Echuca to Bendigo

A big day for Cameron and his teacher today.  The first day of school.  Teacher says it went surprisingly well.

After school, at about 11.00am, we packed up and drove from ECHUCA to BENDIGO, a trip of about 1 ½ hrs, only 130 km.  During that time I think we went around about 10 corners.  Straights of anything from 5 to 10 km being the norm, and as flat as a pancake.  No wonder they have trouble with floods. The river only has to break its banks and there is nothing to stop the water from spreading for miles in all directions.  Most of the time while we were travelling the outside temp was reading 39 or 40 degrees.  Needless to say the air conditioner was working overtime.

Our campground for the night was at the Bendigo Showgrounds.  After setting up camp in the 40 degree heat we went into town to find a swimming pool, there being none at the campground.  Then we had a quick look around the centre of BENDIGO before heading to one of their famous old pubs for a cold beer. BENDIGO was founded on gold, and according to the local information, over 9 billion dollars worth was found in the vicinity of the town.  Some of the old buildings are very impressive, like something you see in a European city.

Back at camp, we were entertained by a couple of the local AFL Football teams training on the grounds adjacent to the caravan park.  I was so impressed with their codes for their various moves that I recorded some of it, and now reproduce it for your entertainment.  Bear in mind this is an actual recording of an Aussie Football Team in Training. !!

Mate, mate,mate, maate, mate, mate Maate. And then when it gets exciting. Matematematemate, maaaate mate, maaate, mate mate, matematemate, mate.  I haven’t actually managed to decipher their code yet, but they all seem to understand it.  They are obviously very clever, these Aussie Football players.

Today we have had another lazy day.  Temperature again varying between 39 and 40 degrees, with a strong wind to boot.  First we planned to shift to a motorcamp at MARONG which is about 11km west of BENDIGO and has a pool, and then we intended to see the sights of BENDIGO.  However before we could do any of that we received a visit from a fellow camper saying he had seen the New Zealand sign on our van and wanted to know what part of NZ we were from.  Turned out he was a fellow Kiwi from Greymouth who had been touring Aussie for three years and had no intention of stopping anytime in the near future.

Needless to say we picked his brain about life on the roads, pitfalls, problems etc.  He was a mine of information, and we are now so much the wiser on what to expect and what preparations we should make before heading into the outback.  At last we are starting to get a clearer picture of what to expect, and he just laughed at some of the horror stories we told him we had heard.  He said to just go with your gut feeling.  If it didn’t feel right, just move on.  In three years, mostly free camping he had never had any trouble.  Theft was a problem in some areas, same as NZ.  Showers, toilets and water can be far apart, and as for swimming pools, forget it.  Cameron will do this bit hard. He also told us to grocery shop well ahead, as some places if you could buy food, you had to take out a mortgage to pay for it.  Basically every time you came to a reasonably sized town, stock up.

By the time we had learnt all this it was after 2.00pm, so we packed up and drove the 11km to MARONG, where we are snug in our camping ground and the pool has been thrashed all afternoon.  (Best make the most of it by the sounds of things.)  We have now booked our tickets for the Ferry to Tasmania and cross over this Friday, the 4^th of February.  We will leave the van with the manufacturers in MELBOURNE so they can rebuild it, properly this time we hope, and also get them to add some metal boxes to carry our generator and spare fuel drums.  Tomorrow we will spend sightseeing in BENDIGO, and then on Thursday will head down to MELBOURNE to drop the van off.