Rosario to Melincue

The Parata River is HUGE! It flows down to BA. It is able to be navigated by Panamax ships which are designed to pass through the Panama Canal. Usually our trip would consist of a trip and meal on the river in a big cruiser but it was broken so we had a whizz in the " fizz boats"! Such fun!

This is parking/ storage for jet boats just near our jetty.

Martin all set to go - team leader...

The other boat -ours was orange. 

Off up the river to look at the loading facilities. There are heaps. We saw about 15 in our stretch of water. There are 50 Panamax ships on the river at any one time.

Loading grain from barges to the hoppers and then to the ships.

This is the only hill we've seen in 3 days driving. Looks like the dump for Rosario area. Huge trucks up on top!!

We spent an hour going a very convoluted way to the jetty and then just drove out (after our river expedition) through the loading area for one of the grain collection depots and discovered why. There were over 100 truck and trailer units lined up to go in... And that was only 1 of the 30 + facilities. Oh my goodness!! So many trucks on the road. More trucks than cars - short trucks and long trailers carting soybeans and corn.

Hotel and Casino @ Melincue. The area of the Pampa. Is supposed to be humid however it has, over the last few years, had more than 3x it's annual rainfall and nowhere in this huge flat area more that 2x the size of NZ to drain. Hence an over flowing lake and lots of sandbags. You can see houses that have been abandoned and in the town water marks on others.

Grain producing area - and as we continued further west perfect for peanuts.