The Barwon-Darling rivers form part of the Australian Murray-Darling Basin, a major source of water for agriculture, environment, recreation and town water supplies. The Darling River stopped flowing in 2018, leading to massive fish kills in December and January 2019 (Fish deaths in the Lower Darling | Murray-Darling Basin Authority (mdba.gov.au)). Ted’s reading of the weather patterns was that 2021 was going to be wet, and sure enough the Darling was in flood in May 2021. He suggested paddling the 205km from Bourke to Louth. I suggested doing an extra 205km by starting further upstream at Brewarrina. Just in case we were enjoying ourselves and wanted to continue, we also printed the maps from Louth to Tilpa (170km), and from Tilpa to Wilcannia (275km), making a total paddling distance of 855km. Neither of us had canoed before, so we were going to be learning on the job.
Map of the Murray-Darling Basin (Courtesy of Geoscience Australia)
The first challenge was to get a canoe. We had decided against kayaks, preferring the option of taking more food and equipment in the open Canadian-style. Due to Covid-19 there were very few canoes of this style available anywhere in Australia in early 2021. We finally found a British made Silver Birch 16 foot Broadland canoe (https://www.silverbirchcanoes.com/canoes/broadland-16/), available from Travis at Paddle & Portage Canoes (paddleportagecanoes.com.au) in the Kangaroo Valley, NSW. Travis packed the canoe, paddles and old man seats and freighted it to me in Melbourne, Victoria. The rest of the required equipment (car roof racks, Personal Floatation Devices, food barrels, waterproof containers, wet weather clothes, portage buggy, etc.) were obtained in between the various Victorian Covid-19 lockdowns.
The freshly arrived and wrapped canoe 
Van and canoe on the way to Bourke
In late July 2021 I loaded the canoe and all my gear and started the 1000km drive from Melbourne to Bourke, where I would meet up with Ted. At the same time, Ted flew from Darwin, NT to Brisbane, Qld where his car and ‘tinny’ (an aluminium fishing boat on a trailer) was stored, and drove to Bourke. On the way he checked out our put in point on the Barwon River at Brewarrina. The video he took showed a lot of water was going over the Brewarrina weir, so we would need to learn to paddle a heavily laden canoe in a fast flowing river. At least it looked like we wouldn’t be dragging the canoe from waterhole to waterhole.
With the two cars the aim was to car shuffle between the start and end point of each stage:
Stage 1: Brewarrina to Bourke (205km)
Stage 2: Bourke to Rose Isle Station (142km) {chosen rather than Louth because of better car security}
Stage 3: Rose Isle Station to Kallara Station (216km) {just upstream of Tilpa and again chosen for car security}
Stage 4: Kallara Station to Wilcannia (275km)
The distances were based on the River Kings estimates (Kayaking the Darling River May – July 2017 – Kayaking the Darling, Murray & Murrumbidgee (riverkings.org), who started upstream of the Brewarrina Weir. The high water levels would hopefully allow us to take shortcuts that weren’t available to previous groups, so the actual paddling distances were expected to be less than the River Kings distances we had marked on our maps.
Ted decided the biggest seat would suit him best, until it was pointed out that it was at the font of the canoe, not the rear where he wanted to be. I could regularly remind him of his error by having the Paddle & Portage stickers on the bow.
The time together in Bourke gave us the opportunity to stock up with food and drinks for the trip before heading off to the put-in on the Barwon River at Brewarrina.
Too much gear 
Once he knew which way to face, Ted found the canoe quite comfortable, at least while still on dry land.