Day 2. May 6 2024. Crossing the first border.

Up and at ‘em early, and after utilising our private showering facilities – yes this is a big deal – we are packed up and hit the road to the Bendigo Knitting Mills. To say Linda has been looking forward to this is an understatement but, as any craftsperson knows, the material you work with is paramount to a quality outcome. To go to the source of some of the best working material, gives a deeper connection to the work. There was a lot of wool, and bargains to be had with underweight balls being $50kg. I did wander off to explore the surroundings and stumbled across what is probably the dullest museum ever – history of the Bendigo Tram.

I came for a holiday but got an education. To save the Bendigo trams back in 19 something or other, a few blokes got wind that one of the trams was being readied to be shipped off to an Adelaide Museum. Outraged, they jumped to action and being 19 something or other, social media was not an option. So they banded together and pushed the already non-working tram into a shed, welded metal poles on the tracks in front of it and stole the carbon brushes to make an inoperable tram even more of a museum piece. A good protest but in my book they just made the tram they were trying to save a museum piece….which was exactly what they were fighting against. Anyway, spoiler alert – Bendigo has trams.

After having a coffee in a disused tram and then loading 4km of wool into the car, we had a nice short trip to Echuca for lunch. The store I was looking forward to was a great Vinyl record shop we had been to a few years back at the Riverboats festival, and I was looking forward to a dig. Unfortunately, the work ethic of the store owner was pretty poor and he only liked to front up Thursday to Sunday. Pretty slack considering I dedicated at least 15 minutes of my 3 months off looking for the shop again.

Crossing the Murray we head to Deniliquin, self-proclaimed home of the Ute. To celebrate this, they have made a half arsed effort with only two monuments to the ute. One mounted up a pole, and the other made of scrap metal. I even can’t be sure the ute up a pole didn’t get there after a particularly vigorous laying of rubber in the town square and flooring the accelerator and ending up in the unfortunate position. It can be said that these were in fact the only two highlights of Deni – other than the ever popular IGA selling $4.60 roast chooks at the end of the day.

Tonight we have our first go at dinner bringing out all the cooking tools – extra camp table, two burner stove, Thermomix with Veroma attachment. Linda (can’t take any credit here except for cutting some vege’s into the most perfect size) cooked up a storm and our next door neighbour was impressed. He did say we should have had a Weber like him and he does all his cooking on it. Funny how when we sat down to eat, he then declared he was off to the bowling club across the road again, and he was sick of the dinners there after being here for 5 nights. Not sure what was wrong with his weber.

I did fail to mention the caravan park. Actually, it was a Car-otel as proclaiamed on its 1970’s yellow and black sign out the front. Not quite like a Big 4 or a chain caravan park, it had it’s own personality. It did have one redeeming feature though – we had an ensuite AGAIN! She told me as we were walking down the main street of Echuca and I had to stop to catch my breath. I was so happy, what a great start!

Showering facilities – 7/10 – Ensuite great, but one of those plastic cubicles for a shower where bending is an experience in contortion.