Mildura Vic, Mourouong NSW, Gol Gol NSW, Orange World, PV Rothbury

Mildura Vic May 14, 2015

Another day in Mildura, another boat ride. Well, you just have to have a ride on a paddle-wheeler on the Murray when it's possible. We've done this a few times before, both here and in Echuca, both on steam powered vessels. Last time here we were on the PS Melbourne but this time, apparently it has Friday and Saturday off, for no specific reason and is being replaced by the PV Rothbury. We were early so I had Judy take this then-and-now photo of me and a steam engine:

Brian and K175 a W class locomotive, 1976. Mildura Vic 

Brian and K175 a W class locomotive, 2015. Mildura Vic

The Rothbury was built in 1881 and used as a tug and freight boat up and down the Murray Darling river system. It's last work was carting timber for the timber mill at Mildura and later pulling a barge with a crane on it for building things up and down the river. In 1959 she ceased work and lay idle on a slipway for 10 years until bought by Captain Alby Pointon, who already had the PS Melbourne, and  who then converted it to diesel and the tourist trade.

It's a shame I think, that the steam was taken out, the boat just feels soulless without the heat and noise and smells from a proper steam engine. Anyhow, we travelled down the river, through Lock 11, around to the downside of the weir and back again, exactly as we had done in 2002.

PV Rothbury. Mildura Vic (Actually, it's legally in NSW)

Not content with the excitement of the cruise, we then headed to Orange World. Can you imagine it? The info people and the park people had said it was a 'don't miss' tour, so who were we to argue and bolted for the 2:30pm tour.

Orange World is in Mourourong in NSW, which is just over the river from Mildura. You pull up at what is obviously an orchard and go into the shop. The shop is a small room with a cashier desk, some tables for drinking orange juice at and of course 10,000 articles to spend money on that may have a tenuous link to oranges. The door to the orchard is closed and says No Entry, so we all just hung about reading the paper and ignoring the orange peelers, fridge magnets, fluffy dolls, spoons, snowballs etc etc until the little man came in and organised us into a tour group. But not before giving us the sales pitch on the orange peeler, a plastic thing you use, to score around the orange's middle, then use the end of to lift the skin away from the fruit. A must have - if you don't have thumbnails.

Anyhow, we pile out an onto the orange train (an orange colour tractor pulling a train of orange coloured carriages). As we make our way around the orchard, Mario the owner, gives us the whole story about oranges and lemons (and the bells of St Clemens for all I know, I was tuning out a bit). We did stop and were given a mandarin each picked right off the tree, nice and juicy and fresh. The tour went on and we heard all about the market, the grafting, the right and wrong fruits to grow at home, various types of other citrus fruits and five hundred other miscellaneous fascinating facts of fruit farming. Enough already, here's a snap or two:

Mario and his orange train at Orange World. Mourourong NSW 

Orange World. Mourourong NSW

Totally drained by the excitement, we finished the day with a coffee and cake at the Gol Gol Hotel. Does it get any better than that?

Gol Gol Hotel 1917. Gol Gol NSW 

Gol Gol Hotel 2015. Gol Gol NSW

Actually, it's a rather pleasant hotel with a big decked area out the back overlooking the Murray.

It's getting better tonight. We are going to the Two-hatted Stefano's restaurant at the Grand Hotel. We went here in 2012 and it was really really good with a degustation meal based on the fresh produce that Stefano had found around the district that day, and a sampling of wines selected to match the day's fare. I did get alarmed over the last two days when it started to become apparent that Stefano was no longer there and that his chef had taken over and that it was not the place it had been. Fortunately, my concerns were put to rest when the lady at the info assured me that the experiment had not gone well and that the man himself was back at the bench. We'll see and tell you about it tomorrow.

One other thing that the nice lady at the info found out and told me about was the current whereabouts of the following Chaffey Pump. The Chaffey bros came to Australia from America and invented the irrigation systems that turned the area into the fruit-basket of Australia. This is his first ever pump, designed by him and built just down the road from Mildura. This photo was taken by my mother on one of the family tours in about 1965. That's myself and my sister Pamela on top of the pump. The picture was probably taken at Irymple, now a suburb of Mildura.

Brian & Pamela Black on the Chaffey pump. Irymple Vic, c1965