Day 58 - Friday 24 February - Along the Murray River

DAY 58

FRIDAY

24 February 2017 –  started a new book, number 7 - “Don’t You Cry” by

McLaren Vale – Murray Bridge (Camps 8 SA#65) - Mannum

Moving day! IT has been a while since we packed up the van but here we were again. We were up early and ready to get the day underway. Dad rang as we were getting sorted, so I had a brief chat to both of them. All is good at home. Everything was organised and ready and we were out of the park at 9.15. We decided however that we would go and do some shopping in the car before doing the final hitch up.

We drove back out to Morphett Vale to pick up a new battery for my phone and then on to Colonnades shopping centre to doing some clothes and food shopping. We returned to the van at 1030 after having left it in the parking area at the front of the park. Paul hooked everything up, while I sorted inside and then we were off, though not very far.

 We stopped at the winery Serafino. Martyn and Cheryl had a photo of them with Mum and Dad outside a beautiful stained glass frontage and I wanted to take a similar photo that we managed before enjoying a wine tasting a picking up a bottle of moscato and returning to the road.

We tracked over much of the ground we had driven yesterday when we went to the zoo eventually making it to Murray Bridge for 1.30pm. We opted to stay at the showgrounds, found ourselves a space and set up camp. With it all in order and lunch had we got into the car and drove into the centre of town and found the info centre. A very helpful lady gave us the info we needed and more and we came out with armfuls of brochures. We then ducked into woollies for forgotten pieces and went back to the car.

We drove out to Mannum, stopping at the Waterfall along the way. We didn’t do much of the walk as we could see it was fairly dry and there wouldn’t be much to see. We continued on to the town site and found a place to park near the car ferry.

We watched the cars driving onto the barges and then sailing across the 100m or so of the Murray River and being deposited on the overside where there was a campground. It was very picturesque and if we weren’t already set up we would have loved to be there ourselves.

Mannum is the birthplace of the paddle steamers. You can cruise the Murray on quadruple deck boats for 3-5 nights or you could hire your own luxury houseboat. Both options looked appealing. We wandered the main street before returning to the riverside park and watching the senior cits with their luggage boarding the Murray Princess ready for their cruise.

We returned to the main road and were pointed in the direction of a hill top walk that we followed. This gave a good view of the river and the streets below. Once at the end of the walk we returned to the car and made our way back to Murray Bridge and the showgrounds.

I organised dinner and then we ate before enjoying a very quiet and relaxing evening. Paul spoke to Jaden while I sorted the pics and blog from the past few days. I tried to ring Brad but no one answered.  I booked us on to an evening paddle steamer dinner cruise for tomorrow evening that sounded like fun and by 845pm I was looking for bed. A real early one by our recent standards.