April 21... Swan Hill

The Murray River

River Red Gums

Our walk along the river

         
On the road again ... south on The Kidman Way in persistent fog, to Jerilderie. Here we had morning tea in the park with the Steel Wings Windmill, a huge structure with an 8m diameter fan. It was also in Jerilderie that Ned Kelly robbed the Bank of NSW and held 30 residents hostage for three days. He locked the local police in their cells  so this was one of his more successful ventures!
From there we took a minor road across to Deniliquin which was like an oasis, hugging the river and with a huge green park in the middle. Just now there was quite a lot of water lying about but usually this area would be hot and dry.  We had lunch in Deniliquin and a walk around the town which had an excellent tourist office and museum. It documented the history of settlement and wool in the district, as well as the early history of the town.

As it was still quite early we continued across to Kerang via Barham. We had a look around the little town because we had often heard Marian and Larry talk of it fondly as they had been teachers there many years ago.

The Lift Bridge

From Kerang we travelled on to Swan Hill. Here we were very lucky to get a site at the Riverside Caravan Park in the middle of town and right on the Murray River. It was beautiful there and we enjoyed a lovely walk along the river. We had not realized that Easter and the school holidays would affect the availability of sites so totally but, apparently, anywhere along the Murray is highly sought after.