Farewell to a beautiful place

An early start saw us at the ferry terminal almost before dawn, as the later boats were fully booked it was the 8 o'clock one or none at all. Perhaps it would have been better to stay! Anyway- here we are, once again marvelling at the truck driver's ability to reverse their hige trailers with infinitesimal accuracy on board. One was full of sheel- another with potatoes. Still a third was full of- refuse, and didn't we know it. The aroma was more than a little ripe, encouraging us to go inside and upwind.

A little way along the coast is the charming resort of Victor Harbour, as today is a bank holiday it was rather busy, so after giving Betty her twice annual bath, and taking lunch at Subway we decide to travel just a few KMs further on to Goolwa.

This is  a charming sleepy little town at the mouth of the Murray River, famous for it's wines further upstream. The river and it's tributaries drains much of the east of Australia, covering four states, from Queensland, New South Wales, Vistoria, as well as South Australia. Indeed many of the presently flooded areas to the north of here will eventually drain into this river.

The town itself was once famous for it's wool exports, much of the wool from the Murray River valley was exported through here, brought down here by paddle steamer, and tranfered to larger ships for transfer to Europe.

There are still a few paddle steamers about here, and we took advantage of a trip on the river in P.S.Oscar W, a side paddler, still operated by steam engine.

Originally lauched 103 years ago as a wool carrier, it vis now owned by the local council, and manned entirely by volunteers.

We had a pleasant hour cruising around the lake formed at the mouth of the Murray, which incidentally is blocked from the sea by a number of barrages to form a fresh water lake, with locks through to the sea for shipping.

Tomorrow we will move towards the Great Ocean Road, which leads us to Melbourne. The first part of this road is the Limestone Coast, a long lagoon formed by a visible reef a short distance offshore.