Day 280 / 2014 - Griffith to Deniliquin

We're in Deliniquin today our last town in NSW for this year as our next stop is Echuca which is just the Victorian side of the NSW / Vic border. Anne is also excited because in a weeks time she will be seeing Kaitlin for the first time in 5 years. 

We left Griffith and headed east towards Hay about 150Km away. Hay is a town of about 2,500 people and is surrounded by large flat grassy plains. The road to Hay is part of the main highway between Adelaide and Sydney. Hay is part of the Riverina district which is known as the foodbowl of NSW. Sheep is the predominant industry but a wide variety of fruit and vegetables are also grown here.

Hay has a war time history as POW's and non australian residents were sent to camps here for internment during World War 2. Each of the camps infrustructure such as wire fences and buildings are no longer visible but the areas where the camps stood are still unused to this day. There are several museum spots dedicated to War history, one located at the Public High School with another at the Railway station as well as plaques identifying the camp locations. The Gaol has also been turned into museum displaying the historical heritage of Hay. The Gaol in Hay was used for a number of different purposes during its life such as a hospital during the war years a maternity hospital and institution to incarcerate "wayward" young girls. The girls were sent from other institutions here as they were considered impossible to control and were extremely disruptive. The Hay institution was feared by many, with good reason, and struck horror into hearts in fear of being sent there.

There is also the tourist attraction called Shear Outback which is dedicated to the life of the sheep industry. It shows the timeline of developing a sheep industry in the region and depicting life of then up till now in sheep farming. There is a number of interative displays including a live demonstration of shearing a sheep. Longreach in Queensland has the Stockman Hall of Fame Hay has Shear Outback.

We found the town folks of Hay quite friendly and seem keen to attract the RV tourist. There are 3 caravan parks in the town but there is also a nice free camp spot where we stayed at a place called Sandy Point about 1km from the centre of town along the banks of the Murrumbidgee river. There were flushing toilets on site but the nearest drinking water tap was at the tourist information centre about a kilometre away. When free camping you meet some of the friendliest people who are all keen to socialise. It is not hard to find someone to have a happy hour or three each evening.

From Hay we continued onto Deniliquin approx 110km to the South along the Cobb Hwy. It is named the Cobb Hwy as it roughly follows the route taken by Cobb and Co coaches through the Riverina district. There are a number of sculptures you can view at various rest areas depicting stories of that region.

Arriving in Deniliquin we made our way to the Big 4 Caravan park on the West side of town. We are trying to get our Big 4 points up as once you reach a hundred points you get the 10% discount for he entire length of your stay at each park instead of up to the value of $40 which equates to about 10 Days per stay. The Big 4 is located right beside the Edward river which is a kind of a loop river going from the Murray River to the Murray River and is considered part of the Murray Darling basin. The river is used for Water skiing and other aquatic activities as well as the water supply for farmers and the town. There are plenty of things for kids to do in the Big 4 Tourist Park as there is a water park, 2 pools, tennis court, mini golf...etc.

Deniliquin is a town of about 7.000 people and has experience a population decline since the 2006 census. Deniliquin is about 250 Km from Melbourne so long weekends tend to see Melbournites travel up from the colder climate to enjoy the warmer weather this boost the population for short periods of time. Melbourne is growing city pushing those getaway places people look for further out. There are a number of tourist attractions in Deniliquin but it is most famously known for the largest muster of legally registered utes in the world in 1999 where 2839 utes took part. From this has now spawned the annual event called the "Deni Ute Muster" which is held on the October long weekend. 

We had planned to leave a day earlier and free camp somewhere on the way to Echuca but the weather forecast was for 38 degrees so we decided to stay one more night and enjoy the offerings power gives us to run the air conditioner and enjoy the use of the pool and water park.

We only have another 5 more weeks and we will be flying home for Xmas my how the time has flown by. We are also excited to get our awning fixed in about 3 weeks time. We have missed it for shade and while we have been able to use one of our shade screens as a roof this takes time to setup there is nothing like the convienence to be able to roll an awning in and out in a matter of seconds. We have now booked and paid for our transport to Tasmania. We plan to spend 3 approx months there from Jan to April touring the country side. Once we leave Tasmania our caravan would have travelled through every state in Australia. We have decided to take our van and car and although expensive to transport over it works outs cheaper than having to hire something for the time we want to be there. There are a lot of free camps in Tasmania helping to save a few dollars and cover some of the cost of getting over there.