodation on this trip. Sam and I stayed at Indulge Apartments - The Urban Collection. The accommodation was a real surprise, on all our previous visits up to Mildura the accommodation would be best described as basic, conservative but comfortable, if you know what I mean. Things have changed a fair bit up here now by the look of things though, our apartment in the centre of town had great wifi, twin showers that had inbuilt LED lights that changed colour depending on the temperature of the water, a small kitchen, free standing bathtub, a couple of HD televisions and a very comfortable bed. This was a very nice spot to spend the night after having spent the previous night out in the dusty Lake Mournpall Campground. I suppose that the only slightly negative thing I could say is that the front apartment where we were can be a little noisy and that the parking is fairly limited (only 2 spots), but really I’m being very picky.

Relevant Posts.
Hattah Lakes Circuit, Hattah-Kulkyne National Park, 2018.
Lake Mournpall Circuit, Hattah-Kulkyne National Park, 2017.
Hattah-Kulkyne Drive, Hattah-Kulkyne National Park, 2018.