Blog 18 - Swan Hill - Pioneer village, Paddle boats & Billie goats - Mon 27th, Tues 28 & Wed 29th July 2015

Monday 27th July

A train chugged by earlier not noisy just a quiet rhythmic chug although the siren going off at the minute, (8.45 am) is noisy and annoying.
I am in bed with my book sipping the coffee and munching the toast supplied by "the Mr Wonderful" moose. He always sings that tune when he does something he thinks worthy of it. You know the one, goes like this : “Do you get that feeling? Do you get that glow, every time I’m near? Mr Wonderful …… That’s me!“ He's wanting to start on his wiring project so suggests I sit still while he lifts the bed up to get his tools out from under it! Cheeky sod. A raised eyebrow and a strong "don't you dare has him off sorting something else out"

While he was out I hopped into the shower thinking to myself how lovely it will be to put some conditioner through my hair not like the quick wash when free camping. I manage a shampoo followed by putting conditioner on before the water, becomes cold. Not luke warm, but bloody freezing. I am now a soaped up mess. I call out to Moose – “are you working on anything that affects the water heater?” He answers with a “No ….. It can't have gone cold.” In he comes to show me I'm an idiot that doesn't know hot from cold. He manages to not laugh at me wrapped in a towel, conditioner running down my face and my skin turning blue. Standing in the bathroom he places his hand under the shower jet while turning the tap to hot and explaining to me, I’m not to add cold water. He stands waiting for it to warm up - gee why didn't I do that? When it is starting to become obvious that the water isn't warming up he casually comments "I don't know why it's doing that, I had a good shower yesterday" – that’s really not helpful. He turned the booster on and went back outside. I wrapt my conditioned hair in a towel threw on a jacket and climbed back into bed. Knocking my coffee cup over on the way, so now have sheets to wash too. I feel I should stay in bed the rest of the day. I eventually tried the shower again and it has heated up. 

The day was spent reading, waiting for clothes to wash. Reading. Getting more coins for the driers plus a much needed warm coffee.  Waiting for clothes to dry and more reading. Moose was refitting a thicker wire to replace a wire that was getting too hot, somewhere in the towing connection to the car. 

The Generator will be ready tomorrow for pick up. It turned out to be a known fault with the wire loom. I enjoyed a long chat with Yak and text updates from pickles while clothes dried. After I had put a mountain of gold coins in the driers I still returned to the van with damp clothes. The sun may be out but the air feels like you've opened a very large freezer door so I hung them up in the annex to finish off and managed to book Bonnie into doggie day care for tomorrow before heading off to my much needed physio appointment. Returning to the van with my shoulder all strapped up.

The Cockies are making a racket while they pick a branch to settle on for the night. Eventually all is quiet. We turn the heater up and settle ourselves in for the night.

An excited Bonnie

Tuesday  28th July.
Mist rolls across the river across the banks right through to the town. It's a very cool 4 degrees.  I'm up a little earlier today as we are dropping miss Bonnie to doggie day-care and being romantic – huh, or rather tourists for the day

We started at the Pioneer settlement just down the road from the caravan park. Moose was in heaven looking at strippers of the machinery kind and harvesters. I tore him away to the warm cafe for a hot coffee and home-made lemon slice from Beryl and her offsider Shirley before he was captured by the steam engines which after 15 minutes I decided to go look at the shops rather than stand in the freezing cold watching him drool.

I chatted to the lady in the sweet shop, checked out the drapery shop through it's windows and worked my way up the main street of the Pioneer village ending at the Printers where a passionate Dutchman proudly showed me around his printers filling me in on their history. I have worked near some ancient presses in my time as a temp in the early 80s so was able to share some stories with him as he printed “wanted” posters for the boys. 

Printer running the boys posters off

Moose finds me and tells me he has organised a car ride for us but first my Danish friend has to show him his print presses too. When we step outside there is the car I thought Moose would end up with instead of the Hot rod we have today. It’s a lovely car and soooo comfortable.

Meet Millie & Billie

We head out into the real world to pick up the repaired generator then on to lunch before returning to Pioneer village for a cruise up the river on the Paddle boat. 

We say hello to Millie and Billie goat as we pass by. The captain of the crusie is filling us with all sorts of interesting information including that the Murray river is classed as being in New South Wales even though our caravan park which sits right on it is in Victoria. It is under the control of New South Wales until the South Australian border where they take over, poor old Victoria don’t get a look in. So if you own a boat in Victoria and want to float it in the Murray you have to get a New South Wales boat license as well as a Victorian one. If you want to go fishing in it, you need a New South Wales fishing license too.

The Victorian Government operate an Environmental flows regime which isn’t just the amount of water that is allowed to flow through the river system but also how often it flows and for how long. It is claimed that these are vital for the rivers ecological processes like, for example: high flows for trigging fish breeding and enough water for them to move up and down the river. Low flows in summer help keep fish alive and connect their habitats. The flows also affect the shape of the rivers. Now if you hear this from an official it would be told as a “good” thing. But we get the impression that the general public don’t always see it the same way. The heavy erosion along the banks has been blamed on the flows being too frequent and to heavy.

Exhausted Bonnie sleeps by the heater vents

After our cruise we headed off to pick Miss Bonnie up and some how ended up at a craft shop. When I eventually came out of the craft shop we grabbed some fish and chips for dinner and headed back to the van for the evening.

Wednesday 29th July 2015
Wow we have been away 4 weeks. Time is flying in so today I decided to slow it down a little. We slept til 8.45 which is major sleep in , in the Moose household.

Then a bit of reading followed by some art journaling using some glitzy ink spray I bought at the craft shop yesterday. Moose spent this time taking Bon for a walk to town to pick up some more caravan bits from the hardware store.  He took ages as he stopped to chat to all the other men who bought gadgets for their vans.

My afternoon was spent in the annex studio with my heater on and machine buzzing. I'm on my way to making one of the kids crap Xmas gifts - look at me getting organized. Plus a long chat with Pickles about everything and nothing.

Moose catches the captains attention

Moose moves to the back of the boat

Moose gets cheered on by a bunch of school kids

Moose headed off to play with a paddle boat then a long paddle afterwards. Much to the concern of our neighbours when she realised he wasn't wearing a safety vest. I assured her he knew what he was doing. 

 On his return he set up the BBQ and dinner appeared. I played in the annex until 9 pm then popped inside to make our Horlicks and grab our books again.

It has been a very long enjoyable day!

Paddle boat racer Moose & Pioneer Moz signing off x