Review: Two Men in a Tinnie

While I’ve been on holidays, I finally caught up with all the episodes of the ABC TV series Two Men in a Tinnie. It’s the one where John Doyle (more famous from Triple J’s Roy and HG shows) and Professor Tim Flannery take a dinghy down the Murray and Darling Rivers, meeting the people who live and work and play there. I saw a bit of it on tv a few years ago, but have only just now rented the whole thing through Quickflix.

I really enjoyed the series, and recommend it to anyone interested in the fate of one of Australia’s most complex and important waterways. John and Tim are lovely presenters, chatty and informative, and you can tell they’re friends in real life. They’re able to draw out the people they interview by being polite and respectful of their views, even if they disagree. They also make sure to get scientific opinions on the various problems facing the Murray-Darling basin.

As we join them in their little quest, we get to see some truly beautiful parts of Australia, and find out bits of history and the characters who made it what it is today. Their enthusiasm is contagious, and makes me want to get my own tinnie, although the Swan is a much shorter river and I don’t think it’d be nearly as interesting a journey!

While John and Tim don’t present a definitive solution to our water problems, their preference for a national system becomes clear throughout the series. Each person they speak to is able to figure out their own issues very well, but the enormous size of the Murray-Darling means that no-one is taking responsibility for it’s health as a whole. It’s become a tragedy of the commons, and only a collective response will be able to fix it.

I hope that all the people interviewed got to see this engaging series, to see how their own lives fit into the vast patchwork of the rivers that supply the majority of Australia’s food. The series reminded me that in a place like Australia, with so little rain and such a harsh environment, we absolutely rely on the generosity of our fellow countrymen to pull us through the tough times.

Did you see the series when it was on tv, or afterwards? What did you think of it?