Mildura

Mid-late November 2012

We’ve just had a 3 day rest at Mildura staying in a caravan park on the Murray.  This was to be our only time in Victoria on this leg of the trip and we ended up staying on the NSW bank! 

Mildura is a big regional city that is buzzing.  There’s a lot to see and we really didn’t see that much!  The kids went swimming morning and night at the pool in the caravan park. 

The kids chose to do a paddlesteamer ride that went through Lock 11 rather than the boat trip that left from Wentworth and journeyed on both the Darling AND Murray rivers. The kids enjoyed it; the Murray here at Mildura doesn’t have the gums that I’m used to seeing around Tocumwal and is quite a bit wider here.  The lock was really amazing to witness working and if Isobel wasn’t so worried about her wobbly tooth I might’ve enjoyed the journey more!

It was stinking hot with daytime temperatures reaching 38 and by night it dropped slightly (24 degrees at 1am) and the coolest part of the day was around 6am where we needed blankets and one morning an extra layer of sleeping bags. The days would heat up and the hottest part of the day was around 5pm. 

While here we saw the Darling/Murray rivers meeting and also took a trip south to Ouyen in the Mallee to see where Pop spent his early years.  We were surprised with the gently rolling hills leading into Ouyen; I imagined it would be flat like Finley. We were disappointed to see the Catholic church was new (so Pop would not have been christened there) and we didn’t get to Bronzewings (further south) or Mittyack as it was late in the day and the kids had had enough (and so had we).  But I’m glad I’ve now been to the Mallee and seen the place that was a special place in Pop’s heart.