We're sitting up in the general store cum coffee shop in Walwa, a one-street town on the Victorian side of the Murray River, for our daily dose of coffee and connectivity, tapping into a Telstra mobile signal strong enough to hook up via our plug-in USB Dongle; our big-city Optus mobiles are useless unless we drive another 15km to a roadside rest area with a clear line of sight to the Snowy Mountains. We've spent the last few nights in a rented cottage which is 6 km back across the Murray, in the New South Wales hamlet of Jingellic.

One long hot summer many years ago, I had worked out of Walwa as a geologist's field assistant, tramping up and down the creeks on the NSW side of the Murray to collect gravel samples.

Once we got the wood-burning combustion heater warmed up, our time at Honeysuckle Cottage proved quite delightful, with sunny spring days and long drives alongside the Murray. Although somewhat dilapidated, the cottage was surrounded by well-tended and luxuriant gardens. An historic riverside pub lay within a short walk.

These images were taken with Nikon D300 using RAW format, and are available for licensing.