Timing a visit to the Sunraysia region around the harvest seasons changes the whole experience - table grape harvest runs roughly February through April, citrus goes later into the year, and being here when the orchards are active rather than dormant gives the landscape a completely different energy and explains why the whole region exists in the first place. Ask staff when you arrive what's currently in season and where the roadside stalls are operating, because that information isn't on any tourist website and changes week to week.
The Murray River at Mildura is worth more of your time than most visitors give it - not the foreshore cafes specifically, though those are fine, but the actual river itself which is wide and slow and carries a particular kind of quiet that's different from anything you get on the coast. Hire a canoe or a small boat for a few hours if that's available, or just find a spot on the bank away from the main area and sit there for a while. It sounds uneventful and it is, in exactly the right way.
Summer in Sunraysia means real heat - 42, 43 degrees is not unusual in January and February and it's a dry inland heat that doesn't give you the humidity warning you might be used to on the coast. The pool at the motel goes from optional to essential in that context, and planning any outdoor activity for before 10am or after 4pm in summer isn't overcaution it's just sense. The light in the late afternoon here in summer is extraordinary but you have to get through the middle of the day to reach it.
Mildura has a better restaurant scene than its regional reputation suggests and a few of the places on Langtree Avenue are worth a proper dinner rather than a casual stop - ask staff for a specific recommendation rather than just heading to whatever's closest, because they know which places are currently good and regional restaurants fluctuate more than city ones. A Thursday or Friday night booking is worth making in advance during peak periods because the good spots fill up with locals not just visitors.
Driving west from here toward Broken Hill even for just a couple of hours gives you an understanding of what Australian outback actually looks like that no photograph has ever properly conveyed - the scale of it, the colour of it in certain light, the way the road disappears into something genuinely vast. You don't have to go far. Just far enough to feel it, and then come back to the motel with something to think about.