The Ultimate Winter Road Trip to Northern Victoria

We hit the road these school holidays and headed as far north as you can go in Victoria… Mildura! Well, technically we stayed just over the border in New South Wales because we were keen to check out Trentham Waters Resort and boy were we happy we did.

Day 1.

Melbourne – Bendigo

We broke the trip up with a one night stop over at an old school motel called The Oval in Bendigo and had dinner at Ghosty’s Diner which was worth the stop in and of itself.

Day 2.

Bendigo – Lake Boga – Mildura

I’ve always wanted to visit Lake Boga as my grandparents met there while at a secret airforce base working on Catalina flying boats during WW2. We loved exploring the museum in Lake Boga with a full size restored Catalina and checking out the silo art in town. Then we had a picnic by the lake and got back in the car to finish the drive to Trentham Cliffs just over the border from Mildura.

We quickly checked into our accommodation then hot-footed it to Wentworth to see the incredible FOSO installation by British-Australian artist Bruce Munro. It was a light and sound experience on the edge of the outback with an original score by Emmy Award-winning composer Nainita Desai.

Day 3.

Perry Sandhills and Orange World

We started the day with a short drive to Orange World, a working orange farm, for the tractor tour which was run by the farm owner who was such a funny character – full of one-liners. Mildura and surrounding towns are full of citrus farms and produce 20% of Australia’s citrus.

After dosing up on vitamin C we headed back towards Wentworth where we found the Perry Sandhills. We packed the boogie boards knowing we intended to visit this natural wonder. This was an absolute highlight and we ended up coming back the next day as well.

Day 4.

Trentham Waters Resort

Aside from a trip to the sand hills we decided to spend most of the day enjoying the resort/caravan park facilities. The splash park was on in the afternoon and the water was heated, we hired some buggies, played tennis, watched the sunset over the Murray and made s’mores at the communal campfire.

Before I get to day 5 you need to see some photos of our beautiful cabin at Trentham Waters Resort OMG….

Day 5.

Trentham Cliffs – Echuca/Moama

Rather than drive the same way home we opted to go via Echuca and spend the night there (well I thought I’d booked a caravan park in Echuca but we found out when we turned up at the wrong place that it was actually over the border in Moama… oops!). Then it was dinner at the Rich River Golf Club (up until this point nearly all of our meals had been either packed lunches or at home in the cabin so this was a novelty). The next day there was an amazing fog that hung around until lunch time while we explored the historic Echuca Port. This made it all the more fun!

Day 6.

Echuca/Moama – Cactus Country – Melbourne

We’ve been to Cactus Country before several years ago but given we were close to Strathmerton we were all keen to go back as it’s a really fun way to spend an hour or two and broke up the drive home nicely. We wandered around, the kids did the scavenger hunt provided when you buy tickets at the door and made friends with the resident stray cat.