Murray Regional Tourism hopes $10.3 million from the Victorian government for its adventure trail spanning the Murray River will leverage funding for the Upper Murray leg.
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The "world-first" long distance river trail would span Wymah to Wentworth and generate $12.8 million, according to a feasibility study.
Detailed planning on the first stage, around Echuca and Barmah, has been done.
Murray Regional Tourism chief executive Mark Francis said conceptual work started two years ago now had detailed plans attached.
"What we've been working on is a whole business case and detailed design for stage one," he said.
"We secured half-a-million dollars from the Victorian government [in 2018] to do that piece of work.
"To see this move forward is fantastic.
"We've been working on broader state recovery ... we put this up as a priority project.
"We were waiting to see what would come out of the budget and this was a really good surprise."
The $10.3 million will be in the November 24 budget and Mr Francis said while works starting on the Upper Murray end of the trail would be dependent on further funding, he would be seeking to secure it.
"If we can leverage funding, whether that be NSW and/or federal, that may allow us to advance other areas of our trail," he said.
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"Stage two is really looking at that Albury-Wodonga section.
"There's a section of the NSW side, funded under a previous agreement [with the NSW government], from Corowa to Mulwala.
"That's all about to be in construction and we'll link into that."
Opportunities for multi-support experiences have been narrowed down to specific GPS locations in the stage one section of the trail and the same is intended to be done for the Upper Murray.
