Echuca

The pioneer streets around the port of Echuca.

Making a nest in a gum tree.

The Emmylou steam paddle wheeler.

The Murray River.

One of the other paddle wheelers.

Saturday, May 7^th.

Up early this morning for the drive to Echuca, a town I had heard about from a couple of the teachers at school. It is about a two and a half hour drive north of Melbourne. I was on a couple of freeways before the GPS took me up a secondary highway. The weather was perfect, sunny and warm and the driving conditions were excellent. At one point I saw a large kangaroo bound out of the bush and across the highway in front of a car ahead, which luckily missed it, and then right after it another one came bounding to the road and changed its mind and went back into the bush. Reminded me what they say in Canada about always worry about the second deer that runs across your path, as they often travel in pairs.

Echuca is located on the Murray River, which is the boundary between Victoria and New South Wales. When I got there I found the port on the river. This is an historic town and river that played a big part in the gold rush. The port area is still set up like a pioneer street with blacksmiths, woodwork shops and hotels and bars. On the river they have a number of steam driven paddle wheel boats like the ones that used to ply the Mississippi. They offered a variety of cruises and even offer an overnight stay on river.

I decided to take a two hour lunch cruise. I watched a female ghala lining a nest in a hole in a gum tree while I waited for boarding time. On board there was room for about twenty people on board. I ordered a warm chicken salad with sticky date pudding for dessert. The food was good, the cruise relaxing and the river views pretty good. This is obviously not only a tourist region but a vacation spot for Australians in nearby towns. There were a large number of house boats and small cottages along the shore. Then I decided to find a motel on the north side of the river. The river is the boundary between the states of Victoria and New South Wales, so by staying on the north shore I would be sleeping in the fifth of the seven Australian states. I found a nice, clean, reasonable motel in the town of Moama. The proprietress brought be over the makings of a continental breakfast and I was good to go.

The weather was still quite warm, even after dark, so I decided to go for a walk around town. There wasn't really much to see other than the extraordinarily wide residential streets. They were easily four lanes wide. Then I returned to the motel for the night and to type this up.