On Saturday morning 20th March an intrepid group of 12 set off to the Riverina with our congenial driver Andrew. After a small tyre problem at Truro we enjoyed lunch at Renmark. Arriving at Mildura at 3.30pm we toured (behind a tractor) Orange World and had an informative insight into citrus growing and irrigation explained by entrepreneur Mario. We stayed overnight at the Seventh Street Motel, after a delicious BBQ dinner.

On the road Sunday 21st March we had our first confirmed rice sighting at Hay - someone remarked that they had expected that rice grew taller - the smart reply was that it must have been short grain rice. We travelled from Hay via Goolgowi and had our first contact with Mirrool Creek, which traverses the MIA and drains residual water from the rice fields. We enjoyed an overview of Griffith from the lookout when we arrived before settling into our central motel.

Monday 22nd March was our 'learning' day starting with a tour and video presentation at the John Lake Fisheries Centre, Narrandera. This fishery breeds native fish to replenish dams and lakes where lack of flow or access inhibits the natural process.

Back to Leeton via the Yanco weir over rather rough roads followed by a delicious rice lunch at the SunRice Centre complete with a video presentation about rice growing, irrigation and milling, followed by our usual in depth questions.

More brain food at Murrumbidgee Irrigation Limited, a private company essentially owned by the irrigators, which allocates and controls irrigation in the area. These people are very environmentally aware and are working hard to make farmers more efficient. One of their members escorted us to several irrigated sites to illustrate how the whole system works. We were pleased to relax at Griffith for the evening.

Tuesday 23rd March we stopped at Darlington Point and had an interesting question and answer time with John McInnes, then on to Coleambally, John's home town that he actually helped plan in the 1950's. After lunch at the local café, staffed by disabled young people, we eventually put our feet on a real rice farm. Unfortunately we were about a week early for the harvesting but we still were very interested in seeing how rice actually grows.

On our way back to Griffith we had an unplanned visit to Catania Fruit and Nut Farm. I am sure that Joe was quite happy to postpone his grape picking to give us a tasting of his wares, the cash register was also quite happy.

When we returned to Griffith we had a meeting with several members of the local U3A, only formed 12 months ago. They were very interested in our trip and how our U3A works. We left them copies of our latest newsletter, a condensed history of the MDSG and an itinerary of our current trip.

We broke our return journey at Hay for lunch and a brief look at the all iron Bishop's Lodge, the historic gaol and the site of the old POW camp.

Thursday 25th March was perfect for a lazy river trip to one of the local wineries. Here we toured their wine-making facility and asked our guide, Jim, questions he had some trouble answering. Our enthusiastic questioning resulted in a reduced wine tasting opportunity but we all enjoyed the BBQ. One of the biggest problems this group has is that we run out of time before we run out of talk.

The week had just flown and on our last day we travelled to Loxton where we had a presentation at The South Australian Olive Corporation followed by a tasting and a buy up at the Viva Olive Oil shop.

A tired but better informed group arrived back in Adelaide at about 5.30pm Friday 26th March.

Lee Mason, Tour Co-ordinator