The river is of course, the mighty Murray River, sometimes called the Indi, or, as Ken called it, the Groggin river.

He fell in love with the property and the river when he first went there as a 12-year-old boy in 1937.

“I loved that place, the work, the solitude with Mother Nature — I learnt early on you do not argue with Mother Nature,” Mr Nankervis said.

“The river was very much part of the place.

“It divided the property but that was not a problem.

“I really believe the Groggin, Indi or Murray, call it whatever you will, is the most beautiful river I have ever seen.”

The Nankervis family’s association with the magnificent Upper Murray started in 1878 when the family selected property along the Nariel Creek.

Later the Nankervis brothers Harry, Arthur and George, bought the Geehi freehold and lease, and in 1930 they bought Tom Groggin station.

The brothers also had alpine leases that extended to within a day’s horse ride of Mount Kosciuszko.

Mr Nankervis said his father (Harry) and brothers Arthur and George would ride horses and take a team of 12-pack horses loaded with supplies to Tom Groggin and Geehi.

He said Arthur left the family partnership in 1936 or 1937 and George died in 1951.

The family partnership was dissolved in 1932 and Harry and his sons Jim and Ken continued to own and operate Tom Groggin station.

Mr Nankervis said his brother Jim, who was born in 1923, went into Tom Groggin and Geehi in 1935 and two years later he made his first horse ride to the mountain havens.

“Jack Riley’s (the man from Snowy River) hut was there when I first went there in 1937,” he said.

“It was a log slab hut.”

Mr Nankervis said the start of World War II had resulted in their workers leaving to enlist and that left he and Jim to work with Leo Byatt on the two properties.

In 1951-52 a track had been put in from Khancoban to enable the construction of river gauges as part of the Snowy Mountains Scheme.

“The track reached Tom Groggin in 1951 and that was the beginning of the end and while it enabled us to bring in machinery and improve pastures it also brought the hoons and thieves,” Mr Nankervis said.

“Until the road went in we never locked a hut and they were always open to the public. I was a fly fisherman and I used to leave my rod, reel and line in the hut and it was stolen.”

Mr Nankervis said the river was central to so much of what they did at Tom Groggin.

“We had a swimming pool at Tom Groggin — a 50m pool with rocks at the top.

“I don’t know how deep it was at the rocks where we used to sit and dive off.”

Mr Nankervis said he spent countless hours fly fishing the river and often would simply sit on a rock, immersed in the rugged beauty of the river and its surrounds.

“It is the whole environment. It is a rock-based stream; the shrubs, the ti-tree; the native vegetation.

“To me it was so peaceful, so tranquil. I would go fishing and sometimes forget about the fishing because you are right there with Mother Nature.

“I was a fly fisherman but if that failed you could always catch a grasshopper.”

Mr Nankervis said he and his brother Jim decided in 1962 to dissolve their partnership.

“We put our names in a hat and I drew the Colac Colac property and Jim drew Tom Groggin and he stayed there until 1972 when he sold out.”

Mr Nankervis said after Tom Groggin he had bought a property on the river near Towong and he “got to know the river pretty well.”

“It is different down here, but I enjoyed it.”

But Mr Nankervis laments the impact of the Snowy Mountains Scheme and massive amounts of near-freezing water it puts into the Murray River.

“But for all that, it is still a beautiful river, but I still get uptight about what they have done to it.”

A lost trifecta: care, cash and commitment

PHILLIP Coysh is under no illusions as to what is wrong with the Murray River and what is needed to tackle those problems.

For many of his 62 years he has seen huge chunks of land collapse into the river.

And for many of his 62 years he has despaired at the lack of commitment and money to halt the erosion of the river’s banks.

Mr Coysh, the fourth generation owner of a family property at Tintaldra, said his earliest memories of the river were picnicking and swimming in the river at Wermatong, a few kilometres downstream from where he now lives.

He recalled the river in those days being a “sea of snags”.

“I suppose there was erosion in those days because without erosion we would not have our river flats,” Mr Coysh said.

“As I grew up, the river was part and parcel of life but we never went near it in winter. You respected it.”

Mr Coysh said in about 1964 the army held a major exercise at Clarke Lagoon reserve.

“They told us the water was unfit to drink unless you boiled it but I used to swim in it and drink the water in 1964 and it did not do me any harm.”

Mr Coysh said he started working on the river when he was 18 and was involved in de-snagging work, planting and lopping willows.

“That was the end of the cod,” he said.

“When I started work, there was a gang of 12 to 14, with some of them brought over from Tumut and the work was always under the auspices of the Snowy Mountains Authority.

“Bank erosion has been a huge problem up here.

“Millions of tonnes of soil falls into the river and washes down into Lake Hume, but who is responsible for it?

“My understanding is the work done up here is simply to appease farmers.”

Mr Coysh said native vegetation would not protect the banks and he believed rock was the best solution.

He said that at one stage river crews poisoned willows along the banks but now willows were retained and simply trimmed.

Mr Coysh claimed a river maintenance crew spent just six weeks a year working on erosion problems.

“How can they look after it in six weeks?” he said.

“That is not possible.

“They spend six weeks working on the river because all the money they get goes on bureaucrats. There is no continuity of maintenance-prevention work because it lurches from one department to another.”

Mr Coysh said there was a need for much more money to be spent on the river down to Jingellic.

“I have been told a million dollars could be spent on the river just to get it up to speed, but the money is not coming through,” he said.

“They are getting less rock in the river each year.”

Mr Coysh said he had an extensive rock quarry on his property and there was enough rock available to do whatever work was needed on the river.

He said the opening of the Snowy Mountains Scheme had improved the quality of water in the river but the fishing was nowhere near as good.

“My father used to keep us in fish — cod, redfin, trout — but it has got very bad and I do not know whether that’s because of the habitat or other factors,” he said.