Across the VIC/NSW border & back again...

This week we finally crossed the border into the state of Victoria, another state, at last!! I've been hoping for this moment to come for a while. Mum was pretty annoyed as she'd forgotten about the quarantine rules and bought lots of fruit for our smoothies so we had to quickly eat some, chop some for smoothies and throw some out before we crossed the border.

We spent our first few days in Mildura, it's a great place to visit with lots to do. The 1st few days we stayed off-grid at a winery, the owner Graeme invited us in one night and he played the piano, Graeme and my dad sang songs together, mum danced and I was so embarrassed!!

We moved onto another caravan park a few days later as it was closer to town. Mildura has The Murray River running through it so we decided to take a boat trip up the river on the weekend, we went on the PV Rothbury - This is a Paddle Vessel built in 1881 and it now does cruises up and down the river, it was really interesting as the Captain told us all about the history of the Murray River and we got to pass through Lock 11 to go up the river. When we got to the entrance of the Lock, we entered an area called the holding bay, after we got in they shut the gate behind us and they dropped the water level so that it matched the level on the other side once it got to that level they opened the gate for us to pass through and carry on up the river. It was also interesting because we travelled into NSW and then back into VIC while on the river. When it was time to come back we had to do the opposite, we entered the holding bay again but this time they increased the water level before letting us back out into the river. It was a fun way to learn about how people used to travel through the river system and I also bought a compass keyring from the gift shop.

Mildura also grows lots of oranges, you might have seen Mildura Orange Juice in the supermarket when shopping? I went to visit a place called Orange World and met the owner Mario, he talked to us about the different types of oranges he grows, there are a lot of different ones. He had a cool thing to peel an orange without getting orange juice all over your fingers, he showed me how to do it and let me try it for myself. He had a juicing machine bigger than I've ever seen, and he let me make a bottle of orange juice that we bought from him to take home, it was delicious.

When we left Mildura we actually travelled back into NSW for a bit to go to Mungo National Park, this is a World Heritage-listed park and home to the famous Mungo Lady and Mungo Man, it's a place very important to people of Aboriginal Heritage. We were so happy we went to see the park as it was amazing, one of the best parts of our trip so far!! We stayed in a place called Mungo Lodge, I loved everything about it. I got to feed emus and goats and we did a tour to The Walls of China with Lee as our tour guide, it was so cool. You can only get to walk through The Walls of China with a tour guide as they are trying to stop any more damage from being done to the area. I asked Lee lots of questions while we were there, one of them was how the Walls of China got their name as they are nowhere near China?? They say it's because there were Chinese Shepherds in the area around Lake Mungo from about 1860 and they thought the desert sand dunes looked just like the Great Wall of China and because of this the name just stuck from there. Mungo National Park is also where the remains of Mungo Lady and Mungo Man were found. Mungo Lady was found in 1968, she's the oldest human remains found outside of Africa and one of the oldest known cremations in the world. Mungo Man's skeleton was found in 1974 he was buried in red ochre with his hands crossed in his lap in front of him. He's one of the oldest known examples of people buried this way in the world. Before Mungo Man and Mungo Lady were found scientists thought Aboriginal People had been in Australia for 20,000 years but after finding these remains it's now thought that Aboriginal People have lived in Australia for more than 42,000 years.

That's us for this week, our next destination is The Grampians!

Hope you all have a great week, until next time.

Jaime xoxo