In “the land down under” our focus was on capturing the thoughts of some of the world’s experts who spend their lives working on bettering the health of rivers. We spent the first part of our trip in Melbourne at the World Rivers Conference and gathered together some of the brightest and passionate minds from around the globe. Great insights were offered and all were concerned that if we (the global citizens) didn’t alter the path we are on, we would lose one of our planet’s most valuable resources – rivers. They told us that the famous shot of our blue planet from space it is a deceiving image; while much of the Earth is covered with water as seen in the capture, they feel that far less than 1 % of that water is fresh, clean and accessible. Properly caring for that limited amount of available fresh water is our planet’s most pressing environmental challenge, they said.

From Melbourne, we traveled southwest to Adelaide, where we spent time with an aboriginal character – Uncle Moogie. A member of Ngarrindjeri Nation, he told us the story of the Murray-Darling River. “When people got sick, they brought them down to the river” he says.

“It had healing powers. That river was, until 200 years ago, looked after. For years, I’ve watched my part of the country – it was dying.”

“When you see things like that, it disturbs you. And makes you want to do something about it.”

“We grew up on the river … and on the lakes” he told Mark, “and everything was good for many years, but everything today is out of balance … until we can restore that balance, we’re going to have problems. If you ask how important the river is to us, it’s like taking our spirit away from us. You’re dead, you’re nothing … you have no feeling. That’s how important the river is to me, to my children … to my grandchildren.”

As the sun set at the mouth of the Murray-Darling, Uncle Moogie applied red and white stripes over his body. He was one of a small group of dancers who were all getting painted in aboriginal style. As the sun set, they danced the spirit back into the river. “There is a need to dance the spirit back into the river. To do something healing for the river.” “For many years we’ve gotten together to tell stories about the river … it’s birth and how it’s helped us.” “It’s time that we try to dance now for the river.”