FIFTYFIFTH DAY – WEDNESDAY 1ST SEPTEMBER
A pinch and punch for the first day of the month. It rained during the night and I was a bit worried as to how the dirt road was going to be. Graeme checked it out and all is good. Phew! We then had our usual farmers breakfast after sleeping in a bit, as we don’t have to go too far. We packed up and carefully negotiated the holes and puddles on our way out. We went into Echuca and bought a pass to look at the old wharf and surrounding area which included an exhibition of the olden days, the builders of redgum things, the blacksmith, the underground pub. We then bought some meat from a butcher and off we went down the road towards Bendigo. We decided to go down this way as there were more options of good camp spots. There was lots of yellow on the way in the form of wattles and big yellow paddocks of canola and lots of sheep herds and big dairy cow herds. As we got closer to Bendigo we found a way to bypass it to get to our last camp spot for our big trip at the Whipstick National State Park. We followed the directions in our Camps book and found a great camp spot at Shadbolt Campground. We are the only ones here and it is pretty quiet. We set up camp, collected some wood for our fire and then went for a walk to Toms Gold Mine. It was a pretty long walk, as it turned out, but a good one, through the bush. We finally reached Toms Mine which was basically a big hole in the ground cut through the rock. Along the way we were amazed that there was an open water canal that went for kms towards the mine. This would have been made at the time of the mine. We crossed over it on several occasions. We finally got back to the van after walking for a couple of hours. Graeme stoked up the fire ready to cook our vegies. It is sad to think that this is our last night but we are looking forward to seeing all the kids and my doggies and everyone again to tell them of our adventures.