Caravan Cruising

28th July 2025  Back at Foxtale Houseboats before 9 am, we proceeded to unload the boat. Even though we have consumed a lot of what we had taken aboard, the unloading was still a major exercise. We were finished by 9.30 am, everyone said their farewells and 3 couples headed off in their cars for Hay on their return trip to Sydney. Our caravan ping friends, Brian and Ann, and ourselves headed for Nuriootpa in the Barossa Valley. The drive to Nuriootpa is only 98 km, so roadworks and speed limits etc we are at the caravan park by 11.20 am, a bit ahead of official check in time, but they reluctantly let us check in and arranged adjoining sites for us. It is a larger caravan park, close to town, and adjoining the main sports oval. Entrance It is a bit of a drive around the oval to get to the caravan park Fortunately many of the sites, including ours are drive through After a week on the houseboat, we have lots of laundry to attend to, and we need to replenish our food supplies in the v...

 27th July 2025 It is our final day on the houseboat before having to return it to the marina tomorrow morning by 9 am. We decide to take a short trip a bit further up river to Cadell, a small town about 10 km upstream, have lunch there and returned to the to Morgan for the night. We are not in a hurry to leave our mooring, so take the opportunity to go for a walk exploring a bit more of Morgan before departing for Cadell. View from the houseboat looking up to the township of Morgan We have the mooring space to ourselves Morgan is undergoing a bit of a restoration, having been one of the major river ports on the Murray in their heyday. Many on the old buildings around the wharf area have been restored and the wharf itself is in the middle of a restoration. Now they are all tourism outlets. The wharf is well on the way to being restored View looking down at the ferry from the lookout above the wharf The remains of the railway line that serviced the wharf in the past The highlight of...

 26th July 2025 We wake to a nice fine day with little wind early in the morning. The plan is to continue upstream to the township of Morgan, where we have a need to visit the waste pump out station as it is clear that the holding tanks are close to full. Our morning river view Bob taking Ruby for a walk onshore before leave It is going to take us around 4 hours to get to Morgan and we set out at 10 am, with the breeze starting to develop, thankfully it looks like we will have a tailwind.  The corellas are out in force this morning along the cliffs faces and trees that line them. The further up stream we head the more development there is along the riverfront. We are a bit intrigued as to why the houses are built so closely together when a lot of these houses seem to be holiday homes. View from the Upper Deck of the houseboat The density of housing increases as we get closer to Morgan. Nice residential area called Pelican Point Always wondered what happens to the houseboats wh...

 25th July 2025 Today is a miserable day. We wake to rain and not her easterly winds that we will be heading into for most of the day. After breakfast we sat around for a while hoping condition would improve, but in the end just decided to head off and see how we go. The houseboat has no windscreen wipers and the wind was blowing the rain directly onto the screen, so we were relying on manual wipers to give us some visibility through what is the trickiest part of our trip from navigation point of view. Bob cleaning the windscreen We finally reached Lock 1 at 12.30 pm, and had to tie up and wait for the lock keeper to return to duty, as the lock is closed between 11.30 am and 1 pm for lunch. I called the lock keeper at 1 pm and I suspect he was still at the pub, but he dutifully appeared about 5 minutes later and began to empty the lock so we could enter. About10 minutes later we were given the given the green light to enter the lock.  Lock gates opening for us to enter Soon we...

 24th July 2025 Bacon and eggs for breakfast and then onwards to Swan Reach, where we intend to have a look around and then begin our trip back upstream on the return leg of our cruise. We cast off from our secure berth and headed downstream. The sand banks along the way to Swan Reach did prove to be a challenge with a few groundings along the way. Nothing that we couldn’t easily get off, but not marked on charts. We saw more red cliffs, some with trees hanging on precariously, others hosting large bird colonies in burrows into the cliff surface. We passed a large pumping station, had to wait for the ferry to pass across the river before we arrived and berthed at Swan Reach. Moored at Swan Reach Large irrigation pumping station just before Swan Reach Once the boat was secured, we wandered into town to get some fresh supplies and have a beer at the Swan Reach Hotel. The hotel was quite well presented and we suspect the food may have been a big improvement on Blanchtown. Swan Reach H...