Mini Road Trip: Overnight Adventures to Echuca (+ Travel Tips)

TW: I rant A LOT in here - if that's not your vibe, then don't read it (just look at the pretty pictures instead).

Hi friends! Recently, Luke, Benji and I headed up to stay at Luke's Grandma's for one night in Echuca/Moama (I get confused because they're both right on the state border so I'ma just say both for now). This trip came at a pretty grim time for me as it was literally one week after my last grandparent had passed away, so I probably wasn't in the best of moods going into said trip. Nonetheless, we made the most of it and we definitely met some characters along the way (some of which feature in my mini travel vlog which will be at the bottom of this post).

The main aim of this trip was so that Luke's Grandma could met Benji as she lives quite far from Melbourne and see how Benji did on his first long car ride and overnight trip (we want to take him to a few places so it was a good test). All things considering, he was really well behaved - well until he wanted to eat Luke's Grandmas's slippers (but he's a 6 month old puppy, that's to be expected). I feel like this is something I have to say and if Luke's famoly comes for me, then so be it but you should NEVER ever harm or tell someone how to raise their dog, AND you should never hit someone else's dog AND you should never abuse animals in general. I just need my little rant because if I don't it's gonna stick with me but I'm sure you can deduce what happened. Basically, I am not willing for someone else to hit my dog nor am I willing to abuse any animal or leave them in their crate unsupervised. I'm not into gaslighting either. Anyway.

It was Friday the 5th of July, Luke had the day off and we walked Benji in the morning and took him for a quick play at the park before we took off. We made a few stops along the way including one to get snacks and a few to take Benji on his bathroom breaks.

To get from Melbourne to Echuca is about a 3-hour car ride but I think we took a bit longer as we stopped for lunch at one of the coolest bakeries - Gaffney's. Gaffney's is a HUGE bakery located in Heathcote, Victoria. I'll post some photos below of a few of the things we got there: from left is a pic of Benji behaving under the table, then a ham salad roll for me, then a custard tart, caramel slice, and some vanilla slices (I do like their vanilla slices but I was very disappointed in the custard tart). It had epic pastry, but the custard was so eggy that I made Luke eat it and I don't think he's a big custard guy.

Following our stop for lunch, we really wanted to head through Rochester to look at the famous paintings they do every year. You can check out the website "here". Every year they get artists to commission murals and is to help bring tourists into the town following the 2011 floods. By doing this, there is a big community built up in and around Rochester. It's very cool marketing. Rochester also has some of Victoria's Silo Art. Unfortunately, there had been a very intense crash in Rochester on the Friday afternoon so we missed this (but we did get to see it on the way back, so we'll come back to this).

We arrived at Luke's Grandma's and it was time to eat our vanilla slices and bikkies that she had put out for us. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate a good host and feed but I was so full from the drive from our lunch and snacks, we ate so much LOL. Sidenote I feel like it's a bit of a grandparent thing to feed the grandkids - even though that's not what I was, I am Luke's partner - it's always interesting to see how you get treated in that regard. Anyway, most of the discussions surrounding death, which I really struggled with and I knew I was gonna be in for a bad time. Luckily, we were able to head down to the coolest doggo park where we met so many other cute doggos - some huskies and a 1-year-old golden retriever who we think was sad Benji didn't want to play with him. Here's some photos:

We spent a bit of time here and really enjoyed the vibe of the park - plus we saw some cool birds we hadn't seen before (we now know they are a type of honeyeater). Anyway, after the dog park, it was time to head out to dinner and Luke's Grandma had booked us dinner at the local RSL Moama RSL. We were a bit unsure about leaving Benji in the backyard as he could have easily dug his way out of the gate, so we wanted him to stay inside and that was a big deal, Luke's Grandma wanted him locked in his crate and we didn't want to do that unsupervised so there was a bit of an argument there. We said he could stay in the bathroom and he was fine in there, no accidents he just probably slept on his bed. I don't like Benji being in his crate for long periods of time and especially didn't like him being in there unsupervised. And no, not every other dog owner would do that/ I'm sure some would, but doing this can lead to problematic behaviours like destructiveness.

