At 7:30 the BOM was reporting -2.1°, it was certainly fresh, even with the diesel heater running. The fields next to the van park had a nice frost and even the van roof hatches had a cover of frost.
Frost….Cold
We get fully ready as the plan is to do some freecamping on the Murray around Echuca for the next couple of nights.
Around 10 we pull out and start heading north. Through Huntly, Elmore and a quick stop in Rochester to see their Silo art. This is a really great one, really nicely done. Pity the main street was so busy as we missed out stopping at the local bakery.
The roads out here are so straight and the land is so flat, and with so little wind, we get pretty good fuel economy.
Into Echuca, and it’s a much bigger town than I expected. We noticed yesterday it has a Bunnings. The long main street is packed all the way up to the old wharf. Being the weekend and the last days of the school holidays is probably not helping. We try and be careful not to take a wrong turn and end up in NSW. Again it’s not really a RV friendly place.
The idea is to come back tomorrow and do one of the Murray cruises, so maybe we can have a better look at the town then.
The actual campsite is a place called Wills Bend. It’s about 15km out of town. There are dozens of places along the river, but this one at least has drop dunnys.
We arrive and it’s a bit of a rabbit warren of roads and tracks, a lot of the river is fenced off, so while you might only be 10mtr or so from the river, you can’t really see it. We loop around and see a line of vans by the river, we drive down and find a socially distanced site from the other already here and park up at a bit of an angle to give us both a bit of privacy.
Almost all the banks of the river here are steep, so there is really nowhere that’s easy to get down to the river.
By the Murray
It such a sunny day and in the sun it’s really quite warm. While not really needed as the batteries are practically fully charged, I get the solar blanket out and hook it up to keep them topped up.
After a bite to eat we setup a bit more and start to relax, Justine and the kids have these small cross stitch kits, that they are enjoying doing. Justine finished her first one, so has bought a larger one. It looks challenging.
Blogging away, a huge houseboat rounds the corner and slowly cruises by. They are pretty big and flash units up here. We all wave at each other and get a bit of a “Toot”
Toot…Toot…
While iconic with the steep banks, it’s probably not the most beautiful stretch of the Murray. Certainly different from the top end that we stayed at a year or so back.
There are some young guys in a couple of 4x4s camped not far away from us, and it seems they like both kinds of music “Country” and “Western”, they seem to like it loud too!
About 4, I get all the wood we’ve got out and start a mission to burn it. It ends up being a great one, and it so warm sitting around the fire, we have dinner outside for the first time in ages. I bought these extra large marshmellows for the kids, and they are actually too big.
The lads in the next camp still have the music going, it loud enough to hear, but not super annoying. At one stage we hear a loud bang, we hoping it’s just a aerosol can in the fire.
Nice and warm in the van and in here we can’t hear anything.
Marshmallows and a great camp fire, what more in the world could want. Super!
Keep warm.