Day 13: Mildura, Robinvale, Nyah State Forest, Murray River.
Mon, Jan 22, 2007./travels/GOR-Murray-2007-01 | Link
Blue skies once again, hope the rain made it to Orange and further east. Had a quick swim in the morning. The Murray River is quite placid at this point in the Murtho State Forest. Strangely enough there were a veritable forest of succulents just next to the access road. Views from Headings Lookout:
Drove to Mildura, about 150km along the Sturt Highway. It's still 110km/h even into Victoria, but drops back to a Victorian (and NSW) standard 100km/h east of a little farming town near Mildura. The lady who served me lunch said she hadn't been asked for a Neenish Tart for several years. Mildura itself is a not-too-exciting relatively big river town on the right side of the border. The Sturt Highway slips briefly into New South Wales between Mildura and Robinvale, where (shouldered, single-carriageway) it returns to the breakneck 110km/h through endless mallee.
Got some water from the friendly CFA in Robinvale, drove on to the Nyah State Forest, near Swan Hill, for a late afternoon swim and to camp for the night. The river is fairly strong here so swimming is hard work; fortunately there are quite a few tree limbs in the water to hang on to, or even sit on. There's plenty of Major Mitchell campsites along the Murray Valley Highway, including one at the point were the Murray and Murrumbidgee join.
One thing I've failed to learn about campsites is proximity to the highway. Here I'm a good half-kilometre away but the trucks' noise covers that distance easily. Another is proximity to the township. A bunch of people decided to have a small party in the bush tonight. Fortunately they were not from a hoop-cutting tribe.
My only major criticism of the Camping in Australia (Cathy Savage, Craig Lewis) is that it splits things up by state and region, so when trying to find a campsite e.g. near the Murray River one needs to check about three different maps that are not cross-referenced. Similarly I tend to grab too many of the otherwise-excellent Parks Victoria information sheets as I cannot readily determine if they are about where I'm going or where I've been.
(In case anyone is wondering about the car, tent and river photos: there was a restaurant in Göteborg — "the Thai place" on Eklandagatan — that had a truckload of beautiful landscapes with solitary mysterious tents in them.)
