Nomading - Mildura Cohuna Bendigo - 24 July - 5 August 2022

We are still quite a distance away from home but there is something final about re-entering Victoria after all this time. Today we drove from Broken Hill to Mildura, we could have crossed over into South Australia for a couple of weeks but we have friends in Mildura and thought this was a good opportunity to catch up with them, time passes quickly and it has been a couple of years since we had this opportunity. The drive from Broken Hill to Mildura is not terribly exciting and while I love the outback, after the first 150klms there isn't much more to look at. We eventually arrived in Wentworth on the NSW side of the river, actually the town of two rivers because this is where the Murray and the Darling Rivers meet up, we crossed one bridge and then we came to the Murray River bridge that would take us back into Victoria. Don't get me wrong I love Victoria and I particularly love our home town but it is just that our holiday is now drawing to a close. Once I get home I will be happy to be there and will probably want to nest for a couple of weeks. Anyway in the meantime we are looking forward to catching up with Mal and Christine, we will be meeting up for coffee in the morning on the river and I am pretty sure we will spend a couple of hours there sharing all our updates. We have booked four nights here because we need to get haircuts somewhere and I am hoping I can organise that this week.

We were meeting Mal and Christine at Bobby and Me a lovely little permanent food truck over the road from the Murray River. We have been here before and the coffee is always good, we were a bit worried about the weather but the sun was shining brightly and it was very pleasant sitting outside with the beautiful views. We sat there for ages and had two cups of coffee, we had so much to catch up on. I had left a message for a call back from a hairdressing salon and they called back while we were having coffee and we have now organised an appointment for Wednesday. We left Mal and Christine and went back to the van for lunch before returning to their home in the afternoon where we stayed for the remainder of the day. We ordered Pizza to be delivered for dinner and once again had a great time. We organised to catch up again at Bobby and Me for coffee in the morning and then to organise catching up for dinner one night. The next morning while we were sitting there a paddle steamer went by, The Mundoo, apparently that has not been seen much along the Murray and Mal suggested we take a ride on it, that sounded like an excellent idea to us so we packed up and moved along to the boarding section of the pier. We boarded and paid our fare and found a nice little table upstairs near a window good for photos and warmth. We spent two hours on the water and didn't see anything we hadn't seen many times before but it didn't matter because once again we spent the whole time talking and admiring this very special steamer with it's beautiful woodwork inside. There is an outlet on board where you can purchase simple food like sandwiches and slices and you can also purchase tea, coffee and alcohol if you want, we didn't need anything at the time so didn't worry about it. I took many photos along the river, probably most I had taken before but it was a beautiful day, the company was good and the river was at its best. The time went far too quickly and we soon found ourselves disembarking and returning to our cars. While on board Mal had booked us into the Spanish Grill for dinner that night so we parted after our cruise knowing we would be meeting again that evening for our dinner booking. Robb and I returned to our van, I needed to catch up with emails and photos so we spent the afternoon doing this before meeting our friends at the restaurant.

We arranged for Mal and Christine to pick us up for our dinner at the Spanish Grill that night. We drove to the restaurant and parked in the parking lot before walking over the road to the restaurant. We were directed to our table and then had to sit there and make the huge decision about what we wanted to order. Robb, Mal and I ordered steaks and Christine ordered salmon. The meals come out with just what you have ordered so we chose from the sides dishes to include, sweet potato chips, normal chips and a broccolini and bean dish. We purchased a bottle of wine and Robb and Mal chose a beer each. The food was amazing as was the service, once again we spent the whole night there just chatting away. The steaks were so good that we have decided that now this is a tradition and next time we return to Mildura we will have to book here for dinner. Another late night for us but well worth it.

Our last day in Mildura so once again we organised to meet up with Mal and Christine for coffee but this time somewhere indoors. We both had appointments in the afternoon so we sat there chatting for as long as we could before moving on. We have had a lovely stay here, thanks to Mal and Christine for taking so much time out to spend with us. We picked up a few items from Woolworths before driving on home for a very quick lunch before making our appointment at the hairdressers. We were very happy with the outcome of the appointment and I had a lovely time with the staff and clients there. We are moving on tomorrow so we had a quiet remainder of the afternoon.

We were up at the normal time in the morning to move onto our next stop, originally this was going to be Kerang but we found a nice little park in Cohuna that was run by one of the clubs we were affiliated with so decided to stay there.I don't think there is a lot to do in either place but we will see how we go. We put the address into our GPS and as normal she took us through the back roads to finally meet up with the highway. Sometimes we get a bit annoyed at this particularly when the roads aren't too good but other times it works out well because we come across interesting areas that we wouldn't normally see. This time we came across some large water areas which may have just been the result of floods but they were quite scenic and I took a few photos that came out well. Anyway we arrived in Cohuna and easily found the park and proceeded to book in. It didn't take long to set up and I made lunch for us before we drove into the Visitor Centre to pick up a bit of information.

