Prior to returning to the caravan park for lunch yesterday, we stopped at the local Visitor’s Centre and booked a Murray River cruise on the paddle wheeler “Rothbury”.
As the trip departed at 10:50am, for the first time since leaving Sydney we had an opportunity to “sleep in”. The alarm went off at 7:00am but we abandoned our sleep-in and hit the showers. As we have excellent television coverage, we took the opportunity to watch some of the Winter Olympics before our departure just after 10:00am.
The “Rothbury” is a paddle wheeler with a diesel engine. The boat has been refurbished and was delightful to travel in. One of the highlights of the cruise was going through a loch. The boat cruised into the loch and waited for the doors to close. The water is then released and the boat is lowered down to the next section of river. The loch does not require any pumps as the pressure of the water operates the loch. The Murray around Mildura is wide and is freely flowing at the present time. The river appears full.
After our cruise we visited the local tourist information centre and due to the heat, decided to return to the caravan park. Temperatures have been hovering around 38 and it has really been uncomfortable.
Once again, we ran the air conditioning unit in fan mode and achieved a comfortable sleep.