Tuesday, 1st June
The day started with a high haze which quickly settled into heavy cloud cover and was quite cool by lunch time – definitely a polar fleece day.
It took us quite some time to pack up this morning – for some reason, packing up draws people who suddenly want to talk about where we are from, where we are going, questions about the caravan, etc. Fortunately, we only have 145 kms to travel to Renmark today. With the half hour time difference when we crossed into South Australia, we were at the caravan park by 10.30 am.
The countryside wasn’t all that interesting today, flat and either grain farms or scrubby. The worst part of the drive was the quarantine station at the border!!! Knowing that Mildura was in a fruit fly exclusion zone, I had waited until then to buy fruit and vegetables, quite sure that we would be okay. Uh uh! The nasty man said he wanted our bananas – I said we would eat them now! – and he then took my lovely avocado, tomatoes, lemons, potatoes, onions, but did leave me the lettuce. Jolly decent of him. I understand the reason for quarantine, being Tasmanian, but when fruit is purchased from a supermarket in the zone … I bet the shops in Renmark love the quarantine station.
The Big 4 Caravan Park at Renmark is just lovely, situated right on the bank of the Murray. It has a noisy miner bird guarding the entrance – when one pulls up at the boom gate, the bird appears and proceeds to attack the nasty miner bird in the car mirrors. There are lots of black ducks, and ducklings, around, as well as bald coots (birds, not men!). Walking about can be rather hazardous and Cat is not allowed out without supervision – he was eyeing the ducklings with a strange look in his eye! There is even supposed to be a resident koala, so will have to keep a look out tonight.
This afternoon we went for a walk along the Renmark waterfront, which has been nicely developed and has plenty of signs detailing the history of the town. Charles Sturt passed here in 1830. Cat rather enjoyed the historical display in the Information Centre – he is becoming quite interested in old rural machinery. Renmark is just a nice country town, not at all like the city of Mildura.
The day started with a high haze which quickly settled into heavy cloud cover and was quite cool by lunch time – definitely a polar fleece day.
It took us quite some time to pack up this morning – for some reason, packing up draws people who suddenly want to talk about where we are from, where we are going, questions about the caravan, etc. Fortunately, we only have 145 kms to travel to Renmark today. With the half hour time difference when we crossed into South Australia, we were at the caravan park by 10.30 am.
The countryside wasn’t all that interesting today, flat and either grain farms or scrubby. The worst part of the drive was the quarantine station at the border!!! Knowing that Mildura was in a fruit fly exclusion zone, I had waited until then to buy fruit and vegetables, quite sure that we would be okay. Uh uh! The nasty man said he wanted our bananas – I said we would eat them now! – and he then took my lovely avocado, tomatoes, lemons, potatoes, onions, but did leave me the lettuce. Jolly decent of him. I understand the reason for quarantine, being Tasmanian, but when fruit is purchased from a supermarket in the zone … I bet the shops in Renmark love the quarantine station.
The Big 4 Caravan Park at Renmark is just lovely, situated right on the bank of the Murray. It has a noisy miner bird guarding the entrance – when one pulls up at the boom gate, the bird appears and proceeds to attack the nasty miner bird in the car mirrors. There are lots of black ducks, and ducklings, around, as well as bald coots (birds, not men!). Walking about can be rather hazardous and Cat is not allowed out without supervision – he was eyeing the ducklings with a strange look in his eye! There is even supposed to be a resident koala, so will have to keep a look out tonight.
This afternoon we went for a walk along the Renmark waterfront, which has been nicely developed and has plenty of signs detailing the history of the town. Charles Sturt passed here in 1830. Cat rather enjoyed the historical display in the Information Centre – he is becoming quite interested in old rural machinery. Renmark is just a nice country town, not at all like the city of Mildura.
1 comment:
Glad to hear that things are well underway again! I've made it to DC, but after 31 hours of travelling which only included about 2 hours sleep, I was pretty happy to get here, I can tell you. Have almost finished out first day of meetings - going well so far!
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