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Published: October 11th 2014
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After overnighting at Lake Benanee, Marg and I decided to have a look at the little outback town of Balranald. Where? Well, about 850ks west of Sydney, and until Marg started researching the area, totally unknown to us. It is like many rural towns with a handful of shops. Unusually, there are 4 's servos though. Maybe that's because this is a highway junction in three directions.
There has been a battle here to save the Southern Bell Frog which is quite endangered. Not sure how that is going, but the area was subject to the best part of a ten year drought, so I think that would not have helped. There are 5 rivers also running through the area including part of The Murray, Darling, and Murrumbidgee Rivers. We didn't see or here any Southern Bell Frogs, but Marg did photograph a number of Frog Sculptures around town. These have been used to promote the plight of the frog over several years.
We dropped into the Visitor's info centre and we were told about a riverside camp on the banks of the Murrumbidgee River. It was located in the Yanga National Park, just a few ks out of
By the Murrumbidgee
Yanga National Park town towards Sydney. The final access was a short section of clay road, but in good condition. It wasn't until we finally got to the camp site that we realised how good it was. There were 3 bays vacant on the river edge, chose the best, backed the MH onto the site and went YEAH!!!!
D & M plus A & R were still fishing and wishing at Nyah reserve, so we thought we would initiate a little jealousy. A Quick photo on the mobile phone, SMS message achieved instant reaction. Where are you? Is there room for us? Sure enough, by 9.00 next morning they were queued up for riverside camp sites. We had been planning on reaching Mildura by Sunday, but all the camping grounds were booked out due to a boot scooting musical festival. So we had three nights in this beautiful spot. Adrian was bating up and catching fish each day. There are good eating fish here as well as carp, which, while edible, are not the best tasting fish.
There were plenty of birds in the area which is typical of riverside areas, but they were also very shy and avoided photographers for
the most part. Marg spotted a couple of the small king fisher birds, but they move so quick, any photos were impossible. However, we had a couple of juvenile scorpions around the camp. When confronted with a camera, they played dead except for the raised tail ready to strike. A couple on an adjacent camp site went fishing a little up stream from the camp. They had a more serios interruption to their afternoon when a red bellied black snake got angry with them intruding on his/her space. They moved aside and the snake wriggled down into the river and swam away. They returned to camp for a change of undies and a story for their grand children.
Just a short walk up stream from the camp site is the remains of a huge sheep shed and shearers quarters. These were built on the edge of the river so that the paddle steamers could collect the wool and take it to the rail head at Echuca.
Monday came, and we headed off towards Mildura. The country side here is described as dry land farming. There are huge areas of wheat, and in areas with salt bush, they run
sheep for both meat and wool. So the area contrasts remarkably with the area around Robinvale where we saw the great plantations of vines, almonds, citrus and other orchards.
I forgot to mention one rather unique plantation on the way to Robinvale. The trees seemed too closely planted, trees looked twisted and untidy. We were quite stumped as to what the trees were. Fortunately there was a sign - The Australian Cricket Bat Willow Plantation.
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Jakii
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Stunning place.
What a beautiful place,and thank you for stunning photos. Love to both ----J