Wanderung 26

Bob:

The sun rose over the Murray River right outside the sliding glass door at the rear of our motel room, so we arose at sunrise to go outside and take some photographs. The Murray was quite a bit smaller than it had been prior to its confluence with the Darjeeling River and quite clear rather than the muddy, silt-laden consistency it had below the confluence. I could even see the rocks on the bottom of the river near the shore, and all in all the water looked like a far more inviting to swim in than the muddy waters downstream.

We were serenaded by birds with very strange calls, although nothing as outlandish as the kookaburra concert we had heard on the "Industry". We even saw a "magpie-lark" pair, where they sit together on a tree limb and one bird sang one note of their combined song and the other bird would immediately follow with the other note. They were so well synchronized that if you didn't see them cooperating in this fashion, you would think it was just one bird calling out his song. Amazing.

Monika:

Bob:

Off by 9:00 AM or so, we spent a long day driving about 300 kilometers on the Murray Valley Highway. The advantage of following that highway was that we could see the changing landscape and occasional small towns along the Murray River basin. The disadvantage was that we were on a secondary road without passing lanes, so I was sometimes stuck behind slower-moving traffic. I really didn't care how fast I drove, but I tried not to sit behind the slow traffic and make it even more difficult for the cars behind me to pass the lot of us. Therefore, needs must, I was forced into passing on the two-lane highways, which was not too difficult as the river basin was very flat and the road had very gentle curves.

The Murray River itself was winding around like a strand of spaghetti just to the North of us, but we occasionally touched a lower bend of one of the loops and had a glimpse of the river. The water levels seemed quite high as some places the water was clearly over grassy banks and into stands of trees that must have been on dry land during more normal water levels.

Monika:

Bob:

The dominant type of agriculture shifted rather dramatically during our day's drive. Around Euston and for at least 50-100 kilometers upstream from that point, the vineyards and fruit orchards were dominant, alternating with scrub forest and more rarely a field growing some kind of crop. After Swan Hill, however, the vineyards seemed to stop and we once again started seeing sheep and cattle, both dairy and meat herds, grazing in well-kept pastures.

We stopped for lunch in Swan Hill where we found a bakery that was selling sandwiches and had a seating area where we could sit and enjoy our meal. We also found an Aldi, so we went shopping. I of course checked for the cheap Australian GPS units I had seen at the Aldi near Bendigo, but no luck. The young guy told me there was another Aldi up ahead in Echuca, though, and we might try there. We looked into the Pioneer Village down on the riverbank, but decided we would rather do that plus the optional steamboat ride when we had a full day to enjoy it rather than trying to squeeze it all into an hour or two.

Monika:

Bob:

Well as it turned out Echuca was where we had planned to spend the night, so once we had located a motel and I had rested from a 6-hour stint of driving, we asked where the Aldi store was. Much to our surprise, it was nestled in a corner of the downtown area rather than being on the outskirts right on the main highway as most Aldi stores are located. That may explain the fact that this Aldi still had a couple of the $100 GPS units available, although they were sold out of the small-screen $50 ones. Well, my persistence in search had paid off and I was super happy to be able to get the $100 unit along with some more groceries. After all, that price is much less than I would spend renting one for a long driving tour of Australia like the one we were taking. And given that in three trips we have seen less than 1/3 of the Australia, it seems quite possible I will use my new Australian GPS in the future.

Back in our room, I put the GPS on to charge--it uses a 5.0 volt USB type input to charge its rechargeable 3.7 volt lithium-ion battery--and settled in to read the user's manual before using the device, for a change! Monika was interested that the manufacturer, "Go Cruise", had included an MP3 player, which would be quite useful to listen to our MP3 tunes whilst on the road. As we could not get the hotel's internet connection to work, we settled in for the evening with our books and puzzles.

Monika: