October 23rd, According to Doris (our Navigator) we had a 55minute drive to our destination, but as I refused to turn into a single lane road and take other suggested dirt tracks so we arrived by main roads 2 hours later and it rained most of the way. We booked into Yarrawonga Holiday Park and set up on our waterfront site looking onto the Murray River. This was exactly what Val was wanting. We are now on the Victorian side of the river. We were 100 metres from the Power Station Weir and it was releasing water causing a frothy foam to be floating down river. It didn’t look attractive and we were told that they had only started to release the extra water the day before. I went down to check out the boat ramp only to discover that this part of the Murray River is “closed” to any form of fishing until the 1st December, very disappointing. I was told that fishing is allowed in Lake Mulwala, which is the man made lake created by the Weir but that doesn’t suit me. My unregistered towing device only allows me to tow the tinny within the Park grounds.
October 24th, Had a quiet day, settling in, so I had a nice walk around the Park and over the Weir and took some photos.
October 25th, Another quiet day, did some reading and the highlight for me was to go uptown for a haircut. We are enjoying sitting under our awning, looking and listening to the River passing by, while reading. Yes, Val has taken to reading books also. We drove across the Weir into Mulwala and visited The Ski Club, which had been recommended to us. It was a very nice Club, on the lake front, but was not doing anything special for Melbourne Cup.
October 26th, I was in the Van making lunch and happened to look out the kitchen window and couldn’t believe my eyes, as I spotted a 5 to 6 foot long brown snake on the grass in-between us and the next Caravan. Fortunately our neighbours had gone out for the day. Val was sitting out under our awning , reading. Being petrified of snakes I wasn’t about to take the snake on myself and did not want to alarm Val. I phoned the Park Reception to report the snake siteing and seek some help. Of course that activity alerted Val so I had to tell her about the snake. Val moved into the Van to see the snake while I waited for the young fellow from the Office to arrive. Val had the presence to take a photo of the snake as it was moving away, towards the river, as it had gone off into the grass by the time the rescue party arrived with a long handled shovel. A search of the grassy slope along the River didn’t find our snake. We are hoping we don’t have a return visit. After lunch we went uptown and walked the length of the shops and made a few purchases on the way. We called into Club Mulwala (RSL Club) on the way home and found that they were planning a “special lunch menu” for Melbourne Cup and will have the race on a big screen, so looks like that where we will go next Tuesday.
October 27th, Still on snake patrol to-day but I ventured out to visit the Pioneer Museum at Mulwala. This is another group of local volunteers who have done a great job of restoring and displaying a large and diverse collection of local memorabilia and equipment and are continually expanding their display. I was extremely impressed and would recommend that it is well worth a visit.
October 28th, I drove down to Wangaratta to visit my favourite place, Centrelink, and lodge my last 2 lots of forms. This was the nearest Centrelink Office to Yarrawonga and only a 45 minute drive. Wangaratta is a large Town with around 16,000 population and I wanted to check out the Camping Store, K Mart and Big W for small outdoor folding tables. I didn’t find any tables that were what we wanted but the drive was enjoyable.
October 30th, We had to move to another site this morning, as they had a previous booking for our riverfront site. We still have 4 days to go before we move on. It had rained last night and was still raining while I had breakfast then thankfully stopped for a few hours, allowing us to get our move done. Our new site still had some river views from each end of the awning, so not bad. The weather forecast is not good for the week-end but hopefully it will brighten up for The Melbourne Cup on Tuesday. We are thinking of going down to the Corowa Races for the Cup, so will make a final decision based on the weather, on Tuesday morning.
October 31st, As predicted, rained all night and still raining to-day. A good day to catch up on reading. We went to the Mulwala Ski Club to pass away a couple of hours in the afternoon and Val had such a bad run on the pokies that she said “that’s it, I’m not playing the Poker Machines ever again”. Hah!!! I’ll believe that when I see it.
November 2nd, The rain did ease up yesterday afternoon and although isn’t raining today, the wind is very cold. We decided just to go to Club Mulwala for Melbourne Cup so headed off around 11.30am. They had a nice lunch special, Chicken and Salad with a glass of Champagne for $10. We bought 4 X $10 shares in the Punters Club Betting Group, seemed like a great idea at the time, numerous sweeps, tickets in a Wine Fridge raffle and bet on a lot of races, all to no avail on my part. Val did well with her betting and came out in front. Val also had a little flutter and pulled $250 out of one machine. At the end of the day, we had a very enjoyable time and came home with a $100 clear profit. We packed up ready to leave for Echuca in the morning.
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