A terrible night sleep, always seems to happen the night before a big trip. Alarm set for 6:30, but I’m up at 6:15.
I’ve arranged to meet up with George and Doug at 7am at the Clover coffee shop, apparently they open at 7. I arrive a few minutes after 7 but there is no sign of them, Mmmm. Then I get the message they gone to another shop as Clover is still closed (I hadn’t even noticed).
Coffees onboard. Onto the M8 at the end of the crescent and we hit the motorway.
It’s pretty easy going, but as aways, it gets busy around Campbelltown.
We make good time, and about 3hours later we pull into the Yass service centre for a break. Unlike when towing, I don’t need to fill up here just yet. Around this time, we realise George has some issues with his rear tailgate latch.
Now I’m just over the freeway, I’m not fatigued, just bored. While we can continue on to Albury, we elect to turn off to Wagga Wagga. I fill up with fuel, and we pull into ARB for them to have a look at George’s tailgate (De’javu anyone?) We pull in at 12:15, only to see an ARB branded car drive out….they closed at 12. Bugger, we drive on.
About 20k’s out of Wagga we hang a left and then basically dogleg the next 200k’s or so. The country out here is just so flat.
Through Lockhart, I was going to take the bypass road, but notice out of the corner of my eye a water tower that seems to have mural on it, so we stop for a quick look, Lockhart is a nice little town.
Through Urana and Berrigan and after a long drive we pull into Tocumwal. Boy, it’s a lot larger than I expected. I spot the “Big Murray Cod” and we quickly pull over for a photo.
Around this time, I’m thinking the town seems awfully busy, we walk up the levee bank protecting the town to take a look at the river, wow there are more people. I can see across the river to one of the camp spots I thought we might look at, but it’s standing room only. Wow.
There are a few more spots a little further up the river, so we take a look at these…..all taken! Then George recalls that it’s Melbourne Cup this Tuesday so it seems half of Victoria is going to call in sick Monday and make an extra-long weekend of it.
I see on wikicamps some more spots maybe 15-20ks up, surely they will be quieter? Nope. We eventually find some boggy dirt track and have a go and find a small flat opening near the river. It’s great and will certainly do for the evening.
As we setup, boats and jetskis run up and down the river, so not quite the serenity I was hoping for, but at least we found something. After such a long day of driving it’s great to stop.
It does give us some cause for concern for the Grampians tomorrow night…..
We setup camp, and then get a fire on and have great bbq dinner as we sit around the fire.
Around 10 some bloke come barrelling down the river in a boat, flat stick with the matching engine noise, of course all we can see is the large spotty he’s got on the front. Odd time to be traveling on the river.
Finally, time for bed, We need to be in Echuca at 11:00 tomorrow.