Rocks that jut out into the river like this affect the way the river flows when there is water in it. You can see the patterns made in the sand where the water has swirled around the rocks.

This is looking back the way we have come (can you see the swing and the baby trees?) This other plant looks quite different we think it’s a Mexican poppy which is another weed (like the couch) which isn’t meant to live here. When you get lots of them they clog up the river bed and make it quite ugly. They can also affect the flow of the water. People who drive along river beds sometimes transport prickly seeds of weeds in their tyres and can cause problems because of this.

This is another example of rocks deposited at the edge of the river. They roll along in the flow for a while but then get too heavy for the river to carry so they just settle. As you can see it is also a good place for seeds to get trapped and to protect them so they can germinate but this means seeds that aren’t meant to be here as well as those that are! You can see the couch grass spreading through here!

As you get further along the river the country opens right out. This is probably an area where the river overflows when it floods and the only things that get a chance to dig their roots in are grasses (even if it is couch grass!) Some distance from the river bed, you can see shrubby trees that have had a chance to get established because they are out of the flood disturbance zone. They are probably too far from the river bed to put their roots into the damp sand underground so they just survive without much water until the next rain or flood.