Not a bad night’s sleep, but I’m up just 6 after. The Murray certainly looks high and seems to be running at a bit of a clip. While I’m looking at the river a couple of fish jump out, I didn’t see them, but by the size of the splashes they must have been pretty big.
Not long later and George and Doug get up.
A slow packup and we’re away just before 9. Thanks to the 4×4 maps we have, the navigation back to the main road proves easier than I thought.
A couple of stops to grab some photos of these great sculptures by the side of the road, I may need to google their origins when I get home. There is a third one, a cockatoo, but our route back to the highway missed this one.
We drive the 100 odd K’s to Echuca and boy it this place busy, reminds me of the school holiday Sunday when we were here last time. Fortunately, we find a park pretty easy.
A quick brunch at the Beechworth Bakery, not really as good as the reputation.
Coffee’s in hand we take a walk up the main drag, it’s like Pitt St Mall!
A quick lap back to the car to get hats and sunscreen, it’s a super warm day and we make it back to the wharf just in time and are some of the last to board the PS Pevensey. As it’s so busy we stay upstairs which end up being a not a bad options as the view up here is pretty good.
They talk about the pier and the flood that came through in ’22, about 6 months or so after we were here in ’21, it would have been amazing to see, it must have been at least 6mtrs or more above the current water level.
It’s a nice trip, but for some reason I enjoyed the trip on the Adelaide more, maybe as it was so much less crowded.
Done, we fuel up, make a quick side trip into BigW and we’re on our way again.
I’ve got to say, Victorians like a straight road and it’s not till we hit some conservation area to we start to see hills and some curved roads. At a couple of sections we hit single lane roads, I’ve driven them before in Queensland, but I didn’t realise there were so many in Victoria too. I might just be my recollection, but I recon’ we passed more cars on the single lane section than the double!
Though St Arnaud, a bigger and nicer looking town than I expected. Stawell, and finally into Halls Gap, it is close to 5, so we’ve left our run a little late.
This place is nuts, it feels like a Easter weekend. The van park seems full and we’re gobsmacked when we drive past the ice-cream store, the queue must have been 50+ people. Again NUTS……
We pull over and look at our options on wiki camps, I have to say I’m feeling very nervous about our options, not that I planned to stay at them, but I checked the main campgrounds when we stopped back in St Arnaud’s and they were all full.
I see a place about 10k’s up the road, it meant to be only 4×4 (although I think every 2nd person here has one of those), but it also seems off the main tracks. So we take a look, we miss the turn off at first as it’s so narrow and overgrown. We turn around and enter and find a clearing just inside, but this is really close to the road bridge over the creek. We venture in a bit further and find a small clearing, nothing special, but it might do. 50mts or so on, the track crosses a gully and would be just about impassable. Without too many other options, this will have to do. We squeeze the cars in and setup for the night. Crappy, but better than I feared….
A great night around the campfire and when it’s dark the place looks fine!
