Day 26 – Ballarat to Echuca/Bendigo/ Warburton’s Bridge

Thank you Premier!…..

I wake this morning to the news that NSW, well Sydney, is likely to extend lockdown.   I was fully expecting this,  what was unexpected was that schools would not be returning either.   The plan appears to be remote learning, and we all know how well that went last time……    In the back of my mind, I’d said to myself if school goes back, we’ll go back, but if school is closed, then all bets are off.

The BOM, has the temperature at 3.8 with a feels like of 0.0, oddly, while cold, it doesn’t feel that bad.   

We discuss our options, one of the problems is Liam’s birthday, we’ve spent so many of them away, it was a bit of a treat to have this one at home and do something with a few of his mates.   Well with lockdown that’s not going to happen anyway so we may as well stay away a bit longer.    I talk to a couple of guys from the office, it’s quiet enough for us to take some extra time.

So the plan had been to drive from here to Echuca to start making our way home, now we’re not so sure.  We figure we can afford a day or two in Bendigo so while the plan was just to drive through, we’ll probably stop there now.

We pull out of the very tight caravan park around 10, and remember the Eureka Stockage memorial that in only a couple of k’s away.  In fact it’s practically on our way out.   So we pull in and see the couple of memorials they have and the kids play in the local playground.   We think about visiting the museum, but we don’t really want to spend that time, so we head off.

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We driving stop at Daylesford for some lunch, nice town, but boy is it super busy today, and this is not an RV friendly town, so we need to park quite a few streets away.   Over lunch, I think about it.  We’re on our way to Bendigo, Bendigo will be another caravan park, I had been looking forward to camping somewhere on the Murray outside Echuca.  So I ask Justine to see if we can find a campground between us and Bendigo.  We can camp up one night, then have tomorrow in Bendigo.   We spot a couple that are near Vaughan Springs, about 30km out from Bendigo.  

We turn off the main road and by looking at the map, we figure we’re going to be on goat tracks and dirt roads, but no the road is good and we arrive at the hamlet of Vaughan Springs.   We drive in and find the campground just a bit before the picnic area.   There is some old guy who seems to be camping in his Commodore station wagon.   It’s a small area, so we figure we’ll drive on further to see what the second site is like.    Before we do though we drive down to the picnic area and the springs itself.    It’s a fairly big area and there are close to 10 cars here.   Of all things they have this massive metal slide.  A family group with about 6 or so small kids are having a ball, and our two jump in pretty quickly.   After a while we pull them off and take a walk around.  We find a working spring and Justine has brought her water bottle.   Yuck, very salty and metallic.   Let just say we won’t be filling the water tanks here.    Nearby there is a small bridge over the creek or river and from here we can see a weir upstream.    We’re still not sure if the river is the spring or not, but this weir seem to have a small swimming pool built into it.  Anyway back to the slide, let the kids have a few more goes then we leave.  On the way out the local rangers have stopped ahead of us and are talking the old bloke from the campground, I don’t think he’s seen a shower in quite a while.

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Anyway onto Warburton’s Bridge, and this is the business, this grassed section running beside the Loddon River.  There are probably about 4 or 5 vans/campers here, but still quite a bit of room.  We find a spot up towards the end close to the river.

Coffee, get the diesel heater going and then get out the fire pit.  I’m going to make up for lost opportunities. It looks like it might rain, so we get the fire on early.

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We take a bit of a walk around and the kids climb to the top of the hill.  

Some blogging time and of all thing the sun comes out, and while cold it’s a beautiful afternoon.    There are some people here in tents, boy it must be cold in them.  

I’ve got a toolbox full of wood, and I’m going to make the most of it.   It’s been so long since we’ve had a fire.  The cold seems to beat the kids who retreat inside, a jumbo marshmallows gets them out for a bit, but eventually they go back in.   Justine and I enjoy the red embers.

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