Echuca

A little further north from Bendigo, on the Victoria and New South Wales border are the twinned towns of Echuca and Moama. This bridge was sent in parts from Scotland in the late nineteenth century to join the two towns and states.

We stayed in Victoria’s Echuca in temperatures around 40 to 42°C, very hot so we took a river trip along the Murray River in a beautiful old paddle steamer, the Canberra.

There were lots of paddle steamers of various sizes in this busy port

as there were in the past when the waterways and the paddle steamers formed an extensive transport system.

The Canberra has a renovated wood burning steam engine that that drives the paddle wheels quietly along the river. The river level is now kept fairly constant with weirs and dams but in years gone by it frequently flooded to the levels shown on this tree.

If you click on the tree the picture will enlarge and you can read the dates.

We found a delightful bakery and coffee shop in the High Street with a back porch overlooking the Campaspe creek.

It looks like something out of Crocodile Dundee but this is in the middle of town. It’s hard to beat outback, good coffee and great sausage rolls.