A day at the races

two towns on opposite sides of the Murray river, in two different states. Echuca in Victoria, and Moama in NSW, are joined by an old iron bridge, and are Australia's paddle steamer capital. The boats line the river on both sides.Two other rivers join the Murray here, the Goulbourne and the Campaspe, making the Murray navigable by paddle steamers all the way from the Southern Ocean at Lake Alexandra in South Australia.

Founded in 1853 by an ex convict from the UK, Harry Hopwood saw the potential of an inland port serving the outback sheep stations, at one time with over 100 boats.

Recently there have been very severe floods upriver from here, many towns were cut off for a while, and some roads are still closed. As a result the Murray is still very high, waterlogging some of the area around the river and carrying broken trees down river and submerging others.

Today there was a race meeting with a difference- harness racing is all the rage over here. With a sulky in tow, they race round a track about 1k long, perhaps two or three times before they really put the pressure on and start racing. If they gallop they are disqualified, and have to get into step before the race can start behind a mobile starting gate.

We stayed for three races, al of which were won by the favourite, with the second placed every time. The odds were poor, sometimes as low as returning just a few cents on the dollar, we didn't bet. But it was an interesting couple of hours, some of the horses were quite beautiful and obviously well cared for, the owners travelling long distances to race their rigs.

We are here for a couple of days, so tomorrow we will have a good look round and find out more about the history of this area.