Departing Conargo early for us, we were on the road by 8am, heading towards Echuca.

Before we left Katie discovered that the water pump in her van had stopped working. She’d had a shower but when she went to clean her teeth…no water. The pump wasn’t making any noise at all! Bummer! We’d have to try and get it looked at in Bendigo.

After saying a farewell to the kids new friend, Skye, the German Shepherd, we set off. We were both very impressed with how the children helped with the setting up and packing up of the camp. They all know what has to be done and they just get in and do it. Awesome little campers!

Next stop was Echuca, across the Murray River, in Victoria. Echuca is a fascinating town and we could have spent a lot longer there however we were on a deadline. We had to be in Bendigo for our pre-booked tour at the Central Deborah Gold Mine.

After spending an hour exploring the historic wharf district and the fabulous museum we had to sadly leave Echuca. The historic wharf museum has free entry. Isn’t that great? The young ones were excited to see paddle steamers in the river and one even cruised past taking tourists on a tour. Ben and Maddie particularly enjoyed the steam engine display where they got to turn handles to pump water and make bells ring.

Echuca was once one of the busiest inland ports in Australia and the paddle boats carried huge cargo along the river to South Australia. From here the cargo was loaded onto ships and transported all around the world.

Along the way I put in a call to Bendigo Caravan & RV to see if they could have a look at the broken water pump. The friendly staff member said they could and quite by fluke their business happened to be in the next block away from the Central Deborah Gold Mine where we were to do the tour.

Arriving in Bendigo we drove directly to the Caravan & RV place and booked the van in. Katie had to park and unhook the van then park her car around the corner. They were to investigate and let her know what they find while we all go off to do our tour.

There is parking for long vehicles right behind the Central Deborah Gold Mine so Pa parked the motorhome there and we all walked around there to have lunch before we headed to our booked tour. We had to arrive 15 minutes before our tour and we were a little early. We were given wristbands to wear and had to be at the meeting point at 1.55pm.

Our tour guide was a bright and bubbly lady named Sarah-Jane or SJ. We spent the next hour with her as she guided us down 22 stories underground. Everyone’s footwear was checked to ensure we were all wearing closed shoes. If not, no tour for you! Another safety feature is the hard hat. First stop underground is to collect your hard hat. Each hard hat has a headlight torch and are adjustable to fit each head.

Once everyone had their hard hats on we could all enter the lift and go below. The lift jolted a little on take off and a few people let out little squeals! We very quickly arrived at Level Two 61 metres underground. Level 5 through to 17 are now fully flooded so they are not accessible anymore. We spent the next 45 minutes following SJ as she explained the history of Bendigo, gold mining, the Central Deborah Mine, the miners and their lives and the tools and equipment they used, until our tour ended back at the lift. What a fabulous tour. We all enjoyed it very much.

Once back on the surface the kids wanted to have a go a gold panning. That was a bit of fun. They were excited to find little sparkly pieces of stones in the bottom of the pan but I really don’t think anyone found any real gold. Ben m aye found $1 worth. Just a little flake. They had fun trying though!

Whilst on the tour Katie had been called by the RV place to let her know that the water pump needed replacing and they could do it while we were on the tour so once our tour ended we headed back around there to collect the van with it’s new water pump installed. Yay!

We left Bendigo and headed out of town to a spot Rich and I had found on a previous visit. Happy Jacks Reserve is a free camp spot right alongside a little creek and there is plenty of room for lots of RV’s. I think everyone was a little tired afterlour long day and it did take longer than usual to decide on a camp site. Eventually we settled on a spot and set up camp with our little fire pit burning merrily.