Anyway, the pub... Now, these places don't usually have any dress codes and most of the time, if I've gone to a pub wearing a beanie, no one has ever asked me to take it off. I asked in advance about dress codes and was told you'll be fine with what you're wearing. I was not. It was f*cking embarrassing having a lady get mad at you for wearing a beanie. Like I know I have hair, but what if I didn't? What if something had happened to my head? In my opinion, this was probably one of the worst pubs I've been to in Victoria. Anyway, we ordered food, Luke's Grandma got a Hawaiin Pizza thing, Luke got a parma (although they called it parmi there, which was weird) and I got a chicken kiev. The food came out almost immediately (which made me feel a bit off, like are you just reheating chicken? GROSS). My chicken was so dry but I didn't want to complain. I felt a bit awkward just sitting with Luke's grandma when the food came as Luke had gone to get drinks and I wanted to wait for him to come back before starting to eat (it just felt polite). Luke's Grandma didn't want me to do that lol. Anyway, my tummy was sore after and I really had to find a bathroom to go have a little panic attack in - and then I couldn't even find the women's bathroom, it was so not obvious where they were. Just an odd experience. It was cheap, crappy food and I've just looked at the Google reviews and I know it's probably confirmation bias a little, but it does make me feel a bit better knowing that other people had similar experiences to mine.

Anyway, we got back and Benji was absolutely all good in the bathroom but I was feeling really off, we sat and watched TV for a bit and we had thought about going to do some astrophotography but I thought better not to (which was a good call because apparently there was a light show on we didn't know about). Luke and his Grandma watched the footy and at about 8pm, I wanted to go to bed because a) I get tired easily with chronic fatigue, b) I had a headache, c) I was struggling not to cry in front of people because I was struggling with all the talk about death and d) I have IBS. Anyway, I've never felt sooo judged in my entire life for how early I went to bed - sorry I am a chronically ill girly (invisible illnesses may not be obvious but they f*cking suck). Anyway, I managed to have some alone time and chill out. But the next day was better (from a travel perspective, but not an animal perspective).

TW area : In the morning, Benji got a bit playful and started to go for Luke's Grandma's slippers and she said and I quote "Stop it, or I'll hit you" and I got really upset and said "Don't you dare hit my dog" and she said "I didn't say that" and then "It's a joke" and I said no it wasn't (because it clearly wasn't). When Luke piped in and said, no do not hit him (after she had pushed him down a lot). Anyway, she had offered for us to leave Benji with her and after that interaction, I was like absolutely not so we checked to see if the Port of Echuca was dog friendly, and thank f*ck, it was, Benji came with us. This was kinda the saving grace part of the trip for me because I got to do all the travel stuff that I enjoy and I got to do it with Benji and Luke. So what happened at the Port of Echuca?

The Port of Echuca is located along the Murray River (idk why I want to instinctively say River Murray because of what you have to say in South Australia). There's plenty to see and do here and lots of steam paddle boats you can go on too. Walking down the shops' area feels like you're in some sort of Western movie or a bit of a sci-fi world like it really reminds me of the set of the TV show "Westworld". But it also has a bit of a "A Million Ways to Die in the West" movie vibe to it as well. Let me know in the comments below if you've seen either of those and what you thought of them.

Our first stop of the morning was to get some caffeine so we stopped at a cute little cafe called "The Sweet Meadow" which had lovely staff and a delightful atmosphere. I just learned that they're a vegetarian cafe too which is pretty cool! We stopped here and I got a mocha with almond milk and Luke got a long black. We also got some sort of caramel donut to share (it wasn't bad but it was a bit confused as to what it was, the flavours were good but we weren't sure if it was a donut trying to be a cookie or a cake or bread).

