Trip to Mildura

We took a few (pre baby) days trip to see Amy's parents (Ivor and Wendy) in their new home in Mildura.

They've recently moved there from the Barossa Valley (near Adelaide) and even though they're now closer to Canberra it's still a 9 hour drive (yes that's nine hours) to get there.

It's not actually that bad a drive as once you leave Canberra you are basically on a straight road heading to Mildura and you only see about one car every 10 minutes. En route you go across the Hay plain (one of the most featureless landscapes you might ever encounter). Even playing eye-spy here would be pretty tough - I'm not sure if you could even have 'T' for tree - given that any trees are probably about 50k away from the road.

You also pass through weird little outback towns - Fairlight for instance which proclaimed itself on the town welcome sign as 'Irrigation Wonderland!' another town which was apparently 'Home of the Verandah' and another where you could regularly spot green tree frogs (not that we did).

Despite the boredom of the journey and her dad's repetitive singing of 'One man went to mow', 'We are top of the league' and 'Suuuper Mick McCarthy' Audrey coped really well with the trip - managing to chat for almost all of the time that she was awake.

It was good to see Amy's parents' new place and even Audrey's encounters with their two dogs (Milly and Lottie) weren't as traumatic as they had been last time she met them (the additional inches in height she had gained no doubt helping her out!)

Their place is right next to a big park, so we spent lots of times on swings, slides etc as well as taking a paddleboat trip on the Murray.

Mildura is a nice town - they don't seem to care very much for the water restrictions across the rest of the country (mostly one thinks as they've dammed the Murray by their town). As a result sprinklers and hosepipes abound and everyone has bright green lawns - a far cry from our withered brown one in Canberra.

We made it home after a night in Narranderer which has as its slogan 'why not meanderer in Nerranderer' - clever eh?!