The water was not meant to reach Tony Turnbull’s house at Moorook, in SA’s Riverland, but now he is on an urgent mission to hold it back.

“We thought we were going to be okay and the water came in and so we had to quickly sandbag across the front, down the side and contain the water and then pump it out,” he said.

“So we’ve won the battle at the moment.”

He said a major consideration when buying the house was that it was not impacted by the 1956 floods.

“It appears that that is not the case even though all of the paper work we’ve got and that we’ve paid for to do all our due diligence,” he said.

“Yeah it’s quite disappointing.”

The State Emergency Service said peak water flows have now passed Berri and the peak was expected to reach Lock 1 at Blanchetown in the next five days.

With the peak soon approaching Moorook, Mr Turnbull has worked to build a levee for the past four days.

“If every day you assess it and it’s coming up, you just have to keep adding a layer, adding a layer,” he said.

“We’re lucky to have the machinery, there’s a lot of people that haven’t got the machinery so we’re all helping each other out.”

Further down the road, Jan and Laurie Roos are cautiously optimistic they are winning the battle to save their 120-year-old home, which now sits on an island.

“You don’t want to lose everything that you’ve worked for,” Mrs Roos said.

“It’s too hard to lose and I wouldn’t do it all over again if we lost it.”

The couple said the community had rallied around them, offering people-power and donations of pre-filled sandbags.

“I’m overwhelmed with how much help we’ve had,” Mr Roos said.

“We just need some strong backs now to help keep moving a bit more.”

Some restrictions on water activities lifted

Meanwhile, Riverland locals have welcomed changes to the ban on water activities encompassing the River Murray in SA that will allow land-based fishing.

On Thursday, the Department for Infrastructure lifted speed limit restrictions for personal watercraft at Lake Bonney, which is disconnected from the river in the state’s south-east.

It also clarified land-based fishing and yabbying is allowed at all locations, despite the prohibition of swimming, boating and the use of other vessels.

Bill Palat, who works at a hardware store in Renmark, said he hoped the changes will make a significant difference to tourism this summer.

“Every second person probably mentioned it coming through the shop saying how they weren’t happy about the situation,” he said.

“Plenty of river out there and no one’s allowed to use it especially during the holiday season.”

He said the news would “make a lot of people happy”, and would help give small businesses a boost in tourism.

“It’s going to be awesome,” he said.

Melbourne resident Jacob Hammond, who was visiting family in the Riverland, said allowing fishing from the banks was “fantastic” news.

“It’s good to be able to fish again, especially this time of year, it’s nice to be by the river,” he said.