Swan Hill, Victoria

As soon as we drove into the Big4 Riverside Caravan Park at Swan Hill, we knew that three nights would not be enough at this lovely van park so we immediately booked another one.  Our site is right beside Little Murray River right where it joins the Mighty Murray River.  

We have been enjoying long walks each afternoon along the banks of the Murray River through some lovely parklands that many families enjoy. When we arrive back from our walk, we have been sitting outside our van and watching the river lazily flow past.  It is bliss.

 Tourist wise, we have been busy.  Our first day here we visited the Heritage Village that is one of the best we have seen.  It is not large, like the one at Herberton, but beautifully laid out along easy walking roads.  We rode in an old vintage car and also in the Horse Drawn carriage that was a lot of fun.  It was a surprise when we looked at our watches and found that we had been wandering around for almost three hours.

Mitchell (my mum's maiden name) Farm Machinery

Yesterday we drove to Lake Boca to check out the Flying Boat Museum - home of the Catalina.  I thoroughly enjoyed this museum.  When you first enter you are invited to sit down and enjoy a video that tells the history of Lake Boca as an integral part of the allied defence during World War 11.  The Lake was the perfect spot to build a Flying Boat Repair Depot as it was certainly large enough to land the enormous planes.  The Catalina is a magnificent flying boat but I would not have liked to sit in it for up to 30 hours, as the crew did on bombing missions.  Inside, it is stripped to bare minimum to keep weight down. The museum is certainly worth a visit.

Looking from the front of the Catalina, through a glass window, to the very back where Philip is waving

It is a bit hard to see the pilots sitting up front in this photo and it would have been very uncomfortable for them

Our next stop after lake Boca was Kerang, in the heart of the Mallee area, where we stopped for Coffee and Cake.  It is a very busy town that was a bit of surprise to us.  We didn't stay too long as we had mapped out a circular drive that would take us back to Swan Hill but we were not sure how long it would take.

The drive back to Swan Hill took us past many lakes and we presume that some of them would be salt.  But the one that we stop at, Lake Tutchewop is teeming with birdlife so it is definitely a fresh water lake.

The backroads are always the best roads for us and the journey back to Swan Hill was no exception.  We stayed close to the Murray River through farming land.  One thing that was very noticeable were the levy banks built around the farm complexes.  These all look fairly new and we presume built for the 2022 flood.

So that brings us to today and it has been an easy day with a 30km drive to the Andrew Peace Winery that has recently won a gold medal for their Pinot Grigio and as that is our favourite blend, it was a no brainer to drive there.  The wine, as we imagined, was lovely so we purchased six bottles along with six piccolo bottles of their Prosecco that has sold out in the 750ml.  We also picked up a bottle of locally grown Kalamata olives that, I can tell you, are super delicious.  After the winery we took another back road to circle home to Swan Hill.  We are getting pretty good at picking these roads!  We drove through acres and acres of orchards and it was the first time that I had seen the stone fruit trees espaliered.  I had seen this on one of the gardening shows but up close they are quite incredible and the whole idea is for easy picking of the fruit.  There are also acres upon acres of Almond Trees and it is no wonder that almonds and almond meal are now so cheap.

Tonight we will finish off our time here in Swan Hill with the "Heartbeat of the Murray" Laser Light Show.  It is only a ten minute walk to the show and as it doesn't start until 8.30 we decided to walk to one of the local clubs for dinner to fill in a bit of time.  It should be a great night!