Mildura, Wagga Wagga and a total 180

More of the river in Mildura, a little spot of heaven

Mildura!

Pulling out of our Big 4 campground (seriously if you are in Aus, stay at these places, they are great campgrounds with all the amenities you may need and are usually super clean!) we stopped at a phone booth to make a call to Wicked Campers to extend the rental period on our van. When we left Perth, they told us just to make sure to call a few days before and it shouldn’t be a problem to add as many days as you would like onto the contract. We call and as it turns out we aren’t allowed to add any days to the contract. They say that we must have the van back in Sydney for the morning of the 8th. Hmmm, well, that sure doesn’t leave a lot of time for us to drive the 1300km, let alone head south to Adelaide and Melbourne. We went through all the options with them and then a few out of the box ideas with ourselves, like just bringing the van back whenever we wanted. With our credit card being stolen, they didn’t have any credit card info on us and couldn’t charge us. We figured our $1000 bond would just about cover the actual costs for renting the van for the next 10 days. However, there is the chance that they would consider this as ‘stealing’ the van, and our decision was to end the S.A. / Victoria part of our trip and make the drive straight to Sydney. Boo.

Relaxing on the banks of the river in Mildura

We stopped in at a tourist information booth and got ‘the quickest’ route to Sydney. Turns out they gave us the Bryan Colvin special. The roads were the backroads that may sure seem like they are going to take the least amount of time, but involve a lot of turns, stop signs and slower average speeds. Great navigating by Ewa kept us on the right track and we ended the day a little early in the small river side town Mildura. Our stop in Mildura proved to be a great break for us. The lady behind the counter at the campsite was about 6-8 beers into the night and gave us one of the best sites for a steal of a price. We pulled in and camped right beside a dock on the river. We spent a few hours relaxing with our feet in the river, drinking local wine and decompressing from the stress of the complete 180 change in our plans.

Ewa and some wine on the dock in Mildura.

Wagga Wagga 6th

On our fast track to Sydney, Wagga Wagga was a town we stopped at in the evening just for the night. We stopped at the information center right on our way into town to see where we could stay. We stepped out of the van and were hit with seriously cold wind. It was cold! And here we were driving 7 hours with the AC on because it was hot in the van, we should have just opened a window. We got the directions to our caravan park (2 streets away) and drove down Church street, which was incidentally lined with 5 churches, one after another. To top it off they all looked like they were built two hundred years ago. We set up camp at our site and were excited because there was a restaurant we read about in our guide book here that sounded awesome. Surrounded by olive groves and vineyards the Magpie restaurant was going to be a treat for us. We drove around country roads trying to find it for a while but when we did…Christmas break and Aussie Summer holidays got us again! They were closed until February. So on we went back into town and ate at whatever was there… we ended up at a place called “Hogs breath” sounds delicious doesn’t it? It’s like Red Robins, an American style restaurant with license plates on the wall and everything.

A little rat, ... actually a possum. They'd let you eat right from their hands and pet them!!

After dinner we went back to our van and once again had warm enough weather in the evening to sit outside and enjoy the evening. There was a river nearby and many families that were enjoying the evening playing cricket and floating in the river. There were many cockatoos flying around, there were the usual pink small ones we have seen many times, but this time they were joined by a yellow variety that were twice their size and instead of a lovely coo they screamed like crows, but louder and more annoying, if that was possible. There were flocks of them, we have never seen exotic birds like this in the wild, it was beautiful to see them be free. We settled down by our beloved van and blogged a bit until Ewa jumped up from her seat because something small, furry and fast was running towards her. She freaked right out and Chad quickly turned on his flashlight at the animal…turns out it was a harmless possum, and he had friends! Possums freeze when you shine a light on them, pretty much like deer in the headlights. They turned out to be the entertainment for the night, by the end of it we were feeding them and petting them like cats, it was pretty cool. The next morning we were off again…fast track to the east coast.

Goulburn 7th
All day driving takes a lot out of you, especially when you’re passing so much fun stuff that you can’t do because you have to get your not so wicked van back to Sydney! We drove all day again and finally stopped in Goulburn. We stopped at the first caravan park we saw, it was getting dark and we were tired. The place seemed decent, we checked it and even bought a meat pie (our first one! They are one of Australia’s dishes- Like England!) We didn’t unpack much just grabbed our food and went to check out the camp kitchen. This one was super nice with stoves, fridge, tv in the room and everything was so clean…ahh the things you take for granted. We got distracted by the tv because we hadn’t seen any in quite some time and the lady who checked in came into the kitchen and told us to stop watching television and go outside quickly and move our van as we were causing a traffic jam! We quickly went outside to move the van ( we don’t want to cause no trouble mam) There was no one around…some tumble weeds and silence….howling wind. Hmm. We didn’t say anything and moved our van and laughed. We set aside the meat pie to have as an appetizer. The instructions said you could cook it in the oven or the microwave, as someone else was using the oven Ewa put it in the mic. It smelled so good..then in a hurry it smelled like it was burned…Ewa burned the only meat pie we ever had the pleasure of attempting to try! It wasn’t just burned, it was passed burned, the inside was charcoal. Oh well, next time meat pie! We had a great night cooking, watching tv and talking. We were in bed quite early and luckily Chad had to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. As he opened our van door…what does he see? Two Kangaroos feeding in the moonlight right in front of our van! He quickly woke me up and I couldn’t see anything…damn sandman and his sand! But after adjusting we both watched quietly as two big beautiful Kangaroos fed in the moonlight, with another one we found around the other side of the van. We got up in the morning and had a quick breakfast, we only needed to drive a few more hours and we would be in Sydney…just in time to have the van back!

written by

ECRadventure on January 6, 2010 from Wagga Wagga, Australia

from the travel blog: ECRadventure's Travel Blog

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