Echuca and a surprise festival – Day 316

After breakfast and filling up a couple of our water tanks we were on the road again, albeit for less than an hour to Echuca, or Echuca – Moama if you include its sister town of Moama, across the river in New South Wales. In days past Echuca was Australia’s most significant inland river port. Located on the Murray River, it is over 1,700 kilometres or 1,000 miles from the mouth of the river. Today the former hustle and bustle of a busy trading port has been replaced by the comings and goings of tourists, particularly short term visitors from Melbourne, only a couple of hundred kilometres to the south. In addition to being a popular tourist destination the town remains an important service centre for the surrounding agricultural region.

Our campsite here was at the Rotary Park, on the banks of the Campaspe River – a tributary of the Murray (A$10 donation per night, with access to a dump point and potable water). Normally when we arrive at rural showgrounds and other low cost camping areas late morning we are one of the first, and often the first, people there so we were rather taken aback when we pulled in here to find twenty or thirty campers already set up and all the riverside sites, of which there are only a handful anyway, taken. That said, there were still plenty of spots left so we parked up alongside one of the playing fields. By evening time the park was pretty much full.

When I arrive at a campground, after setting the van up (sometimes before or mid-set-up, to Andy’s annoyance), I like to go for a wander to check out the facilities and say hello to any other campers up for a chat. On today’s wander I ascertained that we had arrived in town in the middle of the annual Winter Blues Festival, hence the busyness of the campsite. Detesting large crowds and queuing for things, we generally avoid visiting towns when festivals and other large events are on so had we known in advance about the Blues Festival we would have rejigged our travels to avoid it. As it was, we were more than happy that we didn’t.

After lunch in the caravan, we ventured into the port area to check out the festival. While it was busy the festival was very well organised such that performances (all free entry – just buy a drink, snack, etc in venues) were spread around and hosted by numerous pubs, hotels and cafes with a few musicians having spots on the footpath or in small park areas.

We spent a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon moving around from performance to performance. I was very impressed with the quality of the performers.

Performing at the Echuca Blues Festival

A great musician playing his homemade guitar. Had we been in the market for a guitar we could have picked one up here

Taking a break from the music

Food, etc could be relatively easily accessed without the queues (and rip-off prices!) often associated with events like this.

One of a number of food stalls supplementing the restaurant, pub and cafe offerings

While we were able to see a few of the tourist sites around the port area as we moved around and enjoyed the festival we resolved to come back again and spend a bit more time here once the festival was over so I will hold reference to the non-festival attractions to a later entry.

Before leaving the festival, which would carry on for many hours into tonight and resume for a final day tomorrow, we treated ourselves to an ice-cream, for no reason other than that we like ice-cream.

After this, we headed back to the caravan where we enjoyed a couple of drinks and nibbles before dinner and another lovely inland sunset.

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The next review from my Adelaide to Canberra road trip can be found HERE.

Should you wish to follow this road trip from the beginning please start HERE.

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