We have contacted our friends in the area to try to organise catch ups and have organised coffee with friends on Saturday morning, unfortunately I couldn't catch up with my niece because she had other commitments. We had coffee at home this morning to give me time to do a wash and hang it out before we started looking around, I put the second load in before we left. We planned to have a look around Gunbower Lake and then to drive further onto the island and when we did we saw a turn off for the forest drive and turned onto this road. It was a pretty drive on an unmade road, we drove as far as we could before the road started to become a bit rough and thinking we weren't going to see anything different further on we turned around. When we finally had internet service we asked our Siri to set our GPS for The Gunbower Hotel, it wasn't a long drive and we had a quick look around Gunbower while we were there. From Gunbower we drove to Kerang, we were originally going to stay in Kerang but I changed to Cohuna when I saw they had a G'Day park there, the park is on Gunbower Creek and it is very pretty and worth the change in plans. Anyway we have been around this general area before and I don't think we have much more to see so I will try to find a few towns we haven't been too before here.

We started our day with coffee with Alan and Carol in Cohuna at Bird's Bakery where Alan used to work. We sat outside, the temperature was only 13 degrees but it was quite sunny and pleasant as long as you were sitting in the sun. We spent a couple of hours here with our friends before doing a bit of necessary shopping and then moving on to explore the area. Our plan was to drive to Barham stopping off at Koondrook on the way. I can't remember ever being to either town, Koondrook in Victoria and Barham just over the bridge in NSW so I was a bit excited to be exploring new regions. Koondrook is a very pretty little town with quite a history behind it. It is a large dairying area but there is a wharf there that seems to be related to the past production of redgum timber and furniture. The wharf is deserving of a bit of a look, as you walk along the river you can see where the old wharf and the train/tram line used to run. The new wharf has been designed for tourism and you can walk down to an area that is probably used for embarking on boats but gives a great view along the Murray. Koondrook is connected by bridge to Barham in NSW, this is a one lane bridge so we had to wait until it was clear to drive over to the other side. We had a quick drive around Barham, once again a very attractive town on the Murray with some very old buildings that interested us to take photos. We drove back home to Cohuna from here.

The Blues Festival is on this weekend in Echuca and we are so close here at Cohuna so it seemed like a great opportunity to visit this lovely town that was once our home. We didn't have a set plan just to drive there and have a look around, apart from living here we have visited many times before and did not expect to find anything new to discover. We conveniently found a parking spot very close to the cafe we normally have lunch at when visiting so we ducked in very quickly while we had the opportunity. We took a walk over to the wharf where all the paddle steamers and houseboats are stored. A few of the houseboats have been pulled out of the water and we thought that might be because the river is so high and running so fast, however, we did hear a paddle steamer whistle while we were standing there so we presume there was at least one boat running today. From here we walked along the wharf precinct revisiting all the usually tourist attractions until we turned onto the main street, not much has changed here in the two plus years we have been here but there is no denying how appealing this tourist area is. We eventually walked back to the cafe we wanted to have lunch at and luckily when we walked in there was one table inside available, we didn't want to sit outside because it was a bit chilly so we grabbed this table and ordered a couple of coffees. We perused the menu while drinking our coffees and then ordered our lunch, Atlantic Salmon for Robb and Tuscan pasta for me. Both meals were good and the coffee is excellent, I think we would both recommend the Odd Captain when you are in Echuca. After lunch we walked back to our car and before leaving the area we drove onto Moama along the new road that we had never seen before, I could not believe how long the bridge was but we eventually found the road into town and after a quick look around we drove back to Echuca over the old bridge we were more familiar with.

On the way home we called into Torrumbarry Weir for a bit of a look. This is a very impressive system that seems to handle huge quantities of water. There is an interpretive centre on site and maybe we should have visited here to learn more about the workings but we were happy just to walk along the top of the weir.

We had a very short drive this morning to our next stop at Bendigo only taking one hour and sixteen minutes and it would have been quicker if we hadn't of been driving on unmade dirt roads. When our GPS first took us off the main road I was a bit disappointed because I wanted to go through Pyramid Hill but it turned out worthwhile because we drove through a few very small interesting towns that we wouldn't normally visit. We had a bit of sunshine today and that helped to make it a very pleasant drive. We didn't have any problem finding the caravan park we had booked last night and we were soon set up. We needed to go shopping before lunch as I usually let our food supplies run down when we are nearly home so that I have less to unpack and we needed a few things for lunch. After that we tried the few caravan repairs places in Bendigo to see if we could replace our toilet capsule but unfortunately they didn't carry the model we needed, not to worry we will order it online when we get home. I had picked up a bit of tourist information at the park office which I will have a look at later today to plan our time here, we didn't see the need to go to the Visitor Centre for more as the office had all the information I was looking for. Robb thinks he has a head cold so we will just stay home for the remainder of the day.

