Blogs from Echuca, Victoria, Australia, Oceania
January 5th 2012
Happy New Year from Oz. Christmas in Melbourne was a quiet affair with a good lunch in the warm sunshine at the waterfront followed by a free bus-ride back to the campsite to watch an almighty thunderstorm with bullet like hailstones. The small shiny surfaced caravan pitched next to us was covered with dents, making it resemble beaten copper. The roof of our van is too high to get a decent look at so hopefully it’s made of stronger stuff or part of my excess has just disappeared. Boxing Day saw us at the cinema watching of all things Mission Impossible, partly as a result of the other shows all pre-booked and sold out. In the film the Americans in the form of Tom Cruise predictably saved the world (again) but it was entertaining stuff all ... read more
March 18th 2011
The morning air is certainly fresh in this neck of the woods, so it was on with the jeans this morning. We took the computer to check emails at Maccas, because the reception for TV is non- existent and the computer is not much better. We visited the Holden Museum in town, this has certainly some wonderful vehicles and one of each shape/model produced in the 60 year history of the vehicle. The museum is definitely not up to the standard of the Ford Museum in the USA, but it certainly held some well restored Holden vehicles and engines. They also ran a 20 min film clip outlining some of the history. For any Holden lovers it is a must see museum. From here we wandered back in time to check out the Old Port Shopping ... read more
March 17th 2011
St Paddy’s Day and we hit the road with the aim to call at Lake Boga, a World War II Flying base repair depot. Just a short drive and we were outside the museum before it opened at 9:30am. We headed into the bunker when it opened, this originally was the radio room, the lesson learned by the bombing of Darwin, where communication was lost to bombing, it is important to keep the radio centre up and running. This houses a lot of memorabilia and photos of the base when it flourished from 1943 to 1948 when it closed. It was set up so far inland to prevent it being bombed by ships carrying aircraft. It was also on the secret list, for most of it’s life as the Catalina flying boats came in for repairs, ... read more
August 26th 2010
Hey all, Day 10 has us in Echuca. Today we drove from Broken Hill to Echuca. Lots of rain, big drive, nothing else more to say! Long drive! We have holed up in a hotel tonight, very nice one for our last night on the road. Tomorrow we fined out when we move into the new house. We also get to give Declan big cuddles!!!! Thanks for those of you who have enjoyed my rantings Cya... read more
March 26th 2010
For once, we had a lazy start to the day, relaxing by the river and putting the world to rights with our neighbours Gary and Kirsty. They’ve been travelling for ages, had reassuring words and sage advice about camping over Easter, and have persuaded us a visit to Canberra would be a good idea! Valerie’s been drooling over their van ever since; it had a proper bedroom, bathroom, fully equipped kitchen, HUGE fridge and freezer, 3 piece leather suite and remote control tv! ... and a trailer to carry their smaller car - ideal for getting the best spots on the sites, and leaving everything in situ before going off to sightsee for the day in the car. (and parking must be a doddle too!) Eventually, we got going and visited the nearby town of Echuca. ... read more
March 25th 2010
Today’s plan was to take in the goldmining heritage of the area. Our first visit had to be the Arc de Triomph, or Victory Arch as they call it here (yoohoo Nicky & James!) (and Hannah B!) There is also a Remembrance Avenue that is over 22 kilometres long and has a tree planted for each person from Ballarat who served in WW1. We visited the Ballarat Art Galley to have a look at the original Southern Cross Eureka flag. I was struck at how large it was - I don’t know why, but I was expecting something much smaller. There was a special event on at the Art Gallery focusing on Queen, John decided not to go in as it was rather expensive and he also spent a considerable amount of time moaning about the ... read more
February 19th 2009
Today was spent being a tourist in the inland haven for tourists. I chose to begin my day with a walking tour of the 80 most interesting historical buildings/sites in the old port town. The tour started of in a most interesting way by taking me directly to McDonalds. I was a little puzzled at first, thinking that perhaps this was a clever marketing ploy, but on reading the tour notes I learnt that there had once been an old building on this site. I stopped after site No. 18 because it was getting too hot to continue walking, and transferred my touristic tendencies to a paddleboat cruise on the Murray River. This was a pleasant hour-long cruise, but my visions of cruising the mighty river were not matched by the site of rows of houseboats ... read more
November 17th 2008
HELLO AGAIN !! After leaving Gundagai, we headed west to Wagga Wagga where we got our car serviced. We had not expected to need our 110,000 service till Melbourne but we've done a few extra miles to what we had planned when we left I'fail on 1st August !! Geoff also had a car problem that got fixed there too. Anyway, unless you're into old buildings (how many can you look at??) and art deco facades there's not a lot to do in some of these country places, so continued on after a couple of days to Griffith, via Narrandera and Leeton. ALL this area is the 'hub' of fruit-growing in Australia but we're too early. Most doesn't reach picking stage till about late Nov/early Dec and we were looking forward to gorging ourselves on cherries ... read more
Following th Murray River and finding Gold
Published: November 24th 2008Oceania » Australia » Victoria » Echuca
November 10th 2008
We arrived in Renmark, a fantastic town on the Murray River just inside the SA/VIC Border. The caravan park was literally on the river bank and so beautiful the highlight being green green grass. We could have stayed there for months. We followed the Murray along the border into NSW and back to VIC before rolling into Echuca. We found a caravan park to stay in, it was the best of a bad bunch so we stayed long enough to change the floor in the van (it had been badly stained by rubber mats before we left) and also to have a ride on the historic Paddle Steamer “Alexander” Then it was off to Bendigo. Bendigo was another beautiful town soaked in history and as we found out has a few unexpected firsts as its claim ... read more
