Today we went for a drive to Mildura, some 30km away from where we are staying at Wentworth. Along the way we stopped at the botanic gardens, which we didn't find too exciting - other than seeing Sturt desert pea flowers, which we hadn't seen in the outback. The rose garden was bare as the rose season has just finished, and the rest of the park didn't hold a lot of interest to us.
In Mildura we checked out the wharf area and Lock 11 (another of the Murray Lock and weirs designed to hold the water and control the flow and level). We then went to the visitor Centre, which has many displays and a video about the history of the area, in particular about the American-born Chaffey brothers, who came to Australia on the invitation of then Victorian Cabinet Minister, Alfred Deakin. W.B Chaffey and his brother George were responsible for building an irrigation settlement in Ontario,
California and once they heard about the potential along the Murray River, they were persuaded to come out here and use their model to bring the Murray Darling basin area to life by providing irrigation to the surrounding farmland. This virtually enabled the hot, dusty desert landscape to become the successful fruit and wine growing region that it is today.
We paid a visit to the magnificent homestead built by W.B Chaffey in 1890, called Rio Vista, which is open to the public as part of the Mildura Arts Centre. Chaffey's second wife lived in the house following his death until the 1950s when it was purchased by the city of Mildura for 18,000 pounds and was converted into an art gallery.
We also visited Mildura Station Homestead, the first house built in the region back in 1847 by the Jamieson brothers who had the first pastoral lease in the area. The Chaffey brothers lived at Mildura Station Homestead when they first arrived in the area.
By this time we were ready to see something other than history and we drove a little way out of town past the small town of Gol Gol and stopped at a local olive farm to taste olives and buy local extra virgin olive oil and then on to Trentham Estate, situated right on the banks of the mighty Murray, where we tasted some delicious whites and reds (and bought 3 bottles to share later). We tottered out of the winery feeling a little tipsy and so we headed back to our campsite to chill in the late afternoon sunshine by the river, enjoy more wine and some cheese and olives to keep us going as we watched the pelicans, ducks, egrets and swans glide by.
BBQ'd chicken burgers for dinner and finally headed indoors to eat and wind down after another lovely day out.
Night night xx