After being grounded with vertigo for almost 3 months, I finally got away for a camping trip with my friend, Kate. We headed northwest, with the intention of lots of walks, finding a big tree, and visiting places where Kate’s family once lived.
Lake Boga
Our first stop was Lake Boga, where we spent two nights. A very pretty spot, but quite windy, with wind gusts close to 50 kmh on the second night making me pull the pop-top down overnight.
We walked into the deserted-looking, down-at-heel town of Lake Boga on our first afternoon there. The next day we visited Swan Hill for some shopping, and once back at Lake Boga, walked part of the lakeside track. My feet and legs were sore after a poor decision to wear new walking shoes, so walking the whole track was not an option.
We made use of the very good facilities at the caravan park. I made a tofu and mushroom biryani on our second evening, and we ate together in the camp kitchen, out of the incessant wind.
Mildura, via Colignan/Nangiloc
On the third day, we went in search of Australia’s largest River Red Gum, on the Murray River near Colignan. We walked around 6 km before we were satisfied that the tree we were looking for was unreachable. We think it was the ‘Gnarly Tree’ that we could just make out behind a clump of smaller trees on an island created by the very high river level.
This disappointment followed our earlier attempt that day at finding a ‘spooky’ trail through a salt pan Kate remembered from around 20 years ago. We found Bailey Plain Salt Pan, but the trail didn’t live up to Kate’s memories.
We travelled on to Mildura, where we stayed two nights at the Apex Riverbeach Caravan Park. More rustic than the amenities at Lake Boga, the advantage was being in a quiet location out of town with easy access to walking trails. We arrived too late on the first day to go for a walk, but did two 6 km walks the next day – one along the river and into town, and the other along the river in the other direction from our campsite.
The following morning we did a 5km walk around Merbein Common, before driving on to Lake Cullulleraine. The free campsites around the Common looked worth a stay next time I’m in the area.
Lake Cullulleraine
We spent two nights on Lake Cullulleraine at the Bushman’s Retreat Caravan Park. Our lakeside spot seemed perfect, until we realised we had an incredibly rude bunch of people camped nearby. The worst among them was the loudest, most foul-mouthed woman I’ve ever encountered. Walking past her on my way back from the toilet didn’t prompt any reduction in volume or toning down of the crude content spewing from her mouth.
They took over the camp kitchen around a communal fire provided by the caravan park and later, taunted Kate about cooking a vegetarian pizza. The second day, we absented ourselves for the morning, doing the 10 km walk around the lake. We then managed to steer clear of them by using the amenties located some distance from the camp kitchen, where they had gathered again. More campers had arrived that day, and perhaps it was that which prompted a more restrained volume from the unruly group.
Kangaroo Lake
Our final night was at Kangaroo Lake. We took a walk around the lake before using the camp kitchen (which clearly hadn’t been used in donkeys – spider webs and thick dust everywhere, after the owner had cleaned up the mouse poo for us) to make tacos for dinner. The sunset was beautiful though – golden, then red. Then we settled in for a really cold night, hoping for minimal frost the next morning.
Photos
As usual, I took heaps of photos.
Dey Alexander 
You must be logged in to post a comment.