Our accommodation
The Tagalong23 group was booked into the Riverbend Caravan Park in Renmark (maplink), South Australia, for the beginning of our trip. This park was totally inundated in the destructive 2022 floods and they have done a fantastic job rehabilitating the whole of the park. Our site was right on the magnificent Murray River.
“Welcome to Tagalong23” Happy Hour
All of the group gathered for our 1st Happy Hour around the communal campfire, where the organising team handed our their welcome packs, which included tourist info for the entire trip plus some goodies as well as a souvenir tea towel.
It was a great gathering, meeting up with old friends from previous tagalongs as well as greeting some new members to the group.
The “Chook Man”
There’s a local celebrity in Renmark who cruises up and down the Murray River in his ramshackle house boat (if that’s what you’d call it). We were fortunate enough to find him moored up in his regular location at the Renmark Wharf. His “house boat” is constructed from (basically) junk that he has found along the river. He even has some chooks on board.
On one of our days in Renmark he sailed down the river, past the caravan park, to a spot near the bridge. He then basically crashed parked it into the riverbank bringing heaps of tree branches crashing down all over his boat – very weird and strange.
Jenga Happy Hour
On our 2nd last night our happy hour consisted of gathering around the caravan park’s communal fire pit for several rounds of Jenga.
About Jenga – Jenga is a game of physical and mental skill. Built on the simple premise of stacking blocks, Jenga engages players of all ages, across all cultures. Jenga’s success rests on its solid play value. Players take turns to remove a block from a tower and balance it on top, creating a taller and increasingly unstable structure as the game progresses.
It was a great time either participating in the game or just watching the tension on the participant’s faces as they attempted to not make the Jenga stack fall down. You can find out more about Jenga from the official Jenga website.
23rd Street Distillery Tour
The historic Twenty Third Street distillery, built in 1914, has been resurrected with twenty-first century technology. Century old copper stills are reignited with a spirit of anarchic invention. It is one of the “must visit” places in Renmark!
We booked a tour of the distillery for our group. The 1st thing required was for us to leave our mobile phones, hand bangs, car keys and even “hearing aids” behind before participating in an extremely well presented tour of the distillery by their head wine maker. It was totally worth the cost as we learnt so much about the distilling process, but no photos can be shown here (as they would not allow it 😒).
After the tour we were provided with a lecture & tasting session about 3 of their favourite Gins (which was a bit underwhelming to be honest).
Summing Up…
- Accommodation at Riverbend Caravan Park (visit their website)
- Cost per night – $43 (at 1 Sep 2023)
- Stayed for – 5 nights
- CP Location – Great spot on the Murray, a couple of kms out of town
- Did we have a good site? Right on the river
- Facilities – Great camp kitchen, plenty of room for our large group
- Amenities – Toilets were a bit dated but always clean
- Our rating/score – 8/10
- Location:
- Was it a nice place to visit? Yes
- Much to see & do? Heaps to do. This was our 2nd visit to Renmark
- Our rating/score – 8/10
- Would we return? Yes
