Day 4 Tuesday 20th June

We woke to another beautiful day and again took our time to prepare ourselves to go out. We drove to the small town of Red Cliffs which is located about 15 kms from Mildura. Here in a large park just off the Calder Highway we saw a huge 18 foot tall and 45 ton tractor called Big Lizzie. The tractor’s inventor and operator was a South Australian man and it was built about 100 years ago. Big Lizzie was self-sufficient and carried fuel, a working blacksmith shop, living quarters, chooks and a Rosella parrot in a cage. It was used to clear Mallee scrub at Red Cliffs after WW1 for a soldier settlement. They averaged about 1 mile per hour clearing the land. After reading information and looking at some of the photos, Big Lizzie had quite a few problems. It took over a year just to get it to Red Cliffs, to work and broke bridges on the way, got bogged, broke down etc. After the 1920’s Big Lizzie was replaced by more modern equipment and left to go rusty in a paddock. In 1971, people from Red Cliffs decided to restore the “rusty old hulk” and it is now a tourist feature in the town. From here we went to Psyche Pumps next to King’s Billabong on the Murray. These pumps were some of the original ones put in by the Chaffey brothers and the original pump house, reconditioned pumps and steam engine boiler house are regularly run for tourists. We then took a rough track that ran between the very large King’s Billabong and the river. Here we discovered some wonderful free camping spots. It was very scenic and well worth the drive. We returned to Mildura to do a quick shop and then back to the van for lunch. After lunch we went to Merbein and did a beautiful long walk along the banks of the river. This walk finished with a climb of about 100 stairs which we managed to do. We met 2 lovely young girls who were netballers and they were going to run up and down the stairs for fitness. Oh to be young again!
















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