Greetings once again. We are now in Mildura a lovely town on the banks of the Murray River again like Swan Hill. The Murray River is actually over 2500kms long a fact I did not know. Before I go on to tell you what has been happening here there are a couple of things from Bendigo I forgot to tell you last blog. We went to the Beechworth Bakery in Bendigo which is supposed to be the greatest bakery in Australia. Chris had a Ned Kelly pie which he said was great it was meat on the bottom then an egg then cheese on the top. I have yet to have a pink iced bun none of them look anything like my favourites so I will save that treat til something comes up. Also when we left Bendigo there were paddocks and paddocks full of newborn lambs which seems odd as it is not that warm at night.
We arrived in Mildura yesterday and have a lovely campsite. You wouldn't believe how many houseboats there are for rent around this area alone so there must be hundreds all the way up and down the river. We went on a paddle steamer cruise today for two hours it was very relaxing and informative. The Murray river has lots of weirs and the one here at Mildura is closed for maintenance which in effect blocks the river and they have had to move a lot of the hire boats to the other side. Where we were one half of the river is in Victoria and the other in NSW.
We went to the Swan Hill Club on Friday night and I won a raffle which was a $20 fruit and vege voucher. After I had been and bought stuff (fruit and veges are very expensive here compared to NZ)we realised we will be going through a restricted fruit fly area so will have to eat it or give it away.
We are going to head to Broken Hill next via Wentworth(we will try not to get locked up) this was not even on our plans but that's the beauty of no timetable you can change your mind. You meet people and they give you advice so it pays to be open minded.
We nearly have everything we need in the van we have been surprised at what we hadn't thought of so have had lots of lists. Hope all is good with everyone. Cheers.