11/6/2022 – Saturday – 603km

An early start from the Rotary Ground at Echuca & we stop in town at the 3 Galah Café for breakfast, people are just starting to set up tents for a market day near the Paddle Wheeler Museum across the road. We then head out to Deniliquin on the way home to Canberra. The road is a major highway, nice & flat as is the surrounding countryside, full of sheep & crops, most of the traffic is heading the other way & we pass through Deniliquin fairly quickly.

We then turn off the main road & follow some back country roads through to Conargo then on to Jerilderie. Some of the road is only one lane of bitumen & we need to put the car onto the gravel to pass the cars coming from the other direction. Thankfully there are not too many cars & the 90 kilometres only takes around an hour to drive. Jerilderie is a nice looking town as we drive slowly through it then turns off towards Urana. More back country roads & more low flat land with long straight roads. Urana is another hour on & is a small town with cross roads.

Lockhart is the next major town & the main street is very well maintained & looks like it would have looked in the early 1900s, with lots of fresh paint & nice facades on the buildings. There are a lot of great looking sculptures around town, some of horses pulling wagons & other random items. There is a walking track just outside with a series of small sculptures placed along the track. This seems like a nice small town.

It is another 40 minutes before we reach Wagga Wagga and the first of any hills since we left Echuca this morning. We find our way, thanks to GPS, to Tereza’s brother’s place, we have not been to their place for a long time due to Covid.  Shirley is waiting for us with a smile & a bowl of soup followed by hot pasta dish – all very nice.  Lucky for us Shirley’s kitchen wasn’t closed because once again we arrived after 2pm. We eat & chat then more chatting to catch up with all family things. All too soon we are on the road again, around 4pm, so that it will not be too late when we get home.

The light stays with us for a surprisingly long time & it does not get dark until Yass. The traffic on the Highway is light & the driving is easy. After Yass the road becomes a narrow normal road & the oncoming headlights are a little blinding, some more so than others. There seems to be a lot of traffic coming away from Canberra.

We finally pull into our driveway a bit after 7pm after 603km of driving for the day. It is cold, but that is winter in Canberra.  Our neighbour, Anji looked after our house & even left us some lovely pumpkin soup, it went down well & appreciated.  She is an angel.  We left the unpacking for tomorrow.  Another great day & wonderful holiday.

A total of 5,359 kilometres for our holiday.