The Mouth of the Murray.

We've spent nearly three weeks in Goolwa and thanks to the Christmas/New Year/family party shenanigans we've only now gotten out to explore our surrounds.

A fine example of Georgian architecture in Goolwa's main street.

 

Historic paddle steamer down by the wharf in Goolwa

I went walking on Goolwa Beach and then, sucker for punishment that I am, walked along the beach to Port Elliot.  Somewhere along the way I realised that I could, should my legs be willing, have walked in the other direction until I reached the Murray mouth and who wouldn't want to do that?

All excited about my next walking idea I went home to check my maps, and realised that while I could happily walk to the river mouth the whole business of having to walk back again might stretch my flesh even if my spirit was more than willing.  Then I thought a bit harder about the beach, the rock hard open expanse of sand with 4WDs gaily zooming up and down as if it were a highway and sneaky campers setting up tents backed up to the dunes.

'I could ride my bicycle along there!' I thought. Except I didn't want to subject my (almost) brand new bicycle to salt and sand and all those corrosive elements on the beach.  But I really wanted to visit the river mouth and there existed such things as hoses which would be perfect for washing sand and salt off bicycles after beach riding. Which is how I came to be riding my bicycle along the beach bright and early in the morning, before the 4WDs had gotten out of bed.

It felt like wilderness, but Goolwa was really just a kilometer or so away over the sand dunes and down a bitumen road.

I was very happy, riding my bicycle up the beach in the morning.  The wind kept me cool, the sun popped in and out between  fluffy white clouds, cockle shells crackled under my tyres, and hissing fingers of foam ran up the beach as the waves broke further out on the wide flat beach.

That's where I came from.

and that's where I'm going.

I shared the beach with early fishers, people who had brought their dogs out for a run, lots of groups splashing and digging about in the shallows as they harvested cockles/pips/kutis, and the odd 4WD that had got out of bed before the rest of the pack.

Hunting for shellfish.

As I got further up the beach the traffic dropped away.  I was on my own for long stretches and I got all excited thinking that I would have the river mouth all to myself.
 

The excavator was the first hint that solitude may not exist at the river mouth.  The excavator was working at the beach end of the pipe that brings sand, dredged from the river, out to the beach to be moved north by wind and water.

Then there was the dredge and the fishing tinnie, solitude is going, going...

Gone.

It was all happening.  Squadrons of pelicans soared overhead and the river battled with the sea as to who was going out or coming in.  Fishermen with low levels of motivation sat in the shade and sipped beverages of their choice while their more motivated fellows stood out on the sand bars in waist deep waves, risking life and limb for fish they hadn't caught (yet).  I asked one of the 4WDers to take my photo.

He took his assignment very seriously:  worrying about the back lighting, taking multiple efforts to make sure that the sand hills of the Coorong were visible across the water.

I didn't stay at the river mouth for long after all: there was nowhere to sit and I really didn't want to lie my bike down in the sand, so off I went on the trip back down the beach.  The wind and the sun were behind me and the ride home was fast and smooth.

Away in the distance lay the hills of the Fleurieu.

I was back at Goolwa Beach in no time at all, diligently running my bike through all the puddles at the beach showers in an effort to rid the tyres of sand.  Then I trundled home through the suburbs with the bonus sighting of a bird of prey on the way.

An eastern osprey?  Maybe.

I was very happy as I puddled around with the hose, washing sand and salt off my bike.  After all, it's  not every morning that you get to hang out with the pelicans at the mouth of the Murray River.