Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree....

Paringa Bridge

The bridge opens up for a houseboat to go through

Ducklings on the riverbank

Before leaving Renmark we spent some time looking around the lovely riverbank area near Paringa and waited for the historic Paringa Bridge to open to let the boats through.  The Bert Dix park area is a beautiful park with an interesting piece of Art here under one of the trees.

An old gum tree with lots of lumps over the trunk, think its Gumosis

So cute!

After our couple of days looking around the gardens of Renmark we headed off to a favourite spot on the river where we camped without being able to hook up to power or water, so we made sure our tanks were full and our batteries charged.

The River Murray has quite a few places that are designated for camping without being illegal or damaging to the environment where campers can enjoy the beautiful river.  We had earlier driven to one of the camping areas just out of Renmark but there were quite a few people camped there and we decided to go to another area which was further on towards Adelaide which fit our plans better as we were wanting to stop in Murray Bridge on Monday where one of  our grandsons attends college, as he was to receive a special award for leadership and teamwork, we are very proud grandparents of all of our grandchildren and like to support them when we can.

We stopped at Swan Reach for coffee as there is a great little shop there that has a nice seating area that overlooks the river and the ferry that crosses the river.  Our next stop was not many kilometers on down a reasonably good dirt road that led to the riverfront.  On arriving there we saw a few other campers along the riverfront but continued along and found a nice spot without too many large gum tree branches that might drop off if the wind picks up.  We are very cautious when it comes to camping under trees and gum trees have been known to drop large limbs.

Under some trees but no branches directly above

Another van on the right had nobody there

As we were only staying for about 24 hours we didn't unhook so there was not much setting up to do.  It was a pretty hot afternoon, even in the shade, but it was a beautiful place to be just enjoying the views of the river and the birdlife.

Lovely colour on the water

Sunset on the river

By late afternoon we decided to light our "Choofer" (an empty gas bottle made into a bbq) which Ron has made for us to cook on.  He has made quite a few for our friends as they are safe to use when camping.  I had some marinated chicken drumsticks so we put them on to cook and soon we had the Kookaburras flying in to see what was smelling so good.

Now, those cute Kookaburras have a very large and strong beak!  As I was sitting back. relaxing and enjoying my wine and some nibbles,  one of the kookaburras came flying down and almost took the food right out of my hand.  It was so close to my face that I could feel its wings, not a very nice experience and definitely will be keeping my eyes on them from now on.

Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree, laugh Kookaburra laugh ...as the song goes

A simple meal on our bbq for us not the kookaburra

The kookaburra sampling some food

He has his eye on our food so I am now on Kookaburra Watch!