Gunbower Island: 3rd - 7th November 2006
Participants: Henric, Cory, Mark, Michelle, James and Liam
We took the long way up, travelling via Ballan to drop off a Guinea Pig at my sisters. A couple of wrong turns, and then we were heading up north in generally the right direction. I had intended passing through Maryborough, but the wrong turns took us closer to Bendigo in the end.
We eventually moved off the bitumen very late at night and made our way down various tracks across Gunbower Island as we headed towards the Murray River.
We turned down a number of tracks that looked like they made there way to promising camps, but as we had trailers on we had to park them and run down the track to check the camp wasn't already occupied. A very interesting experience at 11:30 at night.
I had run down quite a few tracks, which was very tiring given the very late hour but we finally found a site that was large, open, right near the river and empty. Pretty much perfect!
We debated on the best spots to set up the trailers under the watchful eye of a curious tawny frogmouth and eventually climbed into bed after 1:00 in the morning.
The plan this long weekend was pretty much a lazy one. We lazed around camp, swam in the river, and rowed up and down the river.
Later in the afternoon we travelled into Cohuna to pick up some supplies. There was a market on, and the kids had a go at Guinea Pig races, but lucked out.
Back at the camp some of us relaxed very well.
Next day we got the RC out and had heaps of fun driving it around the campsite and over some improvised jumps
After getting a little stir crazy around camp, we went exploring further upriver. We stopped off at Torrumbarry Weir. There was an informative information centre at the new weir, with heaps of info about the original weir, which was built in situ as needed with increases of river height by dropping large planks of wood down metal rails that had been dragged out into the river. Crazy stuff.
We stopped off in Echuca, where a market was being held in the streets. We had lunch in the park alongside the river, watching the paddle steamers travelling up and down. It was nice to find a bit of shade, as it had been damn hot this long weekend.