18/03/26 Rain And Houseboats

 

Let's start with raindrops in motel gardens.

I got all excited about the buffet breakfast I observed during the laundry detergent episode yesterday so I turned up on the dot of 8 again, properly dressed this time, to discover that the buffet breakfast wasn't available on Wednesdays.

Bummer.

I drowned my sorrows in corn and zucchini fritters but it just wasn't the same. The coffee was good though, and I dragged out the cup because the rain outside was overstaying its welcome. The dragging didn't work: I had to leave in the kind of rain that didn't feel like much but was very effective at wetting things.

Here comes my ride.

I caught the ferry back across the river. The good thing about being on a bike was I could jump the ferry queue and squeeze into the awkward space at the back which didn't quite accommodate another car.

Carrying on from yesterday's trend, I cross-trained up the hill from the ferry and then promptly went back down again and followed East Front road along between the river and the cliffs.

The river channel came and went, interspersed with lagoons full of black swans, pelicans, ducks, and other waterbirds that I couldn't see because I had taken my glasses off in the rain. I passed narrow patches of lawn beside the river, hemmed by fences and anchored by letterboxes, which flummoxed me somewhat until I clicked that South Australia allows a houseboat to be a permanent address, and these were the permanent addresses for houseboats.

The dairy farms had all gone. The road to Younghusband was lined with pleasure craft, holiday shacks, houseboats and light industry pertaining to houseboats. There was a striking lack of places for leaning bikes and snacking.

The best I could find.

Until better came along. Younghusband Hall had a big covered area out the back, complete with table and chairs. Just in time for lunch, too.

From Younghusband I cross-trained up the hill to Hunter Road which had a distressing tendency to bounce up and down, but afforded fantastic river vistas to compensate.  

The clouds lifted, the rain behaved itself, and I bounced all the way to Bowhill where I had a terrible (ie once melted and then refrozen) paddlepop at the Bowhill General Store which was hopping with trade from the luxurious houseboats moored near the boat ramp.

"Can I camp anywhere here?" I asked the proprieter, knowing full well that RVs were allowed to camp at the park. "Sure!" Was the reply. "Anywhere in the park." I'd heard about this: the proprieter of the Bowhill General Store tells tenters to camp in the park and then giggles when they camp on the grass and the sprinklers come on at 3am.

From the wharf, Bowhill General Store on the right.

I spent the rest of the afternoon in the playground picnic shelters overlooking the houseboat mooring. More houseboats puttered down the river. Jetskis came to the store to collect camping supplies. Two fishers in a tinnie spent a solid 30min drifting while trying to start a recalcitrant outboard moter. It would have been peaceful apart from the huge metal fabrication factory overlooking the river and producing all kinds of banging and crashing and roaring. Then 16:30 rolled around and all the factory workers went home and Bowhill was left to the houseboats and the birds. 

Which is just the way it should be.

Home for the night. Camped on the mulch to avoid sprinklers on the one side and thorns on the other. 

PS: There were no creative mailboxes today. I was very disappointed. I had expected at least one houseboat-themed mailbox.