Not what we’d planned in Mildura

It was up and away again this morning. While we had a bit of a drive ahead (as we start the long drive back home), we tried just take things easy and leave when we were ready. This turned out to be about 8.30am.

Our first charge spot today was in the town of Berri. However there was already a car charging in the one spot when we arrived. I needed the toilet, so while Kevin waited with the car, I went in search of one and found it not too far away. On the way back I stopped in at a bakery and got us some breakfast. A roll with turkey, cranberry sauce & avo for Kevin and I had a Cornish pastie (which was okay).

Sometime later the other car was finished and it was our turn to charge. Luckily we didn’t need a full charge – just enough to see us comfortably to Mildura – as there was already another car waiting.

About 1pm I had phone call from the paddle steamer to say that our cruise for this afternoon was indeed cancelled as we were the only ones booked on it. Pretty sad when this was the only reason we were stopping in Mildura. But I can’t complain when so much of the holiday has gone to plan.

Luckily we didn’t have a lot of fruit left as we had to dump it before coming back into Victoria. Kevin ate the remaining grapes and we both had a banana before putting the rest in the bin.

We got to Mildura at 2pm and went straight to the charging spot as we wouldn’t be able to charge tonight. We then walked to a nearby organics shops. They didn’t have much left in the way of vegan food and I wasn’t really hungry so just Kevin had something to eat – some kind of berry cake/donut.

We then walked to a nearby IGA and picked up a few snacks before walking back to the car and then driving to our nights accommodation.

We were only supposed to be in and out tonight so I had booked a more basic place, the Seven Pines Motor Inn. It was clean and just fine for the night. 

Since we were able to park right outside the door we only took in the absolute essentials and could just duck out to get anything we had missed.

After a little bit of downtime we headed back out to drive down to the Murray River so we could see lock 11. We were super lucky here and a little cruiser had just entered the lock when we got there. So we were able to watch the gates close, the water emptied out, the gates opened and the boat pass through. Even though we’ve seen the locks in the Panama Canal at work (and plenty of smaller ones on YouTube) it was a different experience to see it operating in person.

We then drove around and could see quite a few houseboats docked by the shore.

With no kitchen in our room we ordered Zombrero to be delivered. I had the vegan cauliflower bowl and really enjoyed it. Of course, we watched more YouTube before having an early night ready for another big driving day tomorrow.