Fort Courage & Echuca

Where to go next? We looked at the maps past Renmark and noticed that there was a caravan park on a secondary road out of Wentworth and on the Murray river. There had to be a reason for a caravan park to be sited out there so we let the air out of the tyres yet again and headed down the gravel to Fort Courage. The roads along the way are crowded with abandoned stone farm houses, a reminder of the efforts of a brave generation of farmers in this harsh land. The park manager was a little bemused by our assumption that there would be plenty of room at the inn!!! the Mildura music festival was in full swing. However, tjere was still a site available and we stayed for two nights at Fort Courage (named after an orignal sponsor, Courage Brewery), that was set up to facilitate the Wentworth Angling Club. We canoed up the Murray, newly aquired fishing liscences in the kit, and enjoyed a trip up a liitle off-shoot (anabranch) of the river that was teeming with bird life and European carp. We dined on yellow belly provided by a more successful fisherman, and won a Lion's club Christmas cake in the Saturday night raffle.
Next we moved on to Echuca where we opted to stay in a free bush camp on the Murray with a glorious outlook over trhe river, only a couple of other campers, and enough firewood for a roaring fire to keep us warm. (photo) .We would have stayed longer but we had already decided to make the most of our dwindling time to explore the coast, so, following my mate Bob,s advice we headed off to Bright through the lush pastures, vineyards and orchard characterstic of this part of the continent. Tonight we are in Bright, a pretty little town, and have completed a walk down a section of the Oven's River. (photo). As the temperature is expected to be down to around 2 we have whimped out for a second time and booked into a cabin where we are currently washing down a punnet of strawberries with a little Baileys.