Murray River Book: Keith reviews this new publication in the Adelaide City region of South Australia

The River Murray holds a very special place in the minds of South Australians so we were thrilled to find there's a new book about our ribbon of life. Photographer and graphic designer, Shane Strudwick is on a mission to make us all sit up and reassess what he describes as one of Australia's greatest iconic and ancient landscapes. He's been on the road for the past 6 years, notching up more than 30-thousand kilometres up and down the river taking photos and gathering stories and the result is his stunning new book, 'Australia's Great River Landscape - the Murray River'. It's not just another coffee table adornment - it's an easy to take lesson on the river - its rich history, its highs and lows and its future.

Shane Strudwick: "A long time ago I heard a saying if you see a problem you should try to fix it. And I saw our great national river wasn't getting the attention it deserved as a national landscape experience so I thought, well, I've got all my skills and my passions it's the perfect opportunity for me to channel it."

When he's not up the river, you'll find him in downtown Norwood where he runs his own graphic design company, Design Train, so for him, a book about his favorite place was a 'no-brainer'.

Shane Strudwick: "As a designer I started working with the houseboat operators and started to research the river itself. When I realized the one story of the river really wasn't being told the way that I could see it - I started to ask 'what is it about the river?' I began looking at the history, the landscape, all aspects of the river and it became this fusion of all the elements that make the river. Then things started popping up left, right and centre connecting that story with that story - that bit with that bit."

Shane's certainly managed to connect the bit as he plots the Murray's long and wining 2,500 kilometre journey from high in the snowy mountains all the way down to the Southern Ocean at Goolwa.

He set out to capture the river's many moods and stories in words and photos and he's pulled it off. He reckons the Murray is 'one river that flows through many lands' - and he's right; Just on our side of the border alone, the Murray dissects the arid outback, passes towns big and small, cuts deep into the landscape and empties into the lower lakes.

Shane Strudwick: "It was a funny part of the whole journey. As a photographer you start to look closely at things and then I started to see the experience of the river - it shifts and it changes on the journey it goes through. So not just the towns but the landscape - it goes from the mountains, through steep banks, gets to the outback region, comes through some beautiful limestone cliffs and then opens up to some amazing plains and obviously out to the mouth so I started to identify that and thought well, here's part of the experience people like to see. How can they connect to the landscape and therefore connect to the river?"

His notion of an 'outback river' for example is told brilliantly at Chowilla Station, just north of Renmark. He tells how the paddlesteamers used to line up to load the massive wool clip. That doesn't happen any longer but Chowilla is still a river icon. Sit and have a coffee with Shane it's clear he is overflowing with passion for the river.

Shane Strudwick: "I thought we needed a book that celebrated what the river was all about and the beauty of it but with that in mind I also needed I feel, and I wrote about this in the forward, we also needed a future plan for the region as well as not just one river but as one basin. How we are going to manage the whole system, the whole structure well."

To see Shane's book contact his company in Norwood, Design Train on 8363 6244.

Murray River & Mallee
By Shane Strudwick
Design Train
Ph 8363 6244.
RRP $69.95 each