Mildura

Monday 16 April –Echuca to Mildura

Seemed like a never ending trip today. Had a quick stop for a piece of fruit in Swan Hill and then stopped beside the Murray at Boundary Bend for lunch. Finally arrived in Mildura a little hot and bothered. After we set up our site, we dipped our toes in the swimming pool at the park and it was just a tad too cold to stay in for a swim. Deciding we would really like a swim, we wandered off to the Mildura Aquatic Centre and did a few laps. Felt good. Decided that champagne and nibbles would go down well, we stopped via the bottle shop at the Grand Hotel and headed back to the Caravan Park for the night.

Tuesday 17 April - Mildura

An early start as we were booked on a tour to Mungo National Park. The mini bus arrived around 8.15 with our indigenous guide, driver and caterer all rolled into one, Graeme and off we went to pick up another 5 people at various accommodation houses. 16 kms of bitumen and then we hit the dusty, bumpy, silty corrugated dirt for another 90 kms until we arrived at Mungo. Another 17 people tagged along and we stopped for morning tea at the Lake Mungo Lookout. Headed back to the Lake car park and then headed off into an amazing landscape of sand, petrified tree bits, middens and wind carved clay outcrops. Graeme was an incredibly well educated guide being an archaeologist with a plethora of experience. He was very passionate about his people and culture and was proud of his ancestry which in his words made him one of the last pure blood aborigines in the area. Pure blood being nothing to do with white man but to do with the tribes of his ancestors where he could trace a direct line on both his mother and father’s side for many generations. This also made him the traditional owner of just about every national park from north west Victoria to the Queensland border and east half way across new South Wales.

We had lunch next to the visitor’s centre which had a very interesting display of the history of the area. There was also the shearing shed from the original Mungo station and was built by the Chinese in the 1860s. A very rough ride home as the road was much worse on the return side so the bitumen was a very welcome sight. All in all a great day

Wednesday 18 April- Mildura

A day of taking it easy and a little indulgence. We started the day leisurely then off for a paddle steamer ride on the 100 year old Melbourne through Lock 11 and downstream a short way and return in time for a pizza and salad lunch at Stefano’s pizza restaurant. We decided that we had to go one better than that and headed off to Stefano’s two hatted restaurant for a 6 course degustation dinner. For the foodies out there I just have to let you know what we had –

Started with a glass of prosecco to get us in the Italian mood, then……..

Smoked Wagyu beef with onion , Capers and salad cream – never had wagyu before, YUM

Zucchini flowers with goats curd, capsicum puree and Zucchini and Fennel salad – YUM

Salmon poached in olive oil, smoked butter sauce, saffron fregola (like cous cous), green olives – melted in the mouth YUMMO

Agnalotti of mushroom and ricotta with mushroom sauce – also YUM

Venison with potato puree and blueberries and other stuff, who knows what, once again never tried venison before- double YUM

Banana, banana icecream, chocolate ganache, crumbled gingerbread and candied nuts - YUMMO

Picked Brian up from the floor when he received the bill and rolled back to the car! Worth every cent!