Aboriginal people offered ferrying services to the newcomers.

Hubert De Castella described how Aboriginal people guided large numbers of people, cattle and supplies across the Murray River in the 1850s. In particular he noted the ease it afforded the colonists and also the economic benefits Aboriginal people derived from exercising their entrepreneurial skills.

“Crossing the Murray, which is half a kilometre wide at that spot [junction of the Murray and Darling], was a large number of savages, [who] were camped on the river banks and had boats ready to help the travellers cross." [1]

This engraving depicts the explorer and geologist William Blandowski’s encampment on the Lower Murray, near the junction of the Murray and Darling Rivers, in the 1850s. In it, three Aboriginal Australians are depicted transporting a white person in a canoe, along with a dog. Before European contact the confluence of the Murray and Darling was probably the country of the Yuyu speaking people, but by 1858 had been claimed by the Marawara, also known as Yaako-Yaako or Weimbio speaking people, who may be the people depicted here.

[1] H.D Castella, Australian Squatters, trans. CB Thornton-Smith (Melbourne: MUP, 1987) p. 128.