Silver Beet – River Bend Caravan Park

Well, we didn’t expect to be twenty kilometres out of town, half of the distance being over a dirt road, the Echuca Nathalia Road.

Silver beet with mashed potatoes and eggs on toast; a good feed for a couple of travelers.

It’s Melbourne Cup weekend. That is, it’s a long weekend for those Victorians who could swing Monday off. Many families from Melbourne have lined the Murray River for four days of sunshine, boating or generally doing nothing much around the river.

So we were unable to get a spot in a caravan park in Moama or Echuca, the towns on either side of the Murray River.

A very helpful young lady at the Visitor’s Information Centre in Echuca assured us that we’d get a powered site at River Bend Caravan Park and set us on the right road without much more information.

A couple of kilometres along the dirt road I started to wonder if we’d been sent on a fool’s errand so stopped where there were families camped in the bush beside the Murray with their tents, vans, 4×4s and boats. I lucked in, finding a camp with a local who assured me that another eight kilometres and I’d arrive at River Bend Caravan Park, a former nudist camp that had reasonable facilities, a step above camping by the river.

My new friend told me that the river I’d crossed not far back is the Goulbourne and it runs into the Murray not far away. River Bend Caravan Park, he told me, is on the Goulburn River.

So Lesley fixed up the booking and fees and the groundsman jumped on his ATV (quadbike) and showed us to our spot.

In the process of it all I asked the groundsman about buying veggies at the caravan park shop. His cabin just happened to be right next to our spot and he had a small veggie garden fenced in. How generous of him to give us some silver beet for tea!

It went down well too, I can tell you! Fresh silver beet, a couple of fried eggs and mashed potato on toast. No doubt about Lesley: she can whip up a good feed out out of the bare necessities.