The next stop, of course, was the winery, where we were actually allowed to bring Benji into (because it's kinda like a shed) so we thought that was pretty cool. The staff members fawned over Benji and he was just excited to get attention. We tried one of the Tawny wines and also a white wine (which I actually preferred) and ended up buying two bottles that only cost $36AUD (an amazing buy I think). Shout out to the lovely staff at St Anne's Winery. Amazing! Please make sure you are over 18 should you purchase anything from here. I managed to find the Tawny we got online, but I don't think they have the white online. Oooh I found it, it tasted so good after trying the Tawny - I was not expecting that. Check out the white "here".

On our travels, we came across one guy who asked to pet Benji who said he had a corgi at home called Neville (great corgi name), then another person yelled out that they'd never seen a corgi IRL before so we invited her over to pat him and I think that made her day and then a young girl said she thought he was a YouTube corgi called Taco (we only heard her say so couldn't correct her but it was funny).

We explored around the port area and took Benji on a bit of a walk around all the grassy areas too, we even made a stop at the chocolate shop - Echuca Chocolate Company because duh, why would you not? As Benji couldn't come in here, Luke was waiting outside and ran into some mates from uni. OH, I also forgot to say we had another one of Luke's mates come up to us at Gaffney's on the Friday too - kinda felt like I was back in CHCH with the amount of people we ran into that Luke knew LOL. It must be a small-town thing.

I also forgot to say that Benji lost it at the horses. Please enjoy this video below:

Here's some photos!

Anyway, we headed back for lunch and after lunch headed off - but we had to talk to some random lady walking a dog across the road before we could leave and Benji got a bit boisterous towards that dog because I think he wanted to play off leash and couldn't. Anyway, we finally set off home and thankfully we were able to stop off at all the places in Rochester we had wanted to see before and OMG we met some characters here! Our first stop was the Silo Art - which is really cool! Here we met a pet cockatoo called Jack who his owner let out of his cage to come and see Benji and Benji couldn't work out why the bird was able to bark at him. Benji also got covered in green fertiliser from the grass and we met some bikie doing a podcastmeetupp who wanted to come see the corgi - very interesting. Here's some photos/videos

After this Silo Art stop, we headed down to the Rochester Murals that I briefly mentioned above. I didn't really get heaps of good photos as it was a bright sunny afternoon but we walked along to view the murals. While we were here, one of the police officers came out to talk to us (as the police station is right across the road) and it was scary at first to me because she had a gun in her pocket but she just wanted to come see Benji because she was like "omg a corgi with a tail" and it turns out she had a tri colour corgi when she was little. Thankfully, they are no longer allowed to dock their tails in Australia. And she was really nice - Luke said rural country police tend to be a lot nicer than city coppers. Here's some photos of the murals:

And then our last weird encounter was when we stopped to go to the bathroom at a park (idk where it was) and some teenagers started fighting in the playground but thankfully they walked away from each other and we gapped it outta there.

Below, I have put some of my travel tips and must do's (a few things we didn't get to do but I would highly recommend).

Travel Tips/Must Do's/Recommendations

• Walk along the Port of Echuca

• Take a ride in a Paddlesteamer

• After dark lantern tours

• Go for a ride in the Billabong Carriages (with the horses)

• Check out the Billabong Adventure Park

• Take a walk through "Cactus Country" - omg I really want to hire this for a photoshoot now! It's about an hour drive away though so keep that in mind

• Visit the Great Aussie Beer Shed. Who doesn't love a cold one?

• It's a bit further out, but check out "The Big Strawberry"

• Stop at the Silo Art and Rochester Murals in Rochester (seen above)

• Stop for a bite to eat at Gaffney's bakery

• Go for a walk along Moama Beach Nature Walk to spot some wildlife (best times being dusk and dawn)

• And if you're anything like me and enjoy hiking, check out this list of walks to do while in Echuca/Moama

Thanks for reading and putting up with me! Here's my YT video I made below. Please check it out and subscribe if you haven't already subscribed.

Much love,

Ash xx

Sorry if this post has offended anyone.