We left Adelaide on Thursday afternoon for a weekend in Goolwa, about a 2 hr drive from home. The Wooden Boat Festival is a bi-annual event and we had not been able to attend before so we booked well in advance to make sure we could get a caravan site in the Goolwa Caravan Park for this weekend with friends. We arrived at the park and got ourselves set up and spent the rest of the afternoon catching up with friends at the park. The weather was lovely, nice and warm but not too hot, but as we were to discover over the next couple of days, the weather became very, very hot.
On Friday morning, after a good sleep, we spent some time meeting some new friends who had come down the river in their wooden boats, having left their homes in Victoria about 6-7 weeks before, stopping at the many river towns along the way. They certainly had a lot of fun and a few stories to tell of their river trip down the River Murray to Goolwa.
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| The Marion |
On Saturday we got up early, before 9 am, which is early for us, and headed down to the wharf area. Ron particularly wanted to see the wooden speed boat display which was advertised in the brochure. We purchased our entry tickets for the 2 days and Ron got a park with only a short walk to the wharf, but unfortunately the speed boat display had been cancelled. We had a chat to Rob Loffler, the owner of "Maryanne", who told us that the organisers said the boats were only allowed to do 4 knots/hr which definitely wouldn't be possible for his craft. The Maryanne story can be found at www.jodiesmindpalace.wordpress.com
We then headed along the wharf and looked at the many displays and the various wooden boats. The Marion and Oscar W were taking passengers on short trips but we decided to find a cool spot to sit and have a coffee and watch the boats from the shade of the café as the temperature was climbing. We decided to wander around a bit more and soon met some others from our group and decided to find a table in the eating area under the shade of some trees. We found there were plenty of choices for food and drinks and we opted for fresh strawberries and ice cream which was very delicious and refreshing.
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| The Mary Anne |
