Ulysses AGM at Mildura – Visiting Wentworth

Once we were all settled in at the camp and had a good look around there we decided to go across to Wentworth for Tuesday afternoon.  We travelled with our good friends from Rockhampton, Garry and Linda.

Being a rather arid area, there are lots of palms.  They look wonderful lining the roads.

Although Wentworth is only a small town, it is quite a popular place to visit, being on the confluence of the Darling and Murray Rivers. It had a lovely streetscape.

We had lunch on the shady verandah of “Artback”, a rather wonderful cafe and gallery.  They even had quite a nice section of textiles. It was a great fusion of an old facade and a modern, light filled interior.  Not what you would expect here.  As you can see, Mick was having a rather laid back day.

The famous old riverboat, the “Ruby” is moored in Wentworth.  Unfortunately, we weren’t able to visit or travel on her, although I believe she did go out one day later in the week.  There is a song about the riverboats which features the “Ruby”, among others.

After lunch we went to where the two mighty rivers converge.

There is a great viewing platform.

The two rivers have distinct colours.  The Darling is much muddier than the Murray.  It is a bit difficult to see here due to the reflections of the trees, but if you look closely you can see that the water at the bottom  of the photo is much lighter in colour and there is a definite straight line  through the tree reflections marking the difference. 

The Murray River is lined with majestic, stark, dead River Red Gums.  This is a result of the weirs being placed along its length in the 1920’s.  Prior to that, the steamers could often only work for a few months of the year while the water levels were high enough.  The weirs made the river much larger for the majority of the time.

From here, we decided to follow a walking trail to see the weir at Wentworth.  It started out fine, but became more jungle like as we progressed.  Mick was our fearless leader.  We expected all sorts of wild creatures to cross our path, but didn’t see anything.  The view at the end wasn’t really worth the effort either.

You can see our relief that we had returned to the car park safely.

It was definitely worth driving around to see the weir from the main viewing point instead.  Mick had a play with the panorama feature on his new little camera.  It worked quite well.

Wentworth is also famous for the locals having saved the town from the huge 1956 floods by building a levy using lots of little grey Ferguson tractors.  There is even a song about it.  It was therefore no surprise to see one up a pole.

Another little statue in the middle of an intersection.

There was even a Fergie garden.

We rather like little grey Fergies, as we used to have one.

There was more to see, but it was rather warm, although not really hot, but hotter than we have been used to after the mild summer we had.  Therefore, we headed back towards Mildura, stopping off for an ice cream on the way.  It’s a tough life, but someone has to do it.