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Published: September 4th 2009
Hey there travel buddies, I hope this finds you all well and warm … much warmer than us I hope! While our days often range between 12 to a pleasant 19 degrees (down here in northeast Victoria), unfortunately the same cannot be said for the nights. Recently I have taken to wearing 4 layers of clothing which include not 1 but 2 jackets, the outer layer being mostly fleece. I also have a delightful deer stalker hat, a pair of full body thermals with white and blue horizontal stripes and some thick grey crocheted socks courtesy of all the important ladies in my life! Combined they make me look like an escapee from some nut house! (Thanks guys!) Maybe it is a result of being in Queensland for the past 7 years but I can no longer cope in less than 5 degrees, especially to sleep in. In fact, the other day Rich had a good laugh at me because I had taken to raking through his bag to find some gloves and a scarf. Since we don’t have a mirror and it is quite a long time since I have “viewed” myself, just the other morning I asked Rich to
take a photo of me in my “warm night wear” ….. I’m ashamed to say he absolutely point blank refused, saying that to see myself like this would seriously damage my health! Since then, I’ve made sure that I only change into these when darkness falls and only those with very good night vision can see me!
Anyway, I’m sure you didn’t come here to read about my nightwear so I’ll return to our travels. In my last blog I left you at Wentworth, NSW. Since then we have zigzagged across to Victoria and back to NSW several times as we have made our way east following the Murray River. We have followed the river as closely as the roads will allow, which isn’t very close in places, but we have managed to camp alongside the river each night. Our first real experience of the Murray River was at Mildura. This is quite a major town which boasts many nice cafes, bars and restaurants. The streets are very wide and the Murray is obviously a centre attraction of this town. The River in Mildura, like Wentworth, is tightly regulated by locks and weirs so it is a very popular
place for house boats. This is a good place for them too since the river is very wide and picturesque at this point (it seems to narrow the further upstream you go) and is lined by either parks, wildlife reserves or just the natural bush land. Unfortunately, I didn’t take any photos of the river in town but the first photo posted here gives you an idea. This is taken just a little further upstream at Bottle Bend Reserve where we camped. The black thing in the water is an introduced species to this area… goes by the name of Woody!
From Mildura we travelled along the Murray Valley Highway passing through Buronga (which has the Big wine cask), Swan Hill (which has the Giant Murray Cod), Tocumwal (which has the Big fish), Cobram (which has the Big Strawberry) and today we reached Wodonga, which has the Big Rolling Pin. For those of you who don’t know (but are obviously catching on now I imagine) is that there are BIG things all over Australia and being the nutter that I am, I’m taking photos of the ones we get to visit. Friends of ours bought us the book of
Big things a few years ago so we have an idea of where to look for them. However, I’ll have to write to them and alert them of another one I found at Passage Camp, Boundary Bend … affectionately known as the Big Ginger Beard!!! I’m quite sure it is an original!
The northern parts of Victoria are so different to places like Menindee Lakes, Broken Hill and Bourke. Down here the land appears to be much more fertile and they are able to grow a range of different things. Firstly we passed numerous orchards which were mostly citrus fruits, then fields upon fields of olive trees and different types of nuts, as well as other things like carrots, tomatoes and pumpkins. This stretch is also a popular wine region so there is an endless number of cellar doors to visit as you travel through this country side. All of these “industries” make places like Swan Hill very pretty to drive through. Some of the fields are striking in colour from the tree blossoms, such as the pink blossom on these trees in the photo.
Swan Hill has a very interesting but not very well advertised tourist attraction.
Several kms south of Swan Hill is a place called Lake Boga which was used as a “flying boat” repair depot during the 2nd world war. In operation from 1942 until 1947 (some years after the war), this inland lake was used as a site where PBY-Catalinas used to fly to for repairs and servicing. During the 2nd world war, this site was strictly confidential. Lake Boga wasn’t found on any standard map and even some American aircrew didn’t even know where they were flying to. Lake Boga was chosen as it was far enough inland for the planes to be safe from enemy attack while they were out of operation and it was also a natural lake, an almost perfect circle with a 3km diameter so they could always take off and land no matter where the wind was coming from. Overall, it was very successful. There is one remaining PBY-5 catalina left on display at the lake and the old communications bunker has now been converted to a small museum. Unfortunately when we arrived, expecting to see a big beautiful lake, we were presented with a shallow crater and not one drop of water to be seen. It
has obviously been this way for a number of years but after a trip through the museum it is not difficult to imagine what it must have been like. One of the things I found interesting was that the WAAAF (Womens Auxiliary Australian Airforce) played a huge role in the functioning of this depot and there are several photographs of the lovely ladies working on the planes, sitting on tail wings and such!
A bit further on from Swan Hill we visited a placed called Echuca (came highly recommended!) which was known as Australia’s biggest inland river port in the late 1800‘s and the historic wharf still stands today. Part of Echuca’s charm is that the community has tried to recreate history and they have a small but beautiful historic street with blacksmiths, wood turners, people in costume dress and of course, shire horses and carts. Very charming! However Echuca was not always such a delightful place, it certainly appears to have a colourful past. On Echuca’s historic walk you will find out that Echuca has Victoria’s only classified brothel and you will also learn of the bad behaviour that went on within the town which eventually led to
all the inns and hotels in the town being de-licensed! This however, was not a problem for patrons of the Star Hotel which established a secret underground bar complete with an escape tunnel when the police used to come for inspection!
Now, we would never live it down if we had travelled along both the Darling and the Murray and not stepped aboard a paddle steamer … so we decided to do this in Echuca. There are about 5 or 6 paddle steamers that cruise the Murray at Echuca and so we decided to go on the prettiest one, the PS Emmylou. This lovely little steamer is only about 30 years old (bit of a fake compared to the others that were built in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s) however, her beautiful steam engine was built in Gainsborough, England in 1907. Each day she goes through 1 tonne of River Red Gum for the cruises and can cruise at 12km per hour. It was a very pleasant little trip and very relaxing. The chug of the paddles and the warmth from the engine is enough to relax anyone enough to send them off to sleep!
Over the
past few days, we have had quite a bit of rain and so now I don’t only have delightful attire just for bed. Unfortunately for Rich, I’m also an embarrassment to be seen with during the day! … and not only this I don’t restrict it to myself! Woody also has his own wet weather gear!!! The good thing I suppose is that spring has finally arrived and everything is starting to get much greener. We had a nice surprise when we were visited by a couple of wild rabbits at our camp spot in Echuca and it is lovely to see ducklings on the river, as well as lots of lambs and calves in the fields. However there is a slight downside. I don’t know whether it is the rain or just springtime but the male koalas are making themselves known and are becoming more and more frisky each night! Their grunts and “macho” calls are rather loud and frightening when you’re woken in the middle of the night!
We’re headed for the hills this week so if my fingers don’t freeze and I survive a few more nights with “loved up” koalas, we should have something a
little different for you next week. Til then …………
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Ayanthi Richards
non-member comment
Beautiful....thanks :-)
Hi again dear Hay and Rich :-) My what a long distance you've covered already! Thanks so much for the lovely newsy updates and beautiful pics....far from being boring, it's great to be able to tag along with you for the adventure! Rich you look most distinguished with that 'big ginger beard'....it gives you the appearance of a Prof....but I really can't see what's so unsightly about the wet-weather gear.....especially Woody's which looks even elegant....he looks a perfect nobleman...I mean noble-dog...in it. Congratulations to you both on your foresight and preparedness....you seem to be managing like seasoned nomads. Have a safe and wonderful week. Take care, Ayanthi.