Cobram

Saturday the 17th of April we wound up leaving Yarrawonga just before lunch. It was only 36km but this trip is about experiencing the different towns and parts of the Murray rather than killing kilometres. Besides it is 30km more than our shortest hop from one place to another. It was a nice trip with lots of different sorts of farms along the way, mainly fruit trees and plenty of crops. I was a bit nervous about being able to find a good camp without the hassles of the previous day, ie the treacherous road in and any feral campers. As I did previously, as always, consulted Wikicamps. But I also had the benefit of friends blogs about their trips. Neighbours and caravanning friends, Col & Di, had wanted to go to Paradise Beach previously but could not go there due to covid. So not being inhibited with the covid issue and being a dog friendly camp, that was where we headed. After missing the turn off I then checked with a Barooga local and confirmed what we thought was the right road. The road in was good gravel but a bit bumpy, no problem. We arrived at Paradise Beach. It is a beautiful spot on the bend of the Murray and there were no permanent campers there. There was a family camped up one end who were not very friendly but that did not matter. They kept to themselves and I guess that was what they wanted from us. So we were happy with the aptly named Paradise Beach.

We had already decided that we would have a camp oven roast dinner that night. We previously purchased a 2kg piece of blade beef in Yarrawonga from the butcher. So even though we had finished set up by lunchtime we figured we would just relax for the afternoon, not bother driving around, get the fire going and do justice to a slow cook camp oven cook. So that was what we did. It think that was a good decision and helped make that afternoon and evening stand out as one of the top three events of this trip. Sorry about the indulgence of photos with this cook and the repetition with these photos but this evening was all about the ambience, the fire, and the camp oven cook.

Now you might think that doing a video of my camp oven doing its thing is over the top. But if you do then I just have to say you had to be there. Not only is the concept of this cooking so good but the experience of it is even better. Sitting back and hearing the food roasting is one thing but smelling the beef roasting is another. Unfortunately the video won’t help you with that. So let’s have a check on how the vegies are going. All good and turn them over.

This would turn out to be such a let down if the food was ordinary. But it wasn’t. This was the most delicious roast dinners I can recall from one of our camp oven cooks. Just awesome. Tell you what I won’t forget to use pieces of blade to roast.

We had a peaceful night sleep and Sunday morning we got going to have a look around. We had a look at Cobram and then drove back toward Yarrawonga to check out Byramine Homestead. Firstly we partook of the café and then we checked out the homestead. This homestead was built in 1842. It is in amazingly good condition for a house this old. In our travels we have not found many places this old and it was very impressive. The history was also very interesting. Hamilton Hume, an explorer who surveyed large areas through NSW and Victoria built the house for his sister-n-law. Bush rangers murdered her husband (Hamilton’s brother) near Goulburn leaving her with nine children.

We had a good drive around and back to camp. That evening we did a damper in the camp oven. We have done a couple before but not for a long time. It was pretty good and enjoyed it with soup. Did not get photos this time. Another great day.