We said goodbye to Brendon this morning as he had to go back to work. Lorenzo, Bob and I set out for the run to Cowra. We began by crossing the Murray a couple of times and were following the River for quite a while. This is the Murray irrigation basin and it was lush with vines and orchards. There were even sprinkler systems over the pasture because we moved into the dairy region with lots of Friesans. The actual irrigation chanels that are distributing the water are huge - equal to small rivers. There was plenty of un irrigated land as well and that showed the need for rain. We also crossed the Murrumbidge which I had not expected. It had two arms at that point in a large flood plain and had water in both.
We stopped for fuel at Lockhart which turned out to be a very pretty little town but the service station was at the beginning of town and we had to turn a corner to discover the main street. It claims to be the "town of verandahs" and there were plenty of the old style shops. I would have liked to stop and walk the street but Lorenzo was leading and showed no inclination to do so. He told me later that he doesn't worry about taking photos because he goes to the town's website and copies them from there. If you are interested you could have a look at the website. They had some good street art.
We decided to stop for lunch at Junee but missed the main street as we followed the route signs for the Olympic Highway. The next town was Bethunga and was tiny but it had the "Old School House T Shop". It is usually only open on Tuesdays by appointment but we were lucky in that they had had a tour bus booked in and were still open. The sandwiches were generous and freshly made with fruit and potato crisps on the side. We sat in the garden and soaked up the sun. I have just remembered to mention that it was 12 degrees when we left
Echuca this morning and had only just reached 22 by the time we stopped for lunch. The temperature then started to drop again as we started to climb through some low hills. Until then the countryside had been so flat that there were mirages in the distance. It was nice to have some variation. There has obviously been some rain here as well as the paddocks are starting to green up just as they were when we left home.
The Information Centre was helpful with accommodation again and we are very comfortable. We walked into town to find the "Services Club" for dinner and overshot because we didn't realise it was in a side street. Lorenzo had been chivving us because he says he just doesn't walk and then we walked him down the hill and had to come back up. Naturally we told him how good it was for him but he pretended to be unconvinced.
That's all for tonight.
No comments:
Post a Comment