Saturday 1st April, ECHUCA, Victoria. 6°-18°C
How exciting is it to come out from dinner and find another Vista in the park! They’re a small subspecies amongst vans and belong to a tight-knit community who generously share ideas and adventures on social media. This one belongs to “desertman”, a guru on the forums and he has indeed many smart modifications on his van.
The weather has cooled since those early days of summer at Lockington. Van windows are now shut at night and wincheaters have been unpacked. We have an average of eleven people this week but that will fall to about four over Easter. It makes for easy catering. Sticky chicken drumsticks with baked corn and cottage pie are hits. Another eight dozen Anzac biscuits appear. A newly purchase rice cooker is a revelation!
Eileen and I take a drive across to Moama. Plenty of motels and an impressive new bridge high above the Murray. The original steel and timber bridge shows the rusty high water mark on its formidable legs. In the back blocks, there is farm land with an eerie visual effect from the dark water marks seeming to hover about four feet off the ground on every tree for as far as the eye can see.
Many large gums have succumbed and fallen and weeds are now sprouting profusely along the roadside.
Today is the Kagome charity Tomato Pick-A-Box Day at one of the local farms and we offer to assist our Rotary friends on their sausage sizzle - and promote BlazeAid while we’re at it. All funds raised from both tomato and sausage sales go to the Echuca hospital.
Kagome is Australia’s largest tomato processor with a number of farms around Echuca. Today the public can pick as many boxes as they like for $10/box with Kagome matching sales in donations.
The BlazeAid Toyota returns home with five fruit boxes overflowing with romas and I have a box of my own. The kitchen swings into action with sauce and chutney production. It’s a bit like Alibrandi’s Tomato Day with four of us around the bench on different jobs.
Luckily there’s a leftover pasta bake in the freezer and no dinner duty required tonight!
2025-02-11