Day 3 Monday 19th June

Lovely, warm night thanks to the fan heater! Apparently, it got down to 1 degree overnight. We had a lazy start to the morning and headed into town after breakfast to do a self-guided walk around Mildura checking out the many interesting “Art Deco” buildings. Following this we did a little bit of shopping including a trip to Bunnings. Back to the van for lunch and then we headed off in the car to do the Chaffey Trail which traced the history of Mildura’s irrigation. Mildura was Australia’s first Irrigation colony and it was due to the Victorian Cabinet Minister, Alfred Deakin (who went onto become an Australian Prime-minister) in 1880’s visiting California and meeting the Chaffey brothers who had set up irrigation schemes there. They came out to Australia and set up the Mildura Colony. We visited the Mildura Station Homestead which was a recreation of the first Mildura Station set up in 1847 and then later purchased by the Chaffeys. It had many buildings, outhouses, sheds, blacksmith shed etc. There were lots of displays of old photos as well as artefacts in many of the buildings. We were once again very impressed as all of this was open to the public at no charge. We visited many other spots but some of the highlights were watching a paddle-steamer go through Lock 11 and then a visit to the magnificently restored “Rio Vista” Historic House which was built for WB Chaffey and his family. The house was full of antiques and we were once again impressed as it was open to the public free of charge. We have decided to stay on here for another 2 nights as there is still much to see and do and we are not in any hurry!









Comments

  1. pferorsJune 20, 2017 at 5:40 PM

    havent seen the wind deflector on the water yet
    scenery looks great

    ReplyDelete

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