The Murray Valley region follows the Murray River which forms the state border between Victoria and neighbouring New South Wales. As the core river of Australia’s largest river system, and as the world’s seventh largest river and one of the world’s longest navigable rivers, the Murray River has a long and important history to the people who live on or around it. It stretches 2,700 km from the mountains of the Great Dividing Range in north-eastern Victoria to near Adelaide in South Australia. It varies from a mountain stream passing through heavily wooded gorges over topped by snow-capped peaks, to a wide meandering river lined with magnificent forests of red gum and sandy beaches in its lower reaches.

The river is also home to plentiful wildlife; it supports over 350 varieties of birds, as well as many species of mammals, reptiles and fish.

In the 19th century, the Murray became Australia’s Mississippi, the busiest highway in the land with hundreds of boats carrying supplies to and carting wool from the region’s stations and homesteads.

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The legacy of the riverboat era remains in the heritage towns and river ports along its banks.