Echuca

This is the paddle turning.

A lovely adult fairy did this lovely facepainting for the girls. Emily has a cat and a horse and Natasha has a butterfly and a dolphin.

Captain Natasha.

Three little monkeys sitting in a row

We went to Echuca yesterday to have a look. What a lovely town. It is on the border between Victoria and NSW and is about an hour and a half drive from Bendigo. We had a one hour cruise up the Murray River on Pride of the Murray. The kids had a turn in the wheelhouse. We saw some beautiful riverboats, pictured here: The Canberra and the Emmy Lou They date back to the early 1900s when the main way to move freight from the Port of Melbourne was up the Murray River. Some of you may remember the mini series "All the Rivers Run" it was filmed here and we saw the actual boat they used for it.

We also enjoyed the Jazz bands playing on the street, nothing better than a cold Victorian Bitter outside listening to Jazz. They were having a Jazz Festival so there were different bands playing outside every pub and cafe.

They had some Clydsdales pulling a carriage around the block so we hopped in and had a ride up the main street.

On the way home we had a ride on a minature train at Elmore. It had a three km track so was quite a decent long ride. Rhys loved it.

On the whole we had a really enjoyable day, it was a bit like stepping back in time for the day. We will be visiting again soon, probably the winter Blues Festival in July.