March 2008 Australia

We started by heading North towards the Murray River, Australia's most important inland waterway, which forms most of the border between New South Wales and Victoria. Some off Australia's earliest explorers travelled along it, and long before roads and railways crossed the land, the Murray's paddle steamers carried supplies from and to remote sheep stations.

After we left the Mighty Murray we travelled inland towards the High Country where the air is clean and the mountain scenery invigorating and spectacular.

From there back to Melbourne to celebrate Darren's birthday with a few days at the Formula 1 Grand Prix, one of Australia's biggest sporting events.

The last weeks of the month were spend heading on the Princess Highway, along the Southern Coast towards Sydney, The Highway follows the powerlines past dairy country to their source in la trobe Valley. The region contains one of the world's largest deposists of browncoal, which is consumed by powerstations.

We finished in Lakes District the largest inland waterway system in Australia with three lakes that interconnect. The lakes are actually shallow lagoons, seperated from the ocean by a narrow strip of sand dunes known as 90 mile beach.

Ecchuca along the Murray river with it's famous paddlesteamers, the water levels were fairly low as the region has had a drought for the last 9 years which is especially affecting the farmers.

We went kayacking on the Murray River and went into an irrigation lake which still had all the treestumps standing in the lake which gave a real eery feeling to the place but still nice for a swim.

In Rutherglen, which dates back to the goldrush times, we stopped for a weekend of winetastings as the yearly wine festival was on. This is the centre of the Victoria's wine region and especially well known for it's fortified wines and dessert wines. We had two days of wine, entertainement and food.

At the camp in Rutherglen we met up with Graeme and Sharree a couple we know from Rotorua, who are touring Aussie in a 4 wheel drive going off the beaten track. We had a fabulous time with more wine and food.

We left the Murray river and travelled to the High Country to escape some off the heat, as it had been around 40 degrees for the last two weeks, and enjoy the mountains. Beechworth was one of the pretty towns we came through and it's beautiful old buildings are a reminder of the rich golddays.

For the yearly Easter parade the tradition in Beechworth is to have a horse walking the parade on solid gold horseshoes.

In Myrtlefort on the foot of Mt. Buffalo, a gateway to the Alpes, we found this enormous Gumtree which is no doubt one of the biggest in Australia..

On the way back towards Melbourne, we stopped off in Eldorado to visit an historic golddredge. Here we are sitting in one of the buckets of which the dredge had lots.

Back in Melbourne for a weekend of racing, the town almost comes to a standstill and everybody enjoys a few days of fumes, noise and excitement. Darren's namesake Lewis Hamilton won the first F1 Grand Prix for the year in spectacular fashion.

This enormous machine is used for the minning of brown coal in the open mines.

Easter we spend back out on the coast at Lakes Entrance.

Lakes Entrance with it's picturesque location on the gentle waters of Cunningham arm backed by sand dunes and small fishing boats form a great back drop for long hikes. Pelicans are as "normal" here as seagulls are anywhere else.

Mallacoota which is surrounded by the Croajingolong National Park is a mecca for watersporters.At the camp you can park your boat at your own jetty at the front of your tent.

We went for an adventure on the waterways around the Mallacoota area, at Gypsy Point with an interesting old skipper who showed us nature and it's secrets from the best possible way. The highlight of the trip were two couples of White breasted Sea-Eagles which we were able so experience from close up as the skipper has known them for 17 years.

We finished March in Eden, which is known as an old whaling port and is a place of much charm. In the season September to December Whales migrate along the coast here,we can only imagine how spectacular that must be. We saw a fishing boat come into the Eden wharf which was full of Tasmanian Salmon, Yummy.

On our travels we have heard and seen many a bird, however these pretty little ones, never from close up, our neigbours in the campground fed these parekeets with seeds or bread, we now do too and they are very very friendly

We are now heading along the Princess Highway up to Bairnesdale and than inland to Canberra.

March 2008 Australia

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