Murray Bridge

 The Murray River

Up early once again and its pancakes for breakfast to lighten the mood because we are not at a very attractive site when compared to only a few days ago. We drive off in the morning sunshine which is lovely and warm and soon settle in for the drive. The girls are watching a movie and the roads in SA are fantastic. Victoria has the worst roads we have faced on our trip so far. Bumpety bump and boing boing is very frustrating and the towing is difficult to get right and a cruise speed hard to maintain when like this. the new roads make us feel alot better about travelling and i even used the cruise control for the first time. We travel alongside some freight trains which is entertaining for us all and at almost the same speed but then something else comes along. (see video).

Big Boys Toys

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 Murray Bridge soon arrives in our sights and the town is huge with all the businesses that you would expect. For our lunch break and coffee we head to the river side reserve and the kids play on the swings while me and heather work out where to stay for the night. 

Murray bridge arrival

Murray Bridge, bridge

Our Rig

A Snappy little brown duck

Puffing Billy without steam

Those are big wheels

Lily's wheel shot

Little red caboose

A Shy Lily in pink flowers

No Camping

Unfortunately there are no free stay camp grounds here so it is decided to go another 24kms to a place called Mannum. this is where the first ever Murray river paddle boats where made and launched. there is no drinking water but what a lovely little river side camp spot. it overlooks the village on the other side of the river which is quite nice indeed. Two ferry's run 24 hrs a day at this town and there are 10 other ferry's that cross the Murray at their towns all along this popular Australian river.

Noisy Neighbours 

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View to the hills behind us.

View from our camp- Mannum By night

Early morning surprise

   We go for a crossing with the ferry and a look around the town. An ice cream shop is not in town and so its ice cream on a stick for the girls. Some shopping is done and we cross the ferry again to go back to camp.
earlier that day i had thrown my Yabbie trap into the river just to see what might crawl in and to my surprise a fresh water yabbie was caught. Aha! Bait! there might just be some fish in the Murray worth Catching. Me and Lily dug up some worms and sat by the river that afternoon with a line in. We did get a nibble or two which is a good sign that with the right bait i might just be able to snare a yellow Belly or better still the prized Murray cod. These things can grow up to 1.8 meters but i am not getting my hopes up with my fish catching record so far. Dinner time and settle in for the night.