Written by Guy MacGibbon for stuff.co.nz.
I was eating lunch beside a peaceful lake when I saw it - the great crested grebe.
New Zealanders may remember the great crested grebe as the bird controversially crowned the New Zealand Bird of the Century, ahead of more iconically Kiwi birds such as, well, the kiwi.
Nevertheless, it is rare to see on either side of the Tasman, making this a notable sighting.
Rainbow Bee-eater.
We came across the water bird on day three of the four-day Murray River Safari, a magnificent houseboat tour taking you from Renmark in South Australia's Riverland region, upriver through the Chowilla reserve, one of the country's most abundant wetland spots.
The safari is a four-day houseboat cruise and immersive nature experience run by Murray River Trails. There's easy walking, kayaking, a driving tour, great food, natural and cultural history - and, of course, birds.
On safari on the Murray River
Our adventure begins in Renmark, in the heart of South Australia's Riverland region.
It rains little in the Riverland. South Australia is in fact the driest state, in the driest inhabited continent on Earth.
Yet the Riverland is the lush provider of Australia's largest winegrape crop and a highly productive fruit bowl. It's all down to the life-giving water of the Murray.
The Murray-Darling Basin is a vast network of rivers covering much of southeastern Australia, and culminating in the wide, slow-flowing main artery of the Murray.
To understand the Murray is to understand how such a vast, dry and flat land supports so much life.
A stark dead tree, on the edge of Lake Limbra, one of Chowilla's ephemeral lakes. Image: Guy MacGibbon / Stuff
When the Murray floods, as it did most recently in 2022, it's not because it's raining in South Australia, it's because it rained over the headwaters in the Australian Alps, hundreds of kilometres away.
Images of the 2022 flood show clear blue skies. People in the Riverland knew it was coming, slowly but surely, weeks ahead.
And a flood is not synonymous with disaster - in fact it's essential to the cycle of life on the Murray floodplain.