A Boat, A Bicycle Race, And Not A Crash In Sight.

On Friday morning the Tour Down Under (TDU) was due to come through the main street of Goolwa, navigating two right hand bends at which, declared Roger with a disturbing amount of anticipatory glee, they were going to crash. "We'll stand just there! That will be the best view of the crashes!"

Hmmmm.

The thing about elite bike races is the whole bike race bit, from a spectator's point of view, only lasts as long as it takes for a pack of pretty boys to blast past at speeds such that their skin tight Lycra affords them no protection in the event of a crash which is the only reason the more ghoulish spectators are there anyway.  Those onlookers dedicated to the race might run back to their cars and risk contributing to the growing road toll by driving recklessly to intercept the race at another point, to rinse and repeat until the finish line. The rest of the crowd stays in town and Goolwa, presented with a crowd in the mood to entertained, pulled out all its stops for post-race celebration. Bands, markets, art galleries, tours upon heritage paddle steamers... the list went on.  All of this happened on our last day in Goolwa so we skipped out on cleaning and tidying, bought our vintage paddle-steamer tickets, and started the day with breakfast down by the river.

Highly recommended.

Having dawdled over a second cup of tea while the sun burned away the last shreds of the morning's clouds, we wandered over to the wharf where the PS Oscar W waited for us, a flock of dedicated volunteers carefully tending its 115-year-old needs.

The Oscar W was built in Echuca in 1908, named after its owner's son who died in WWI.  After 80 years of hard yakka on the river it was bought by the SA government in 1988 and based at Goolwa where it is a stalwart of the tourist trade.

That's our ship!

So there we were on a boat built of 115-year-old wood, out on a river, carrying a big pile of firewood with which a sturdy volunteer fed a roaring fire in the belly of the ship.  

Lucky we had a robust fire-management system in place.

The crew of the Oscar W were very proud of their ship, and very happy to show her off. 

"I was doing my ticket and they asked me: what would you do if there was a fire on the ship?  They weren't thinking about a ship like this.  Forget the fire extinguisher: this one would burn to the waterline." 

I made sure I knew where all the buckets fire management systems were.  Not that it was as bad as it sounded: if we had to jump overboard there were plenty of life jackets and a little duty boat accompanied us wherever we went.

The wind out on the water was cold, but it was cosy in the engine room.

The Oscar W drew 800mm and handled like a tub.  We chuggalugged our way down the river to the barrages, waving happily to passing pleasure boats and pelicans.  I even got a special (and splashy) peek into the paddle well, courtesy of my favourite volunteer.

The Oscar W was way too wide to fit through the lock in the barrages.  We turned around and clattered back upriver to the wharf.

The Boss: precision driver of a very imprecise craft, especially when it's windy.

Back in town we swapped our riverboat legs for our bicycling heads, and wandered Goolwa's street soaking up the atmosphere and carefully tracking the ongoing race so we knew when to hightail it down to Crash Corner.

As the race got closer little clusters of spectators gathered on street corners, the more dedicated of them with camping chairs and champagne glasses. Serious wannabe racers rode up and down the street, dressed in tight lycra and playing peleton games.  The gathering crowd didn't take them very seriously, jumping up and down, yelling, screaming, and ringing bells as if they were the real race.  The serious cyclists seriously zoomed away and were replaced by men on home-made tandem tricycles, touring cyclists, and bicycle police who graciously waved as the crowd cheered them on.

Finally came the moment we were waiting for: a cavalcade of police motorcyclists and team cars that heralding the arrival of the race proper.  A helicopter clattered over the hill: a sure sign that the arrival of the cyclists was imminent.

The Tour Parade: giant cyclists on vehicles (cheating!),

along with Oppy, the Tour's mascot kangaroo.  Also  cheating.

And then, oh thrills, the race arrived and we witnessed with great excitement the two-man breakaway being caught by the peleton right under our noses on Crash Corner, and everyone shouted and took photos and jumped up and down and made lots of noise.

Breakaway men pedaling fast and futilely on the left, and a brave man in yellow drawing attention to the traffic island into which the peleton must not run, lest a big crash happen.  Which might make certain ghouls amongst us very happy.

Around they go, breakaway men still out in front.

And off they go, breakaway men absorbed by the peleton probably to be spat out the back due to having worn their legs out in the breakaway.

Well, all that build up and anticipation and in no time at all the peleton had zipped around the next corner and it was all over.  The last police motorcycle went past and the road opened.  The helicoptor rattled off toward the finish line at Port Elliot.  The crowd dispersed to a) go home b) go for a paddle steamer cruise c) go ride a steam train or d) continue partying because they had already drank so much champagne that the presence or absence of bicycle racers was not necessary for a bicycle race party.

We went home, one of us (the ghoulish one) lamenting the sad lack of crashes at Crash Corner.

I've been neglected, said the cat, and demanded tummy rubs.

 Sadly, none of the housework had been done in our absence, and our home owner was still in an aeroplane and expected to arrive early tomorrow morning.  We had no choice but to put away our boat/bicycle party clothes and clean the house/pick up the dog poo/feed the chooks.

So we did.