Week 6: Canberra ACT - Mildura VIC

February 23, 2023

Week 6: Canberra ACT - Mildura VIC

Stats Overview

Km's Travelled: 1416

Km's Hiked: 10

No. of Camps: 3

The Adventures

We completed another big week of travelling (our biggest so far) so that we could wrap up our journey through New South Wales and finally make it into Victoria. Our two big ticket items we wanted to complete this week were the Hay Plains and also the World Heritage listed Lake Mungo in Mungo National Park. So we braved the western sun and heat and headed for the outback where we were lucky enough to see some of the best sunsets of our trip thus far.

After a few days with a caravan in the city it was nice to get back on the quieter country roads. While we were "Along the Road to Gundagai" (yes some Slim Dusty definitely got sung), we stopped at the iconic "Dog on the Tuckerbox" monument. It was a very popular stop and the tourist shop there was full of lots of local produce and wares. We definitely spent a lot more money than what we had planned here!

We camped just outside Wagga Wagga at a lovely campsite called Oura Beach Reserve which was located on the banks of the Murrumbidgee River. We only planned to spend one night here, however, it was such a good spot to cool down and escape the heat with afternoon river swims that we ended up staying for two. We used the camp as a base to explore some of the area and ended up completing a hike up "The Rock" which gave us lovely views of the surrounding farmland. Apparently on a clear day you can see all the way to Mount Kosciuszko, however, we had too many clouds for us to enjoy that view. We also spent some time in the Botanic Gardens and Zoo at Wagga Wagga. They have a large, free-flight aviary where we got to sit in the shade and watch the birds - I even made a little parrot friend. We then did a short day trip up to the town of Junee to visit their Licorice and Chocolate Factory. Unfortunately their advertised tour wasn't running on the day we visited, however, we were able to stock up on some delicious chocolate. Will and I then parted ways in Junee to do some separate exploration of some museums in the area. Will visited the Roundhouse Train Museum and I went and visited the doll museum which has thousands of dolls (the lady running it owns over 17000 dolls!). Will was able to explore seven historic trains which he thoroughly enjoyed and 7 year old me got to be envious of the museums insane Barbie collection. The doll museum is owned by a lady who also makes her own dolls. They are surprisingly life-like and each doll typically takes her 2-3 weeks to create as her attention to detail is meticulous - she has to put every strand of hair on individually!

After Wagga Wagga we headed further west to the small town of Hay with the main goal of seeing a sunset on the Hay Plains. The Hay Plains are incredibly flat with the horizon seeming to stretch on endlessly. They are apparently the flattest plains in the entire southern hemisphere. They made the plains around Dalby seem mountainous! We thoroughly enjoyed watching the sunset and found a great campsite which was also along the Murrumbidgee River, which gave us another opportunity to escape the heat. We also visited the Hay Gaol which was quite interesting. It was originally built as a jail for local offenders, however, has also been used as a maternity hospital, a POW detention centre for Japanese and Italian prisoners during WWII and as an institute to break the "worst girls in NSW" during the 1960's. There has only been one escape during its time as a prison which was achieved by a POW. He didn't see freedom for long before being returned to his cell.

We then continued our drive west until we hit Mildura along the banks of the mighty Murray River. There is still a lot of evidence of the recent floods with some areas still closed and under water. We were quite surprised to discover that the areas around Mildura are full of orchards growing lots of grapes and citrus. Given the arid countryside between Hay and Mildura we were not expecting to discover this outback oasis. You definitely do not find orchards growing in far western Queensland!

The main purpose for our stop in Mildura was to use it as a base to explore Mungo National Park. If you haven't heard of the place before (I hadn't until teaching about it) then I strongly recommend that you add it to your list of places to see in Australia. Lake Mungo is an ancient lake that has dried up as the water courses changed over the years, apparently it used to be fed by offshoots of the Lachlan River. It is a significant site to the First Nations peoples and is the place where Mungo Lady and Mungo Man were discovered many years ago, showing the oldest examples of human ritual burials outside of Africa. Even though it is dry lake, Google maps still has it listed as having water. Our tour guide was telling us that during the week some guys with kayaks had shown up asking where the water was! The highlight of going to Mungo is to visit the lunette dune on the eastern shore. The photos we took of the area do not do it justice - it truly was an incredible site. It almost feels like you are on another planet while you are exploring it and the colours at sunset are magical! In recent years the area was also used as sheep stations and there is still the original wool shed and some other sites to explore.

Kodak Moments