Exploring the town we soon noticed that Bendigo had a HUGE amount of Op shops! (For those of you who know us, well you would know just how much we all love a great bargain at an Op shop!!)
We very quickly decided to dedicate an entire day visiting as many of these stores as we could!
Before the day was through we had all acquired a large selection of great bargains!
We also spent another day visiting the Saint Mary's Cathedral and Bendigo Pottery.
The Cathedral was beautiful. Being one of the largest in Australia, we spent a good hour soaking in the amazing craftsmanship that went into this holy place.
At Bendigo Pottery the girls had a great time mastering the art of using a pottery wheel. By the end they had made three impressive pieces each. Four of which we decided to have coloured and fired and sent home to Adelaide!
Getting crafty!
After four days exploring Bendigo we headed off towards Echuca and spent the next few days driving back and forth across the VIC/NSW border, whilst following the Murray River towards Swan Hill.
Along the way we stayed at many great campsites right alongside the river. At night we would have a large roaring fire whilst eating our dinner river side.
With Gary's parents travelling towards us on their way back up north, we decided to meet them in Swan Hill and travel to Mildura with them.
We enjoyed many delicious dinners, mainly cooked by Janet and desserts prepared by Janet and the girls. We had a few too many drinks served by Alec most nights and a few of his delicious liquor coffees!
Camped along the river at Swan Hill we had only just arrived back at camp on our second night when some friendly local farmers came down to say hello and invited us back to their farm.
With the offer to feed baby lambs and to ride quad bikes around the 20 acre property, we really didn't need much convincing and had a fun few hours feeding Sheep, Alpacas, Cows, bottle feeding adorably cute Lambs and riding the quad bike around delivering bales of hay to all the animals.
Love love love
From here we travelled once again across the border into NSW and visited the small town of Balranald.
Here we checked out an old Woolshed that in its day use to have a flock of up to 5000 sheep to sheer.
Our camp just outside Balranald
A funny story here was when curiousity got the better of me when I noticed a big "START" and "STOP" button along one of the walls... Well of course I'm going to push the big "START" button to see if something would happen! Not thinking anything would actually work as the place has officially been inactive since 2005, I made a bit of a joke as I pushed the button... Well you can imagine my surprise/pretty much jumped out of my skin when a huge wall of rotating wheels and machinery loudly started working!!
Quick as a flash I soon pushed the large "STOP" button!! Whooppssss!!
From Balranald we all drove to Mildura to spend our last two nights together. And yes we stayed at yet another stunning river camp right along the Murray.
Tori was in her element visiting Woodsies Gem shop and made a few new purchases. We had fun getting lost in one of Australia's biggest Mazes and explored the Gem Cave.
We drove out to Wentworth and explored the old Gaol and went to see where the Darling and Murray Rivers join.
After a fun week filled with catch ups, many laughs, great home cooked meals and Gary and his Dad spending hours discussing the pros and cons of pretty much every mechanical and non mechanical device/contraption/part of both caravans and cars, it was time to say our goodbyes.
After one last discussion on solar panels, batteries, caravan tool boxes, the dodgy ways that some parts are installed on new caravans and a final few hugs goodbye, we were on our way towards our next destination...
Broken Hill and a catch up with my Auntie Liz!
Xx
