Australia here we come!

17/10/12

We went for a drive around Mildura this morning and found Lock 11 which is used to raise and lower water levels so paddle steamers can sail up and down the river. We saw the Paddle Steamer ‘Melbourne’ moored in the Murray River and across the river we could see our caravan park.

We continued our drive and went to a small town just outside of Mildura called Merbein. It is an old town and is on the Murray River. We found the Rotary Lookout high on a cliff overlooking the Murray. We found a nice park on the edge of town and had lunch.

The girls wanted to visit the inland Botanical Gardens in Buronga so we crossed the Murray into New South Wales and started looking. We found ourselves at Gol Gol which is a small town not far from Buronga. We did a U-turn and drove back to Buronga. This time we did manage to find a sign pointing us in the right direction and we found the Inland Botanical Gardens. On the way in the girls saw a sign for the rose gardens and I was ordered to stop immediately. The rose gardens, in a word, are spectacular. There were roses of all colours growing everywhere and they were huge. Even a non-flower person like me could not help but to be impressed. The rest of the Botanical Gardens were mainly desert plants and we had seen plenty of them in the last 7 months. We went to an old shearing shed that had been restored and is now used as an entertaining area for visitors.

On the way home we crossed the border into Mildura and did some last minute grocery shopping before returning to the caravan park.