It would be really easy to find a theme for this holiday as we have visited so many mining towns. We have mined for everything from Emeralds, Sapphires, Opals, Silver, Lead, Tin and and Gold, I may have forgotten something that I will think of later but basically a lot of mining. Today we took a tour of the Central Deborah Gold Mine, I very nearly chickened out of this tour at the last minute when I found out we had to go down 63 metre to the second level of the mine. The mine has 17 levels so I was rather glad we weren't going down that far which was roughly 480+ metres. I suffer from Claustrophobia and Vertigo both of which I would have to face today, my husband has missed many of these tours because of me so I made a decision to go ahead with the tour feeling pretty confident that if I had a panic attack they would get me to the top one way or the other. We have taken a couple of underground tours on this holiday but nothing as deep as this. We took a cage down to the level we were going to walk around, when I say cage that is exactly what it was so that I could see the downward rock tunnel we were passing through that was just big enough for the cage to pass through. We reached the second level and commenced the circuit we were taking around this level. We all had hard hats on and each hard hat had a light on the front, it is very dark down here and even with the lights it was difficult to find out way through the tunnels. Our guide Zoe was excellent and full of information, we stopped at maybe 10-12 spots where she explained the various procedures involved with digging out the rock and getting it to the surface. The miners job was not to recognise areas with gold but just to work through the layers they were assigned to, they were paid for the amount of rock they could send up each day, they worked in pairs and soon learnt the harder they worked the more they earned. The miners did not have a long life expectancy but the money could be quite good sometimes three times the average weekly wage. I loved the tour but could not help feeling happier once we returned to the surface and very proud of myself for completing the tour without freaking out. We spent another half hour after the tour walking around the museum and facility. From the mine we drove to Bendigo Pottery which I have wanted to visit for years now. We didn't spend long here but had a good look around the pottery and Antiques centre before returning home.

We took the Talking Tramway tour today which left the depot at 10.00am,. The Driver/Conductor was quite amusing and we had a good look around Bendigo. This is a HoHo tour but we just stayed onboard for the whole trip thinking we would drive to other attractions we saw on the way later on. The tour does not cover a very big area but the tram was comfortable and it was relatively warm inside. It only takes 47 minutes for the circuit leaving the Central Deborah Goldmine and back again. We were keen after this tour to visit the Sacred Heart Cathedral and drove straight there after the tour. We parked and unfortunately the front doors were closed so we thought we would just walk around the outside of this amazing looking building. This is the third largest cathedral in Australia after St. Mary's in Sydney and St. Paul's in Melbourne so it was a decent walk around and then luckily we found an open door which we walked through into the interior of this most magnificent building. We were very impressed with this cathedral and walked around taking many photos, we have seen many cathedrals all over the world but this one is definitely up there with the best. We had a lovely long talk to the volunteer on duty about cathedrals in various countries we had both visited comparing one against the other, we stayed there for quite a while and only moved on because there were more people moving into the church. From here we moved onto Beechworth Bakery for lunch. After lunch we returned home so that we could call our son for his birthday and book a table at the Japanese restaurant in Bendigo for dinner tomorrow night.

Our last day in Bendigo, we are nearly home and we have booked a Japanese Restaurant for dinner tonight. We could only get a booking at the restaurant for 5.45pm, very early for us, so we thought we would go out for an early brunch. We noticed a nice little cafe on Lake Weeroona when we took the tram ride and thought we would go there where we had a nice outlook. We parked and walked along the walkway to The Boardwalk Bendigo, we could sit outside but it is a bit chilly so chose to sit inside. We found a table and ordered a coffee each while we perused the menu. We had looked at the menu online but it was a bit different and they didn't have Eggs Benedict on the new menu, Robb mentioned we had seen it online and the waitress said she could organise that for us. The service was friendly and the food was excellent, better still the coffee was good. We sat here for a little while after finishing breakfast as it was very pleasant looking over the lake. When we returned to camp we looked at the availability of caravan parks near Yarra Junction which was where we intended to stay for the next two nights so that we could catch up with Matthew and Lyndal but one park would cost us $170 for the two nights and the other park was full. We have made an executive decision to drive home from here and then we will catch up with Matt and Lyndal later on, I have messaged them to let them know.

We had booked into Okami Japanese restaurant in Bendigo for dinner for our last night on holiday, our booking was for 5.45pm much earlier than we normally eat but that is the only time that was available. We turned up on time and found our table. There was a limited menu but the food was good as was the variety. We ordered four dishes to start with, in hindsight we should have ordered 10 dishes because we found we had to keep following up with extra dishes whereas those who had ordered quite a few to start with had the dishes coming out consistently, we will know next time. We enjoyed our dinner and the pricing was good.

We were up at the normal time to pack up and drive on home. We had a big 5+hour drive home because we didn't want to drive through the city so plan to drive to Yea and then on home from there. We had a really good run driving through some pretty little towns and stopping for lunch at McDonalds in Caldermeade, we arrived home at 3.15pm. We will leave the van out the front until tomorrow, we need to do shopping but will come home from that and unpack the van. It doesn't take long to do because it is only our clothes and a little bit of food that needs to be emptied out. So after four and a half months we ar finally back home, we have had a good holiday and it is not long until we ar away again so we will catch up on the things we need to do and get ready for the next time.