Page 2 « Mildura Weekender (Sep 2006) | Gary & Diane

This weekend (16 & 17 September, 2006) we went for a quick trip over to Mildura. We stayed at the Calder Caravan Park. On Saturday afternoon we took the 70 kilometre 4WD self-drive tour around the Mungo National Park. The Mungo NP is approximately 110 kilometres from Mildura.

Diary

Day 1: 16 Sep 2006

We were up and prepared by 8.00am. Our friends, Jim & Raelene came with us on this trip. The weather was absolutely perfect. We fuelled up at Renmark and drove on to Mildura arriving around 11.00am. We settled into the Calder Caravan Park and had some lunch. Around 12.30pm we left Mildura for the drive to Mungo National Park.

The first 20 kilometres was on bitumen road, the remainder was unsealed and varied from very good condition to poor condition. We negotiated the unsealed road at around 80 km/hr and arrived at the Mungo NP Visitor Centre around 2.00pm. We paid our entry fee and then undertook the 70 kilometres self drive tour of the park. By the time we had completed the tour it was about 4.45pm and by the time we returned to Mildura it was approximately 6.30pm.

We had a quick change and then went out for dinner at the Mildura Gateway Tavern which was just down the road from the Calder Caravan Park where we were staying.

Day 2: 17 Sep 2006

After an exhausting day yesterday, we were up and ready to go by 8.30am having had showers and breakfast. We left our rig on the side of the road and went with our friends, Jim & Raelene to Woodsies Gem Shop were the girls did a lot of window shopping.

We then drove a little further on to Red Cliffs and had a look at “Tin Lizzie”.

We returned to the main shopping centre at 10.30am where the girls went off for some further retail therapy while Jim and I bought a Sunday paper to read. At 12.00pm we went to the Mildura Gateway Tavern for their $10 Carvery for lunch. Having finished lunch we left for home at 1.30pm, arriving home at 3.30pm.

Accommodation & Fuel

Accommodation

We stayed at the Calder Caravan Park. The park was quite small in comparison to other nearby parks. It was however very well maintained. Our overnight site fee for a powered site was $28.50. We would recommend this park to others.

Fuel Consumption

The total distance travelled was 594 kilometres and we consumed 99.9 litres on unleaded petrol. On Saturday our fuel consumption was 14.87 litres/100kms. This included a significant number of kilometres not towing and driving to and from Mungo NP (approx 270kms). On Sunday returning home (into a headwind) our fuel consumption was 21.67 litres/100kms. Our average speed whilst towing was 80-85 km/hr.