Thrills at Lock 11: 09/04/2023

My earplugs were no defence against the roaring of the old air conditioner: I'd have been better taking my chances with the doof doof music from downstairs.  Suffice to say that when sunrise rolled around I rolled blearily out of bed and went for a walk beside the river.

 

It was a pretty poor effort as sunrises went.

I found the main pump station for the Murray River Irrigation Trust, with a board proudly displaying a map of the 139km of irrigation channels fed by the pump station.

And a nice tree.

And a paddle steamer.  I don't know that it actually paddles anywhere though.

 

We passed into Victoria and headed toward Mildura, congratulating ourselves on accidentally not bringing any fruit into the fruit fly quarantine zone. This was really something to be proud of, given our proud tradition of having to dump good fruit in quarantine bins.

The main excitement of the day came early when we turned in to Mildura's Lock 11 for coffee and discovered that the lock was in operation to allow passage of a steam driven paddle steamer loaded with tourists. 

Proudly flying the Murray River flag too!

The entrance to the Lock was rather grand. The grounds behind, still recovering from the floods, less so.

 We stayed for morning coffee overlooking the lock, in the vain hope that another boat would come along to entertain us.

We were back to puffer jacket weather.

With the the coffee ritual completed to everyone's satisfaction, we left the ocean of irrigated sultana grapes that surrounded Mildura. Indeed, we left Victoria altogether but couldn't bags a NSW sign photo as NSW very inconsiderately placed it's sign beside the approach to the bridge over the river where we left the Murray altogether and followed its smaller sister, the Murrumbidgee, across the open plains toward Hay. 

We took a quick detour to look at Hay and, somewhat naively, allowed the Google lady (hereafter called Gladys for no other reason than alliteration) to lead us along the Murrumbidgee River Road rather than back to the highway. The Murrumbidgee River Road was flat and smooth, bereft of other traffic, and the late afternoon sun occasionally poked through the low clouds and splattered sunlight across the plains. We relaxed and trusted Gladys.

Nice.

"Turn left" said Gladys. "It's quicker." Gladys valued speed above all else, and we possibly needed to question her more. 'Quicker' became doubtful as we bounced through potholes and over corrugations at 25kph.

Corrugated and with hidden potholes, but beautiful.

Gladys maintained a dignified silence in the face of our complaints and blame, and eventually spat us back to the bitumen a short distance from Griffith and our planned bed for the night. Our motel was old and a wee bit daggy but had the distinct advantage of a comfortable bed, a quiet air conditioner, and no downstairs doof doof band.

Home For The Night: Yalumba Motel, Griffith.