Monday 20^th August

After looking over our maps we have decided to head toward Canberra over the next few days. Our trip today took us through Moulamein, a little town situated at the junction of the Edward River and Billabong Creek, and they boast to be “the oldest town in the Riverina”.  

The Edward River is an anabranch of the Murray.  Not having heard this hydrological description I found it to be a “section of a river that diverts from the main channel to then rejoin this main stem downstream”. We saw this old wharf which in its day would have seen many agricultural products as well as live sheep and wool from the surrounding land being loaded onto paddle steamers for their journey to larger ports. A railway gave way to the river transport in 1926, and now trucks are the main means of transport.

Once we arrived in Deniliquin we quickly took advantage of the nice sunny afternoon, so found a caravan park and took the bikes for a 20km spin around town.  There was a good bike path for a few kilometres which hugged the Edward River until we left it for the very wide streets. On our bike trail map one of the destinations was the boat shed, so by the time we found it our bottoms were well and truly wet from the bike seats.  The bikes perch with their seats unclad on the towbar, and as we had experienced some rain over the previous 24 hours the seats copped it.  Nevertheless the wet seats didn’t detract from the sense of pleasure being out alongside the water gave us.

Deniliquin has an annual “ute muster”, and there are a number of utes in town, one being this very colourful one, the other perched in a precarious looking way atop a large pole. This year Kelly Clarkson, the American singer is their headline act, so the town is getting organized for the event during September.

By the time we arrived back to our van site, happy hour was well and truly underway. We joined a couple from Atherton and a couple from Victoria.  I always find people have interesting stories to tell – they just need an audience/opportunity, a few wines and precious time to do it.  One of the couples grew tobacco for many years, and the gentleman who is of Italian origin plied Bob with some home brewed spirits which gave him an almighty good night’s sleep.  The other couple were roller blade coaches (in their leisure time) and had migrated from New Zealand many years ago. They were in their late 60’s and had only just retired, so were very keen to hear any tips and hints which others could offer.