Oz Trip - Day 157

Day 157 – 5/10/2012 – Cobram

We left Geelong and headed for Cobram via Ballarat, Bendigo, Tatura and Shepparton and a lot of smaller towns in between. It was beautiful and varying scenery the whole way. It is certainly an area that we would like to spend a lot more time exploring.

Ballarat

Heaps of old buildings in Ballarat

Ballarat main street

Ballarat main street

A main street of a small town on the way to Bendigo

A massive church in Bendigo

On Bendigo main street

The gardens in the centre of Bendigo

The reason that we took a small detour into Tatura is because this was the town that Jodies Grandmothers family was interned for a number of years during WWII. Internees were civilians living in Australia or other allied territories and countries at the outbreak of war and were deemed to be a security risk because of their nationality. Being of German heritage they were moved from the Atherton tablelands to Tatura.

We went through the Tatura War time camps museum which was really interesting to see the conditions in which the internees lived. Also on speaking with the volunteer that was manning the museum that afternoon, he was able to search the archives and found the records that listed Jodies Grandmothers family, two of which are still alive today, Evelyn, (Jodies Grandmother) and Fritz, (her Grandmothers brother). Unfortunately we didn't have time to find and visit the actual site of Camp 3 where they were housed. Even if we did have time there wasn't anything left of the camps and the ruins are now all on farmers padocks.

Countryside on the way to Tatura and Shepparton 

Tatura main street

On arriving at Cobram we checked out a free camp by the Murray River but it looked really boggy to get all the way in. Also there were heavy clouds hanging around threatening rain. So we decided not to risk getting bogged in somewhere and headed to the RACV caravan park. It was a really nice park and really big sites. The first van park that we had been at that actually provides a concrete pad to park your tow vehicle on as well! There was also some nice bird life for inside a busy park.

Really big sites!