Marina service
Griffens Marina
About
Griffens Marina at a glance
Houseboat marina and hire base at Blanchetown on the Lower Murray, close to the Walker Flat trailhead, operating a self-drive houseboat fleet for Murray River holidays. Family-run private hire houseboat marina at 9131 Sturt Highway, Paisley (adjacent Blanchetown), upstream of Lock 1 on the Lower Murray; hire fleet includes Reflections, Scamp and Scallywag; winner 2017 SA Tourism Award for Unique Accommodation
Service area: Murray River - Murraylands
- Marina type
- full-service marina
- Operator
- Griffens Marina
- Region
- Murray River - Murraylands
- Water body
- Murray River
- Berth types
- permanent berthing, casual berthing
Facilities and services
- self-drive houseboat hire fleet
- kayak hire
- lawned riverbank moorings
- floating accommodation stays (boat remains moored)
- boarding instruction included
- tourism-accredited operator
About Griffens Marina
Griffens Marina is a family-run hire houseboat base on the Lower Murray at Paisley, just upstream of Blanchetown and Lock 1, with frontage directly off the Sturt Highway. Run by Miriam Griffen and family, it operates a small self-drive fleet including Reflections, Scamp and Scallywag, and took out the 2017 South Australian Tourism Award for unique accommodation. The setting is a private riverbank marina around the 277-kilometre mark of the river, where mowed lawns run down to flat, easy moorings, a deliberate point of difference from the scrub-bank tie-ups houseboaters use once underway. The river here is the lower end of the regulated pool above Lock 1, the first of the Murray locks completed in 1922, and the base sits at the start of the Riverland reach: limestone cliffs, red gum flats and long, uncrowded straights upstream towards Morgan. There is an older layer of river history in the frontage too; the hawking paddle steamer PS Pyap, built in 1896, used to tie up at this same riverbank so locals could buy goods off the boat. Blanchetown itself, surveyed in 1855 and named for the governor's wife, is one of the earliest river settlements and carries the unusual distinction of two bridges spanning the Murray, the 1998 structure replacing an earlier bridge deemed unfit for road trains. The marina's clientele is overwhelmingly holiday houseboaters from Adelaide, ninety minutes away, with a healthy share of interstate visitors using it as a soft entry to the Riverland. The family also trades on personal service: bookings are handled directly by phone and email from the marina office, and returning crews are greeted by name.
Marina facilities
The marina's core business is hire-and-drive houseboat holidays, and the operation is built around making that simple for first-timers. Arrival is direct off the Sturt Highway, with flat lawned access to the moorings so loading and unloading is done from grass rather than a pontoon; boarding is from 3pm with a full handover and driving instruction before departure, and boats must be back by 9.30am on return day. The flagship Reflections is a four-queen-bedroom boat with two shared ensuites, a full-size fridge, dishwasher, top-deck entertaining area reached by a staircase, solar panels to cut generator run time and Starlink internet; Scamp and Scallywag are smaller, cheaper boats aimed at couples and families. Hire rates start from around three thousand dollars for three off-peak nights on Reflections, with a twelve-hundred-dollar bond, and the marina is a member of the Boating Industry Association and the Houseboat Hirers Association. Kayaks can be hired as an add-on, and the marina also offers floating accommodation stays where the boat never leaves its berth, a popular off-peak option for people touring the Riverland by car. Riverside moorings accommodate the fleet between hires, and the office keeps weekday hours from 9.30am to 4.30pm, though staff are frequently working on the riverbank preparing boats. There is no fuel wharf, chandlery or repair trade aimed at passing river traffic; this is a private hire base first and foremost, and booking ahead through the website or the Houseboat Bookings platform is essential in school holidays. Permanent and casual riverside berthing is available for private craft by arrangement, with the lawned frontage making the marina one of the easier spots on the Lower Murray for loading provisions and gear aboard.
Local sailing knowledge
From Griffens Marina the river runs upstream through some of the most photogenic cruising on the South Australian Murray. Houseboats average six to seven kilometres an hour, and the operators' sample itineraries reflect that pace: a short first-night hop to a tie-up like Donald Flat Lagoon, then an easy two-day run to Morgan around the 320-kilometre mark, where a designated houseboat mooring zone below the Visitor Information Centre allows stays of up to forty-eight hours within reach of two country pubs and the wharf precinct museum. Further upstream, the Cadell wetlands and the cliffs of the Roonka Straight, where sunset colours the rock faces, fill out a week-long cruise. Downstream the marina sits just above Lock 1, so crews wanting to explore the Blanchetown township or run down the Walker Flat reach must book a lock passage; watching the PS Murray Princess or the restored PS Marion work the lock is a riverside event in itself. Practicalities matter here: regulated and unregulated river flows can limit how far boats travel, and skippers are told to plan on river time. The Riverland fruit-fly biosecurity zone bans host fruit and vegetables from being brought in, and the marina supplies a compliant shopping list at booking. Provisioning is usually done at Blanchetown's general store or en route via the Barossa, forty minutes south. Fishing from the back deck is part of the routine, with Murray cod and callop the targets, and the birdlife, pelicans, kingfishers and bee-eaters, rewards slow travel. Skippers should also watch for snags along the bank edges and keep to the deeper channel line in low-flow periods, and overnight tie-ups are best chosen on the cliff-side reaches where the holding and shelter are both better.