Blog 8 Up the Murray.

Monday the 6^th we again broke camp and hit the road, we moved further south down to Victor Harbour and Goolwa at the mouth of the Murray, not knowing where we would camp for the night, just enjoying the scenery. As these places were only an hour’s drive away we ventured up to Tailem bend and found our first riverside park.

Once again there were some great sunsets, this time over the river.

Even after the sun went down……..

 Next morning we again moved on driving up to Renmark through the mallee country and made camp at the Big 4 Park again on the river. Nice spot lots of wild life

 (bloody hell what’s happening to me I am taking photos of birds, the feathered type, must be getting old).

Once again great sunsets over the river

The Murray River is looking healthy at the moment thanks to Qld, don’t know what these southern’s would do without us.

From Renmark we moved across to Mildura, once again we had to throw out our fruit as we moved into this area, I think it’s some sort of scam to get you to buy their fruit and vegies.

Found another great park on the Murray, it’s on the NSW side of the border, just over the bridge at a place called Buronga. For $5.00 the park guys will bring down a fire pit and a bag of wood and you can have your own camp fire, great with a glass of wine and a sexy blonde.

One night we had our neighbours over for drinks by the fire Brice and Penny from the Barossa valley

Not far from Mildura the waters from Queensland come down the Darling River and flow into the Murray, this is at Wentworth, the two rivers meet at a place they call “the junction”

We found out there was a cruise with a bbq lunch leaving soon on the rivers so we jumped on board. We first sailed up the Darling for a while

There are some nice places to live on the banks of these rivers; this is what I call a drinking spot,

After going up the Darling for a while they turned around and during lunch we went back down the Darling to “the junction”

Then it was up the Murray, the bird life was abundant heaps of different birds,

First there was our old favourite the pelican wherever we go he is around

Me old mate the kookaburra was there looking at me looking at him

Then there were the darters and cormorants

The Darter’s beak is straight and he spears his food under the water, different to the Cormorant whose beak has a hook with which he catch’s his fish.

Of course the wood duck was hanging around as well, and some swans

All in all the trip was pretty good we enjoyed ourselves, must really be getting old starting to enjoy watching feathered birds.

It’s strange in this area with all of this water flowing down the Darling and Murray rivers and just a couple of k’s out of Wentworth is a place called the sand dunes, it looks like the desert.

From Mildura we drove across to Swan Hill, got a great park on Pental Island an island between the Murray and the little Murray. The town was not that interesting but the park was on a working property on the banks of the Murray with a old rural setting amongst the gum trees,

Only stayed there two nights and moved on to Echuca, once again got a caravan park on the river, its cold and raining here. But Echuca is a nice spot, it would be a great place to visit when its warmer. Heaps of paddle steamers on the river including the wood fired “Canberra”

 

Echuca is where the Campaspe River joins the Murray so we had to find that spot, which we did after a bit of 4 wheel driving in the mud.

There also was a small local run military museum, it concentrated on mainly WW2 stuff but had some interesting artefacts

After Echuca we moved across to Albury Wodonga, camping in a park on Lake Hume. Nice spot, but once again it was wet and cold, the lake however was a flat and smooth as glass

Went for a drive out to the dam wall which was on the other side of the lake to us.

Albury Wodonga has a large military presence with 3 or 4 barracks in the area, it also hosts AHU museum at Bandiana,

 

This museum is one of the largest I have seen, with a large collection of vehicles, the museum is a Corps Museum catering for a lot of the smaller corps in the Army, it has exhibits showcasing each of these corps, e.g. the Army Apprentice School,

 

Having spent enough time following the Murray it’s time to leave the Murray and move up to the Murrumbidge  to Wagga to see Lucas in his passing out parade for the Royal Australian Air Force