Murray River, Should be called Mosquito River

Murray River - 1st - 9th December

We absolutely love the beach & have spent almost all of our travels so far staying in coastal towns so decided to travel along the Murray River for the journey back to Adelaide to experience a bit of River life.

First up was a one night stay in Yass. There's not much at Yass but it was a good stopover to break up the drive. We kept the car hooked up ready to set off without any fuss the next morning,

Next stop was Yarrawonga. I have always been keen to stay at Yarrawonga as it was my Aunty Anne

& Uncle Len's favourite holiday spot & is where Aunty Anne's ashes are scattered. Uncle Len & family have a weekend there every year & if we can manage it I'd like to join them some time.
The caravan Park, right on the NSW / Vic border was huge & right on the river. The First we knew it was going to be a busy weekend was when booking our site the receptionist asked if we were here for the big 'Cod Classic' fishing competition. Turns out it is one of the biggest fishing competitions in Australia with about 3,000 entrants.
We arrived on the Friday afternoon to a half empty Park. By Friday night the park was full & buzzing with fishermen sorting their rods bait, lures & all things fishing. It was a great atmosphere.
We woke up around 9 o'clock next morning & although there were tents as far as the eye could see there was not a person in sight, they were all fishing. They were back again by 5 o'clock preparing again for the next day.

Just at the end of the caravan park was a weir. It had a see through Steele grate walkover which gave me jelly legs but Gary enjoyed walking back & forth over to get a good look at the water gushing over.
My entertainment was the Saturday market on the riverbank which was really nice with the usual market stalls & local produce which is always a good opportunity to stock up on fruit & veg.

On the Monday we set off for our next stop which was Swan Hill. On the way we saw a quarantine

 sign then a few more km's along there was an unmanned quarantine station with a huge sign & the standard yellow bin. Aarrgghh...... All My beautiful fresh fruit!!! We pulled in & had an impromptu 'lunch' of as much fruit as we could eat. Doing our best Very Hungry Caterpillar impersonation we ate 2 mangoes, 2 apples, bananas, strawberries, blueberries, & peaches. We didn't need our Metamucil that day!

Swan Hill Caravan Park was really nice. Our site was right on the banks of the river. The drawback of this is the mosquitoes love the views too! Daytime wasn't too bad but from dusk they'd eat us alive.
We had a nice relaxing time here, just looking around the little town, taking the obligatory photo in front of the 'Big Cod' & swimming in their beautiful lagoon pool. The best caravan park pool we have seen.

A couple of days later we set off for Renmark which is our last stop before Adelaide. Travelling day

was overcast & very windy. Gary couldn't get over how different it was to tow in windy conditions. He tracks his fuel economy with engineer like precision & was horrified at how much more fuel that trip took. We stayed at Renmark Big 4 which is a huge park, more like a resort. The river was very high with some areas in flood. We couldn't sit outside much during our three night stay as it was so windy & the mosquitoes were out in full force.

After spending just over a week on the river we both came to the same conclusion ...... WE LOVE THE COAST!


Next stop ........ HOME!!!