J had come across some pictures of Lake Tyrell, a salt lake out in Mallee in the west of the state, and thought the landscapes might make a suitable subject for a painting or two.

At the same time I’d been thinking we should take some trips out west to look for some nineteenth century architecture and so on.

So, in a moment of idiocy we decided on a dash to Swan Hill (first reached by paddle steamer from the mouth of the Murray in 1852) and then loop home via Lake Tyrrell.

We totally underestimated the time it would take to do this on the less than wonderful back roads, but, on the other hand we had a good time.

We first drove to Echuca for lunch.

Echuca was another nineteenth century paddle steamer port on the Murray allowing the transport of wheat, wool and passengers to the coast. As I’ve written elsewhere, we tend to neglect the history of paddle steamers in favour of that of the railways in the nineteenth century, but until the railways were laid, paddle steamers were an important means of transport, needing very little in the way of infrastructure, and being shallow draft, could navigate many shallow water courses.

In Victoria and South Australia paddle steamers provided a means of transporting wheat and wool from the interior to the coastal ports for export before the railways arrived.

It’s also why in Victoria we have railway lines snaking across the state to former paddle steamer ports like Swan Hill and Echuca – harvests would be taken by paddle steamer down the Murray to the railhead and then taken by train to Melbourne or Geelong, but had few, if any direct links between these towns.

Anyway, Echuca, when we last visited was a little bit cheesy with paddle steamer trips and a pretend stagecoach giving rides along the river wharf.

While, you can still have a trip on a paddle steamer, the town is now a bit less cheesy with some quite nice restaurants.

On our way out we ate at a vegetarian restaurant near the wharf, and damned good it was to.

From Echuca we drove on to Swan Hill, first reached by paddle steamer, the Lady Augusta, in 1852.

A pleasant town, but not a lot of nineteenth century architecture, but to be fair, we didn’t really have time to explore it fully.

Dinner was at Java Spice, a truly wonderful South East Asian restaurant in a tropical style garden, and blending Indonesian, Thai, Malay and other influences. The restaurant is a little bit outside of the town centre, opposite the big Bunnings hardware store but definitely worth the trip.

The next day it was on to Lake Tyrell, which is a few kilometre north of Sea Lake on the main Bendigo Mildura road.

Huge skies and a strange other worldly aspect with purply pink water and crystallising salt, almost like being on a science fiction film set.

Then down to Wycheproof where the railway line runs down the middle of the street

(wikimedia – public domain)

While there’s no longer a passenger service, grain trains still occasionally rumble down the main street.

We stopped for lunch at the rather good bakery before heading cross country via Boort – where we missed the local community museum by being too early –  and Mitiamo and back to Echuca where we had an an ice cream by the wharf.

From there we retraced our route out via Yarrawonga and Rutherglen where we stopped to pick up some fresh fruit and veg, as well as a pizza base and a bottle of wine before heading home.

It was fun, but a totally mad trip, really too far to drive sensibly in a couple of days, and we really didn’t give ourselves time to look around properly, but it did give us a taster of the Murray Valley’s potential as a destination for a longer trip, perhaps staying in some self catering accommodation for a few days to let J do some plein air landscape painting …