Busy Camping: Echuca, Family & Funerals

We got to Echuca around lunchtime. We had been booked into a caravan park just over the Murray in Moama. We paid up and found our site. We conducted our usual ‘site nesting’ routine of walking around, looking left, right and up, pointing here and there, walking around in circles again, having a discussion, and finally resolving the plan for the setup. Lots of things need to be considered, the sun (primarily), the wind, privacy, awning or no awning. Even though we’ve had a lot of practice, and are pretty good at it all by now, it can still take forever sometimes to work out.

We parked the camper in its spot, made up some lunch, and then set up the camper, again. It would be good to know how many times we’d set up and pulled down the camper this trip. We will have to try to work that out one day.

The girls squeezed in some playing before we did other jobs and then thought about dinner. We decided on having a slack night with fish and chips. We ordered and had to go back into Echuca to pick it up. We all piled into the car and 2 minutes down the road hit a traffic jam. Errr, really, does ‘peak hour’ really exist in Echuca-Moama???? Seemed a bit weird. We ended up hearing that it was an accident on the bridge and some people had been stuck there for 40 minutes.

Luckily it wasn’t that long for us and we got to our dinner before it went cold. We ate out the front of the shop to let the traffic die down. Wasn’t too bad a dinner, and best of all, no washing up!!!

The next day, we let the kids do a heap of playing to get their ‘wiggly woos’ out, they deserved it after all that travelling. Glenn parents were due that afternoon, so we hung around camp to meet them.

The girls were SO excited to see Gran and Poppie. There was lots of jumping around and cheers when they turned up. The girls had such a good time with everyone in Alice Springs, so it felt like a mini reunion for them. We sat around catching up, having dinner together and reliving memories of Ray.

The next day was funeral day. Karen and Andy arrived mid morning, bringing us some vital funeral clothes they had collected from our house. Camp clothes would not have been appropriate we felt. A quick spruce up and all of a sudden we transformed from camping travellers to high class, refined gentry. It was very strange to be all dressed up.

We drove out to Lockington, Ray’s home town and met with Jenelle and Brett. The family was together for this very important occasion, not 5only for ourselves, and to support Dad, but also obviously to support Ray’s family.

It was a very nice funeral and wake, with lots of chats, catch ups, and lots of memories. RIP Ray.

That night, Jenelle and Brett had to head off, but Mum, Dad, Karen, Andy and all of us went to the Moama RSL. The food was fantastic, and cheap. Love meals like that. It was good to continue the catch ups and chats and we were definitely proud to be well represented at the funeral.

The next morning, Mum and Dad headed off, whilst Karen, Andy and ourselves checked out Echuca a little. After a coffee and delicious muffin, we walked along the river and checked out a few of the paddle steamers. Whilst we were there, we had a look over one of the luxury house boats. This was something that we’d thought of doing for ages, and seeing how impressive they were, we agreed to put it on our holiday to-do list as soon as we could!!!!!!