Shah Road Trip - Bendigo, Echuca, Rutherglen

Having left Sovereign Hill Lodge in Ballarat in 11 degrees, mist and rain, we took a tour through the Eureka Centre, on the site where the Eureka Rebellion took place. What a great museum and interpretive centre, with excellent staff who made a point of engaging with the kids, giving them Eureka flags and activity packs for the car. It would have been nice to take a close look at the new sculpture installation depicting the rebellion in steel panels, but the weather was far too bitter and dismal.

Next stop on our way north was Castlemaine. There may have been more to Castlemaine that we didn't see, but aside from a nice hot chocolate and a pair of wolly socks for Jen (the car heater wasn't working) there wasn't much too it. In the next stretch of highway we had our first native wildlife encounter with a kangaroo. Unfortunately it was dead on the side of the road. We did see huge stretches of plains and farm land, sparsly dotted with sheep and horses, and beige as far as the eye could see.

Bendigo was a beautiful town, full of heritage buildings from the gold rush era. We swapped cars at Hertz and traded a working CD player for a working heater (you can't have everything it seems, even if you are paying), then took the talking tram ride and learned a little more about the town. We went through the Chinese Dragon Museum and saw Soo Loong, the 100m imperial dragon which was very cool. The kids were more interested in the playground in the park...

Next stop Echuca, an historic river port, with more people in period costume and a to visit the Echuca-Moama Bowling Club, which is not like a bowling club at all, but more a bowling and pokie club with restaurants, bars and a kids club and was really was quite flash (in a $3.50 wine glass kind of way)! The steamboat ride the next morning was quite lovely onboard the Alexander Arbothnot. The sun was finally out and gorgeously warm but there was a definate bite in the breeze. The wharf is split down the middle - half in Victoria and half in NSW. The kids seemed to enjoy it, but for some unfathomable reason found the crappy minigolf better.

Leaving Echuca for the Rutherglen wine region we clocked up 3 BIG THING photos, with the Golden Cow Milkshake Cups, the Big Strawberry and the Big Murray Cod in Tucumwal. Nice work. Rutherglen was very pretty and we had an awesome tasting at Cofield Wines. Cofield make a gorgeous sparkeling Shiraz plus many other varietals including a muscat, which the area is famous for (motto: Sydney might have a great Harbour, but Rutherglen has a great Port). While we sampled and chatted with winemaker Damien the kids played in the barrel room with son Mitchell and his scooter. We had a great time with the Cofield crew and left with a decent selection of wines for the car-boot cellar.

We spent the night on a houseboat on a billabong (Yes really!) at Brimin Lodge. The setting was just amazing, surrounded by gum trees, at least 3 different kids of frogs sounding all evening, and a dawn chorus of cockatoos, gallahs, cormorants and kookaburras. Jamie thought that the trees were full of monkeys, an easy mistake to make... We took a walk through the farm and around the billabong to the Murray river and then said goodbye to Simon and his sheep and baby cod fish and headed for the famous Dog on the Tuckerbox, somewhere around Gundagai!