The Murray River flows strong and cold on the border between the cities of Albury and Wodonga.

Almost half a century ago, we moved to Albury and lived there for 10 sweltering summers.

When no flutter of breeze found its way between the hills, we took chicken sandwiches and wine to the riverbank and floated on the chilled stream, and in the gentler evenings we wandered beneath the branches of big old gums in the parks nearby.

One of the parks took its name from one of those trees.

Hovell Tree Park.

Precisely 200 years ago, on November 17, 1824, a retired English sea captain named William Hovell, famously adventuring with the Australian-born bushman named Hamilton Hume and six convict servants, carved his name into a river redgum there.

The carving remained visible well into the 20th century, even as the tree began ailing and slowly died.

A plaque depicting the original carving by William Hovell on the tree, held together by concrete in 1962Credit: Ken Wood

Albury’s worthies, reluctant to lose this fading claim to the area’s first European travellers, tried to prop up the old tree by pouring two tons of concrete into it.

But when in 1938 it became clear even that drastic effort was failing to hold back time, seedlings were taken and three new trees were planted.

And so, Hovell Tree Park, the Murray flowing by, retains its arboreal link to the past.

Hume claimed to have originally named the river the Hume after his father, though Hovell said he’d named it Hume’s River “because Hume was first to see it”.

The Murray River passing by the city of Albury.Credit: Destination........

© Brisbane Times