Camping near Everton, Victoria

'Everton, a rural township in north-east Victoria, is 22 km. east-south-east of Wangaratta and about midway between there and Beechworth. It is on the Ovens Highway, in flat to undulating country. About two kilometres westwards are the Ovens River flats, on which there is considerable settlement.

'Everton is situated in Dr. G.E. Mackay's Tarrawingee pastoral run (1853-67) and it is thought that Mackay gave the place its name after Everton, England. Everton was situated at a position where it was relatively safe to cross the flood-prone Ovens River plain, making it convenient for miners moving between Wangaratta and the gold fields at Bright and the Buckland Valley. Everton later became a railway junction for the Wangaratta-Beechworth line (1876) and for the line to Myrtleford and Bright (1883 and 1890). The railway station area, four kilometres north of Everton, was known as Everton Upper. [...] The railway lines to Beechworth and Bright were closed in 1977 and 1987 respectively.' (from http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/ncas/multimedia/gazetteer/list/everton.html)

I got the train back to Melbourne from Wangaratta this evening (Thursday 23rd) ahead of Kim, Mark and the family, who are returning by car tomorrow - when they've packed everything up. Albert, the cat, was pleased to see me. Remembering where the house was, in order to direct the taxi driver, was some feat after all this time and all the places I've been to in between.

The place where Mark and Kim camp is next to the Ovens River, on some land belonging to a farm owned by Kim's aunt and uncle, near Everton. It's a great place, very beautiful, very wild and very peaceful, with the river to bathe in. I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to do very little for a few days. The biggest decisions I had to make was when to go in the river, what book to read, whether to have another cup of coffee now or later ... and so on. Evenings spent sitting round the fire in the moonlight listening to squabbling possums. Waking in the morning to the chorus of kookaburras. Mmmm.

I was so busy doing nothing that I never did get around to playing Scrabble!