MUNGO TO HAY

MUNGO NATIONAL PARK TO HAY VIA BENALLA 22/5/16 to 31/5/16

HW

We headed off along the dirt road toward Balranald and this road was a lot rougher than the road in to Mungo. It was quite stony and as Frank mentioned in the last post, his efforts to minimise the dust produced by our Pajero by his addition of larger mudflaps only seemed to result in our van being blasted by gravel from the car wheels. Can’t figure that one out at all!! We had stones the size of 10 cent pieces gathered along the top of the front-boot-door rain gutter and some even flew up so high they went into the scupper vent in the roof of the van. Apart from that we heard some rather loud banging noises coming from the rear so stopped to investigate and Frank found that three of the four caravan wheels had loose wheel bearings so we spent a couple of hours beside the road while he removed each wheel in turn and checked and tightened everything. Oh well, it was our first major problem but now is remedied (hopefully).

We stopped for the night in Balranald and decided to treat ourselves to dinner in the Shamrock Hotel. Next morning we visited the information centre where they had a historic display of Aboriginal history of the area and also some pioneering information. We continued on to Yanga Lake and looked around the historic homestead which is surrounded on three sides by the lake where the pioneering family used to enjoy the sunrises and sunsets on the water from their vantage point on the veranda. We drove on to Swan Hill where we checked in to a van park for a couple of nights.

During our Swan Hill stay we went on a couple of walks along the riverside and through some lovely gardens and enjoyed the great views of the Murray River in the shade of the river red gums. We saw the paddle steamer Gem in its permanent spot near the river.

On our way again we travelled on to Echuca and after setting up camp we headed for the Beechworth bakery store for a very enjoyable afternoon tea. It became drizzly during the afternoon and then it rained solidly all night. By the time we packed up next morning it had cleared and we had a stroll along the Echuca Wharf precinct past the historic buildings with views of the old multi-level wharf. We then had a look through the Holden museum before setting off for Benalla where Frank had arranged to give Alan a hand with his racing car at the historic Winton race meeting for the weekend. We stayed at Peter Hall’s place in Benalla as we had done last year for this same race weekend and spent both days at the Winton track. Max, Roger and Richard Gissing had come up from Melbourne with Alan so there were quite a few of us. We also saw Lee Seibler at the track.

We headed off on Monday through Tocumwal (for lunch) and on to Deniliquin on the banks of the Edward river. The countryside was mostly flat with some sheep grazing areas and nearer to Deniliquin we saw some empty rice fields. Sun Rice has set up Australia’s largest rice mill there. It is a really pretty town with lovely gardens. We saw the famous ute on a pole and some lovely old buildings. Then next day we drove on to Hay through what is arguably the flattest country on earth! Nothing much to see except low black-bush or salt-bush plants to the horizon with only a handful of trees. We spotted a couple of emus which broke the boredom and nearer to Hay was a huge cotton Gin where locally grown cotton is brought for processing.

FW
Nothing much for me to add only that a section of the Mungo to Balranald dirt road was as bad as we have experienced so far and our speed was reduced to 30 to 40 kms/hr.
As Heather said the trip from Deniliquin to Hay was flat and pretty straight and followed a route called the Long Paddock where Drovers moved their Herds between Wilcannia and Echuca
The “Gin” (according to Wikipedia) is a Machine that separates the Cotton Fibre from the seeds.Läs mer