Days 10-11 – Mildura

Today we did a bit of border hopping into Mildura, Victoria. Mildura was a surprise to me.  It is much larger than I expected – a full regional city really – so big that even Lenny Kravitz is doing a concert there.  Banners advertising this concert adorn every bridge and half the streets.  A bit of overkill, one would have thought, because you would think that everyone in Mildura would already know, and if you happen to be the world’s most tragic Lenny Kravitz fan, who just happened to be passing through Mildura to find that you idol was on his way, it is probably too late to get tickets anyway. But while most of the other towns we passed through are starting to tart themselves up for the festive season, this town is proving that Lenny Kravitz is bigger than Christmas.

And yet, for all of it being a major regional centre, every spare bit of land seems to be covered in vineyards.  It kind of reminded me of when I went to Japan and was trying to work out what sort of town planning allowed tyre shop, cemetery, restaurant and rice paddy to be placed next to each other. All these vineyards, but not a cellar door to be seen.  Then we passed by this huge shed with “Marciano Table Grapes” written on the side, and then I was reminded that some people like to imbibe their grapes as solids.

We stayed a little out of town in the suburb of Red Cliffs, at the Big 4 where upon arrival I was presented with a coffee voucher and a bag of sultanas.  The Red Cliffs caravan park is beautiful – the best lawns I have seen in any park we have stayed in anywhere, although the groundsman told us that the boss was into him because they were looking shit.  “The worst in four months.”  The park backed on to a vineyard of course, making for a very picturesque two-night stay.

Allof these little jaunts have been stopovers to the big dance – Adelaide, so we only had a day to check out Mildura. Everything on Mildura is about the river Murray, the provider of the water for all the people in this city, and its vineyards, and the citrus, and all the other agriculture in the area. A stone’s throw from where we were staying is the Red Cliffs lookout, where you get a superb panorama of the, you guessed it, red cliffs of the Murray River bank – at least on the Victoria side. Mark put the drone up to truly capture the view,  

The in the evening, we took the paddlesteamer “Rothsbury” for  a dinner cruise up the river.  I reckon it was pretty good value for $85 per head, because apart from the spectacular scenery, you are treated to a genuine 1970’s carvery roast with chicken and lam, carrots and beans, cauliflower au gratin, lashings of gravy, and mint jelly from a jar,  and dessert, with the choice of pav, cheesecake or lemon tart with ice-cream scooped straight out of the tub.  No pretention here! Even the drink prices were reasonable: glasses of wine were on the lower end of the price spectrum, and soft drinks matched Bunnings (my new measure for drink pricing). 

I have to admit to being totally discombobulated on this trip.  Victoria is on one side of the turns so its hard to keep track of what’s what. Anyway, on the NSW side, mansions take up almost every vantage point, whereas on the Victorian side it seems to be much more people orientated with rowing clubs and ski clubs and hundreds of metres of free camp, which I wouldn’t have even thought to look for, but oh well.  I guess that means there needs to be a next time.

The coffee voucher I was given at reception was for a café down the road called The Shed.  Even though I had been stung by the servo curry chai of the other day, I ordered one here and it was possibly the nicest chai latte I have ever had in my life and Mark raved about his coffee also.  We had brekkie – Mark had salmon eggs benedict, and I had their speciality omelette full of ham, mushrooms, red onion and spinach .  It’s a good thing we only had a couple of days here, or I’m sure we would spend it in a permanent food coma.