Roger and Denise travels – report 2

Mildura – 16 to 21 October 2009

Settled into Buronga Riverside Caravan Park.

This park is reputed to have been recently named best caravan park in Australia in a survey of park users, and it certainly is the bench-mark by which we will judge every park we stay at in future.

The owners make you feel welcome. The amenities are clean. Somehow it feels like a home. There is a small animal section to entertain kids of all ages. Free movie under the stars each Sunday night and free live entertainment once a month.

Animal farm at Buronga Riverside Caravan Park. © D Neal 2009.

I went for a short walk on the Saturday afternoon to shoot scenes of the Murray River and the camping area, only to find that all commands and controls of my four year old Fuji camera had ceased, rendering the camera useless.

By Sunday night I’d come to terms with having to buy another camera or be a total grump for the remainder of our holiday. Early Monday we would have to find a camera shop and hopefully find what I was looking for.  That afternoon we would do a steamboat cruise up the river, Tuesday visit Mungo Lakes National Park, Wednesday relax and vegetate, Thursday on the road again and head for Echuca.

PS Melbourne, cruising on Murray River – 19 October 2009.

No wind. Bright, sunny skies. Temperature heading for 30 Celsius. A great day for relaxing and cruising up the Murray on the paddle steamer “Melbourne”.

Also, a cruise is a good way to get familiar with my new Canon 50D DSLR.

We enjoy the sweet, pungent smell of Mallee red gum logs burning to get up a full head of steam, then, two toots of the steam horn, cast off and we are away.

Steam engine on board PS Melbourne. © R Neal 2009.

The journey takes us up river to Lock 11 where our boat enters the lock at river level and a house boat just manages to fit in along side us. Three sharp toots on the horn had warned the lock master of our approach, out of site around the bend, and he was ready with the lock gates open before we arrived.

Lock 11 sign on bank of Murray River. © D Neal 2009.

Closing the lock gates. © R Neal 2009.

Gates closed, water is released from the lock and we slowly drop about 5 metres to match water level on the other side of the lock. Open the other gates and our cruise continues. All the while we are treated to an entertaining, informative commentary from the captain relating the history of the river, the building of the lock system and the river traffic.

We just lounge back and enjoy the sites and sounds of the river.

Swan family crossing the river. © D Neal 2009.

Seagulls on beach of Murray River. © R Neal 2009.

 Mungo Lakes National Park – 20 October 2009

I had been looking forward to this trip for a long time! Leave the van in Mildura, drive the 110kms out to Mungo Visitor Centre and the extra 13kms to Red Top lookout, shoot some great sunsets on the Walls of China formations and drive back in the dark to Mildura.

We expected to be travelling over dirt roads but nothing prepared us for this journey! Corrugations, ruts, holes, rock hard mini sand dunes. We bounced, rattled, shook and jarred our way to the visitor centre only to arrive hot, dusty and tired. Fine bull dust in everywhere and in everything.

Road and scrub near Mungo. © R Neal 2009

Located at the visitor centre, the shearers shed is all that remains of a pioneering sheep raising venture. It is a marvel of engineering ingenuity! The pioneers used any materials they could find to build the sheds. No nails, no bolts – all major framing is tied together using fencing wire, with finer wire or ropes used for tying everything else together.

Interior of shearers shed, Mungo. © R Neal 2009.

Exterior view of shearers shed, Mungo. © R Neal 2009.

Drivers for shearers clippers. © D Neal 2009.

The steam engine which provided power to the shearers clippers. © D Neal 2009.

During our visit the temperature rose to 32 degrees Celsius and we lost interest in doing another 26ks over bone jarring roads so just shot scenes in and around the shearers shed and headed back to the comfort of our van in Mildura.

On the Chaffey Trail – 21 October 2009.

The Chaffey Trail relates the story of how Mildura became an irrigation oasis in the middle of nowhere. Present day Mildura may not have existed were it not for Victorian Cabinet Minister Alfred Deakin and the Chaffey brothers, George and William, from Ontario, USA.

In 1847 the Jamieson brothers set up a pastoral site on the banks of the Murray River. In 1858 the site was officially named Mildura but their pastoral lease eventually became defunct.

The Chaffey brothers had designed a model irrigation settlement for Ontario when Deakin and the Victorian Government convinced them to come to Mildura to set up their irrigation scheme there.

They arrived in 1887, bought the defunct pastoral lease, and set about developing a series of steam-driven pumps to lift water from the Murray River and irrigate up to 33,000 acres.

The old Midura homestead is a reconstruction on the original site of the first Mildura homestead established by the Jamieson brothers. The successful growing of fruit trees here by the Chaffeys proved the potential for an irrigation settlement.

Old Mildura Homestead. © R Neal 2009.

Laundry at the homestead. © D Neal 2009.

The homestead wool shed. © R Neal 2009.

Out building and carts. © R Neal 2009.

The homesteads harvester. © D Neal 2009.

Red rose from the homestead garden. © R Neal 2009.

The Mildura Homestead Cemetery commemorates Ann Maria, mother of the Chaffey brothers, plus Williams first wife Hattie Schell, as well as four children.

Chaffey family commemorative garden. © R Neal 2009.

The desire to have permanent water available for river traffic and irrigation led the Chaffey brothers to design a series of locks and weirs along the Murray River. Lock 11 and the Mildura weir are mentioned above during our paddle steamer cruise.

We are off to Echuca via Robinvale, Swan Hill and Kerang tomorrow. After that, we plan to go through Cobram, Rutherglen, Wodonga, Gundagai and Yass to Canberra. Should arrive Canberra around Wednesday 28 October.

So far our health is good and we’re starting to get the knack of efficiently hooking up and unhooking the van and car at last.

Bye for now. Roger and Denise.