Roads, Ruins, And Opinions

I stood on the cliff top at Point Stuart, looking out across Lake Alexandrina to Raukka (on my left) and Milang (straight ahead). In the absence of seating, I considered sitting on the rocky edge and dangling my legs over while I ate my banana. Don't worry, it wasn't a big cliff and there was green grass below me, dotted with happy camping families.

The short-term campers hung out on the low ground near the water.

 

"I'd watch out," said a voice behind me. "There's a few big snakes in there."

My new friend was a man with long hair, grey at the top and black at the bottom of his undernourished ponytail. He wore a black Jack Daniels t-shirt and smelled like a combination of his advertised beverage, the cigarette he was puffing on, and the absence of a shower block at the Point Stuart camping reserve. We had a short chat about the peacefulness of the camping area and then he wandered off to talk to his mate who was camped in a bus that looked like it had been there for a very long time. He was a polite man, olfactory challenges aside.

The long-term campers had the high ground.  The bus looked like it had put down roots, and a collection of old cars was growing around it.

I decided not to sit on the cliff. I pushed my bike around to the other side of the point, past a van with "Mobile Caravan Repairs" emblazoned on the side. A shiny, squeaky-clean man popped out as I went past. "My goodness!" He exclaimed. "Look at the size of your rear cog!"  Now before you get outraged on my behalf, he was talking about the rear cog on my bicycle. It's a big cog which gives me lots of low gears, needed by an awesomely slow cyclist such as myself. "Do you know bikes?" I asked.

Mr Cog-Admiration wore a bright white t-shirt and waved a squeaky-clean rag around. "Oh yes. I used to build bikes before I fixed caravans. Is that a touring bike?"

"Yes."

"I thought about cycle touring once!"  On the strength of his long ago thought he proceeded to lecture me on how I should tour (take a big trailer); what suspension seat post I should buy (a Thud-Buster); and how many solar panels and extra dynamos I should use to power the weight of my solar panels and extra dynamos. Doubtless he would have covered in exhaustive detail the brand of toothpaste most suited to thought-about bicycle touring, but I said my (possibly less polite than usual) goodbyes and left to eat my banana somewhere else.

The cliffs at Point Stuart: sadly not a good banana-eating spot due to the excess of opinions flying about.

I found a fence against which to lean my bike, a rock to sit on, and ate my banana in peace with no interference from visitors either smelly or know-it-all.

This is better: a distant view of the sand hills on the Coorong, and not an opinion within earshot.

I was at Point Stuart because I was riding my bike from Clayton Bay to Milang, and Point Stuart was a 20km return detour to the camping reserve which provided no amenities other than grass, some flat ground, and (allegedly) snakes, and back again.  It was a nice detour: the sun shone and the rain had all gone away. The little road curled over rolling hills, and the remains of dry stone walls marched beside it. 

It's nice to see where you're going.

Some walls were in better shape than others.

Horses and cattle grazed picturesquely on green grass. The wind blew in the correct direction and the waters of Lake Alexandrina were visible on both sides of the point.

I said hello.  They were not inclined to talk back, indeed one of them ran away.

Lake Alexandrina's waters, courtesy of the barrages at the river mouth, are fresh.  The wee lakes in the foreground I'm not so sure about: the vegetation looked more like that of salt lakes to me.

 

Powered by banana, I pedaled back out toward the bitumen. The Mobile Caravan Repair van passed me on the way out, Mr Cog-Admiration waving cheerfully but thankfully not distributing any more gems of cycling wisdom.  I pedaled on, stopping at rustic ruins for photographs.

Ruin number one,

and two.

The banana wasn't enough, so I stopped for more snacks at a teeny tiny Church which had a teeny tiny graveyard beside it. The church disappointingly had no steps on which to sit in the shade, so I had the choice of sitting on a gravestone or behind the memorial wall.  The wall it was then, out of both the sun and the wind. Birds sang in the tree above me and the cattle over the road kept their opinions to themselves.

I don't think it gets much use these days.

 

If they thought about bicycle touring, they didn't tell me.

 

Back on the bitumen, the wind blew me toward Milang. I skirted the marshland at the edge of the lake, where black swans clustered to feed in the shallows. Away in the distance the Adelaide Hills were green from unseasonal rain.

 

A ruin (of course!), green hills in the distance.

As I rolled into Milang the Mobile Caravan Repair van passed me again, heading back to (I presume) Point Stuart. Mr Cog-Admiration waved vigorously: I ignored him. I pedaled the last 100m to the Old Butcher's Shop, where I parked the bike under the green grapevine canopy and went inside for a nice cup of tea, undisturbed by either snakes or free-ranging opinions.

Time for a rest.