Way down upon Australia's Murray River

Saying that Australians are casual doesn't begin to cover it. They are master artists whose craft is the "no worries" vibe, the same way the French work in pastry, the Swiss work in chocolate and the Japanese work in karaoke.

Which is why it shouldn't have been a surprise to step into the wheelhouse of the Murray Princess riverboat and find the captain, kicked back with biker shades on, steering the 950-ton vessel up the twisty, shallow Murray River with his right foot.

Nor should it have been a shock, I guess, that for our port stop one night, we tied up to a seemingly random tree.

Think "Heart of Darkness" without, well, the darkness.

The Murray is the ultimate lazy river, a 100-million-year-old ribbon of green that winds 1,470 miles through South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales, passing farms, Aboriginal homelands, red gum forests, holiday cottages, arid scrub and towering ochre-colored limestone cliffs festooned with snow-white cockatoos.

The river and its surroundings make up a widely overlooked region (except among Aussies) that offers the jaw-dropping, terrible and sun-burnt beauty of Australia, but without the endless drive to Uluru or Darwin that would give a long-haul trucker pause, or the expense of a second or third flight to the Great Barrier Reef.

Traveling by 1800s-style paddle-wheel riverboat, the achingly scenic landscape not yet overrun by tourists drifts by so languorously, it seems at times as if the natural wonders of Oz pick up and come to you. A pretty good spot to have no worries.

A working paddle-wheel

We left on a Monday from Mannum, a riverside hamlet 51 miles east of Adelaide, for four nights aboard the 120-passenger Murray Princess, operated by Captain Cook Cruises in Sydney.

The flat-bottom boat, looking like an Old West boomtown hotel on floats and riding 40 feet out of the water (but just 3 feet below the surface), is perfectly suited for a waterway prone to shallow passes and fickle flows — even with a system of locks and weirs to regulate it.

Unlike many excursion boats, this one's paddle wheel isn't for show. Other than a set of bow thrusters for tight maneuvering, two 260- horsepower diesel engines that keep the big wheel turning are the only propulsion.

When the Princess was built in 1983, designers gave it an American riverboat profile, but colonial Australian interiors.

Once onboard, we experienced what would be the first of many departures from the typical American cruise of any size: a blessedly brief safety lecture from the captain.

"The river is only about 20 feet deep. If the boat is actually sinking, just come up to the top deck and you'll stay out of the water," he said, drawing hearty guffaws among the mostly Aussie crowd. I caught a few Americans laughing nervously and looking outside to gauge the distance to shore.

The rugged landscape outside the windows does not carry over onto the boat, where the cabins are comfortable and clean (and light on the usual "luxury" frills), and the lounge is stocked with stuffed leather chairs and a picture-window view of the paddle wheel in action. The elegant dining room is also far from rustic: Meals on white linen were Australian takes on British and French favorites.

Plenty to do, see

In large part, the Murray resembles the Mississippi River — not so much today's water highway choked with oil tankers and container barges, but the Mississippi of Huck Finn's day. I stood at the railing for an hour after breakfast, surveying what counts for traffic here: excursion boats, fishing skiffs, ferries, a couple of smaller paddle-wheelers and a funky armada of houseboats. (The ferries make up for the 100 miles of river with no bridges.)

If anything, the Murray has slowed while other rivers have sped up. Australia's first paddle steamer, the Mary Ann, was launched from Mannum in 1853. Within 30 years, more than 100 steamers — and about 150 barges — delivered supplies to settlements upstream and returned loaded with wool and wheat. With the arrival of rails and reliable roads, the Murray's steamers languished, with a few eventually revived for leisure cruising.

Aboard the Princess, days (in between the meals) are a mix of river-history lectures, trivia games and free time to chat, drink or become mesmerized gazing at the bizarre tangle of river red gums along the banks, the ubiquitous mallee trees atop the cliffs, and weeping and basket willows draped into the water like frozen, green waterfalls.

Trips ashore also break up the day, including a tour and tasting at Burk Salter winery near Blanchetown.

In Sunnydale, we toured the Native Wildlife Shelter, essentially a petting zoo for Outback outcasts, with displaced or recovering wombats and kangaroos.

By far the most colorful (and possibly most disturbing) slice of Murray River culture was the woolshed show next door to the shelter. Included were a sheepshearing demonstration, a lecture on blowfly strike (don't ask) and a pageant of sheep dressed in panties, bras and boxers, some with dyed Mohawks (don't ask).

That night, a barbecue picnic on shore included a bonfire, singing, grilled kangaroo and immersion into the local culture through an ancient ritual dance called "The Hokey Pokey." (Participation was high, if only because the crew's makeshift bar was doing a brisk business.)

The last full day of the trip was divided between relaxing and visiting Ngaut Ngaut Conservation Park, an Aboriginal site of the Ngarrindjeri and Nganguraku people where archaeologists are studying rock carvings dating back a few thousand years. The guides talked about the importance of the land, explained the fascinating rock art and, when necessary, shooed away prehistoric-looking emus as if they were pigeons.

Back aboard the boat, blissfully slouched in a deck chair, shades on, I propped my feet up on the railing. I couldn't help but wonder: Any chance the captain would let me drive awhile?