While Not Working

 I spent a thrilling two days in Loxton, locked in my cabin with my nose against a grindstone. I didn't go into town at all and only got down to the river, all of 50 m away, on the evening of the second day. I found the stairs up to the lookout. From the top: houseboats on glass. And from the bottom. Reflections. Wood and water. Colours of cliffs. I repeated the puffer jacket fashion statements of Mannum, but the style fitted right in to the mores of the Loxton Riverside Caravan Park and no one blinked an eye as I paraded back and forth to the laundry. I rearranged furniture and repurposed kitchen appliances into office nicknacks. Phone holder for video calls. I was disturbingly proud of this piece of creativity. Dont worry, I unplugged it first. Loxton office. After two solid days sitting at a keyboard my back was sore and I was grumpy. My bicycle was getting antsy at being cooped up in the bedroom. No you can't go out to play at night. There are signs all around the park war...

  I have a confession to make. I was pedaling along the road, bursting for a wee and looking for a suitable private pee spot with somewhere to lean my bike.   Coming to the conclsion that I would have to lean it at a property gatepost and disappear into the bushes, I picked a gatepost with a sturdy pole and a suitable thorn-free approach, trundled to a stop, and leaned my bike. The whole thing fell over.  I kid you not, the deceptivey sturdy post was in fact a hollow shell, eaten out by white ants and just waiting for a heavy bike to cause collapse. Disaster!  I hauled my bicycle from under the log and looked around.  A family of white-winged choughs laughted at me.  There was no one about to whom I could confess my sin.  I mounted my bicycle and pedaled away in the fastest slow motion possible on a fully loaded bicycle.  a few kilometres down the road I found a sturdy stone wall and attended to all necessary needs without further destruction...

Morning plovers at Lake Bonney. I was worried about navigating the bridge where the Sturt Highway crossed the Murray a few kms from town. Putting off the moment, I wandered up the main street of Barmera on the way out of town. Barmera had all the shops a lakeside play town needed, plus a surprising art installation or two and a beautiful art deco movie theatre that was now a gallery. As it turned out the Sturt Highway was easily avoided. I trundled down narrow roads cloistered with grape vines, along tracks of bright red hard-packed sand, and found myself at Cobdogla where all sorts of attractions waited to be discovered. From Cobdogla a little gravel road escorted me along the Kaiser Spit, part of the Cobdogla game reserve. Sweet little waterside camp grounds came and went, each with their own fire pit. Birds sang and burbled in the trees and every so often a fisherman puttered by in a businesslike tinnie. I'd reached a quiet corner of the Murray, all wetlands and lagoons, submerg...