Holiday - 2006/10/23

• Mike was suffering from his cold last night and this morning so Taemar & Stephen went for a walk in the Bendigo park where they saw ducks, baby ducks, swans, and baby swans.
• Stephen & Mike planned to do a mine tour at Bendigo’s Deborah Central Mine. Unfortunately Stephen decided he didn’t want to go down the hole after all, so instead we panned for gold and caught the tram again into town where we met Taemar.
• We drove on to Echuca for lunch which is a lovely town on the Murray with an historic port region. We saw plenty of paddle steamers cruising up the Murray, Stephen played in the park, and we had sandwiches for lunch.



• We arrived in Tocumwal before 3pm – Stephen had a good sleep in the car. We found another very nice caravan park and a brand new cabin to stay in, right opposite a solar heated pool and a bbq.
• We all had a swim in the pool to cool down. It’s much warmer inland than what it was down on the south coast – around 30 degrees here today.


• Later this afternoon we all went down to the banks of the Murray river. Mike has thought about the Murray a lot and remembered reading the book Riverboat Bill, set on the Murray, when he was a child. The banks of the Murray where we spent time were nice and sandy & Stephen & Mike were able to play happily digging holes, tunnels, and channels before the sun went down. We were surprised at how quickly the Murray was flowing, even quite close to the shore.



• At the Murray where we played is a campsite, not a caravan park, but a site where people can camp. There were approximately 20 caravans and campervans and when we arrived it seemed like they were all sitting in a big circle chatting and sipping wine & beer, no doubt swapping tales about the “good old days”.
• We had another bbq tonight – sausages, pumpkin, potato, mushrooms, and salad. Stephen struggled to finish his dinner – he was very keen on the ice cream that he knew was in the freezer, but the parents one this battle of wills and even though it took another half an hour Stephen got his ice cream only after he had finished all his dinner.
• Drove 220km.
• Google Map