B.W Boulevard Motor Inn Mildura

... would call 'marginal' country i.e. not too much rainfall, and therefore the crops were poor and the grapevines were flourishing only if they were being irrigated (mainly trickle).

We did the 136kms in just over 5 hours averaging 26.6kms/hour. Everyone was feeling quite good when we arrived in Mildura and set up for the night in the Church of Christ hall.

Mildura is a ...

After another look at Mad Max's Car and Silverton we headed south through the saltbush to Mildura. We were all very excited when we hit border into Victoria. We set up camp on the banks of the very picturesque Murray River and went into town to see a lock and a paddleboat.

... lunch (we had checked out the famous restaurant, but figured that close to $350 for a meal with the family would be hard to justify). The food was magnificent (aside from the slight problem of Alec's pasta containing chilli, a problem which the staff quickly resolved).

We walked beside the river (sorry, "the Mighty Murray") and returned to camp for a necessarily light meal and another restful night.

... family minus Shazlick in attendace with the extra addition of honorary members Kyra, Nathan and their children. Excitment mounted as the sun came out, the covered in area heaters were found and the soccer ball was placed on the ground. David's BBQ skills were questioned and a reasonabaly successfull group photo was taken. I did hear of a drunken man in the shope with packing tape on his mouth ...

Departed Melbourne for Hattah-Kulkyne National Park at 8AM, we arrived at our campsite about 3:30 and were greeted by a group of apostle birds. We then found a way through a dense stand of redgum saplings that were on the old lake shore and went for a walk on the lake ...

Last night only a few mils of rain at Mungo NP, so left there early in the morning. Obviously around 10 down the road they had substantially more rain. By this time there is nowhere to turn around with a caravan and road is quite slippery. Things get worse when we need to drive through one of the ...

... to Mildura is called the Murray Outback, and I can see why. Very red dirt, salt bush and really flat countryside. However there were a lot of vineyards once again. Red Cliffs was established in 1918 and became the largest soldier settlement in Australia after WW1. The land was largely made up of uninhabited dense mallee scrubland which needed to be cleared. The area is now largely made up of various horticultural industries such as citrus, dried ...

Mungo National Park We spent some time recently in Mildura and were pleasantly surprised. This town is really cool and very friendly locals. We found ourselves off the beaten track a bit and were glad we opted for a Britz 4WD. http:/www.britz.com.au Some may say you do not need it but we were glad we had the grunt and height. We took the standard drive 110km from Mildura to Mungo ...

From Swan Hill to Mildura with a trip out to Wentworth. Along the way, all you see are orange, mandarin, olive and almond groves with the odd grape vine dotted in between. Mildura was named after the red earth that is all around here. The aboriginal word for red is "mil" and their word for earth is "dura". We had lunch at the beach on the banks of the Murray. Then went and had a look at ...

We eventually nodded off last night amid the screeches and the heat- obvious now why it was so oppressive- its raining! It doesn't rain in mildura according to the staff here so perhaps we are in a state of sleeplessness and we are imagining all the wet stuff falling out of the sky is not really rain at all! Feels like it though and we are getting very wet.... Back to the dry shopping ...