The tent by the river
The Goulburn river
I went swimming in the river when we first got there but was a little nervous since James told me that there are huge Murray cod in this river and they can get up to 40kg! He said they often eat other fish but have never been known to attack a human so I had to just keep my fingers crossed. James has a fishing lure business called Balista (and he just told me he now has someone selling them for him in Dryden! So any of you fishermen out there may start to see his lures around there). He's always keen to fish so he set up some rods on the river bank when we first got to the site. We basically left them there for the whole weekend checking them periodically. Unfortunately we didn't catch anything, which was a bummer. Would have been nice to fry up a big fish over the fire! We made dinner (a delicious stew in a camp oven over the fire) and then sat around the fire and relaxed. James' and Steve's friend Jim came and met us out there on Saturday. I could tell I was camping with a bunch of guys when the whole night ended up being everyone drinking beer and repeatedly throwing an axe at a tree trying to make it stick in it haha.
The next day we woke up, went for a morning swim and cooked up come eggs and bacon over the fire. After breakfast we went for a boat ride on the river. We threw some rods in while we were out there but the fish just did not want to bite. It was 30 degrees and sunny though and was so relaxing to sit out on the river for a few hours, so I was not phased by the lack of fish. When we got back to camp Jim's fiancé Jen had just arrived. It was nice to have another girl there for the second night. We all played cards for a while but got interrupted by a wallaby hopping behind us! I saw it and jumped up right away to get a better look at it. It's moments like this when I realize what a tourist I am. The Australians did not seem at all interested in the wallaby...in fact rather annoyed by it since it put our card game on hold. I got really close to it though and got some pictures so I was excited. Here are a few of the shots that I got:
After the excitement of the wallaby we made a roast dinner and threw it over the fire to cook. Some of the guys went back out to fish for a while and I sat by the river reading. It would have been so peaceful except for the hundreds of cockatoos crowing and squawking continuously. They're extremely beautiful birds but Aussies all seem to hate them. I didn't understand why until this weekend. They make the loudest most obnoxious noises and they prefer to do this at night and early in the morning...aka prime sleeping hours. It was pretty startling waking up to that racket both mornings. The rest of the evening just consisted of some dinner, some drinks and good banter around the campfire. A pretty perfect evening really. One thing that should be noted is that Australia campfires are not at all like the ones we're used to in Canada. I always assumed a campfire was a campfire wherever you were but when you think about it, a large part of what makes us feel like we're really camping is the smell of the fire. And the fire this weekend smelled so different! Of course it's because of the wood that we burn...in Australia they throw eucalyptus wood and leaves on the fires and it smells so different than the wood we burn back home...it took me a while to get used to it and I found it interesting because campfires have always smelled a certain way to me and I've never thought about the fact that it's not the same everywhere.
The next morning was pretty standard...breakfast, card playing and then packing everything up. James drove Kevin and I home and when we got back to town we discovered that there had been another big festival in Melbourne during the weekend. It's called Moomba and is a big three-day carnival with rides and food stands along both sides of the Yarra River. We went for a walk through it to check it out then got to watch an incredible sunset over the city...all just a few minutes from my apartment. Watching a beautiful sunset over an amazing city after the most fun and relaxing weekend camping was one of those "I can't believe this is my life" moments. Those moments will never get old. We finished the weekend off by watching an Australian movie from the 90s called "Two Hands". It was a great Australian film to finish off a great Australian weekend.
Sunset over the Central Business District and train tracks
