26/03/26 Cadell to Waikerie: Very Chatty Men.

Drew, cooking dinner in the Waikerie Echo Park camp kitchen, was over-the-top excited about my bicycle ride. "Love!" He called to his partner who was trying to cook their dinner.  "Love, listen to this!  We could do this!  We could ride our bicycles to Perth next time we go!"  Love demonstrated a remarkable lack of interest. and concentrated on not burning the steak.  Drew got even more excited.  "Stay here and watch the footy with us!"  He was gathering a group of campers to watch footy and drink beverages in the camp kitche.  "I'll video you and you can talk about your trip.  It'll go viral!'

Nope.  Nope, nope, nopetty nope.

"I have to make a phone call," I said, and scurried away as quickly as I could.

It was the day for chatty and enthusiastic men.

Morning light on the Cadell cliffs.

A motorbike gang joined me on the ferry as I left Cadell.  The fellow next to me was very chatty  but it was definitely a one-way conversation due to him being over 80, deaf, and with hearing aids rendered ineffective by a motorcycle helmet.  "We do this every year," he said.  "We're heading back to Adelaide and catching every ferry across the river."  He rhapsodised about how green the country was, courtesy of the recent rains.  Then he stalled his motorbike as the ferryman waved him off, which didn't do a lot for his carefully curated geriatric bikie persona.

I spent the day on Taylorville road.  On my right the river dodged and weaved, sometimes far off in the distance, other times the edge of the cliffs was barely 50m away.  I passed through orchards of citrus and olives, and endless vineyards.  Where the land wasn't irrigated there were paddocks of wheat stubble and grazing land where red sandhills were lightly dressed in fresh green grass.

Bicycle in the wild.

I put on my rain jacket.  I took off my rain jacket.  The wind cranked up and the clouds started to scatter.  I dropped in to Lock 2 and had a long chat with the Lock Master, who opind that traffic at the lock had dropped off somewhat as fuel prices rose, and gave his opinions on some of the roads I wanted to ride.

Grand Lock entrance.

Now I want a kayak.

I turned right, off the escarpment and down to the flood plain.  Way ahead on the other side of the river I could see the Waikerie silos.  "Good," I thought.  "I'll be there in no time at all."

Final push.

I'll spare you the demoralising struggle that ensued, me against the howling gale.  Sometimes I walked through fear of being blown off the road.  I grumbled and complained and groaned and checked my progress every ten minutes only to be further demoralisd.  The wind didn't care.  

And about time too.

The silos slowly got closer and eventally I found the Waikerie Ferry and landed in the centre of town, mercifully a scant 200m from the Echo park where I begged the lady at reception to put me anywhere as long as it was protected from the wind.

She did a stellar job.  

Home for the night: Echo Park Waikerie, fungi for free.

I wandered up the street.  Waikerie was a proper town.  It had bakeries and banks, hardware stores and cafes, Woolworths and Foodland, big fancy pubs and dress shops and fitness spas and a real roundabout with actual traffic on it.  It was so exciting!  I walked all the way through town and back along the cliff walk on the way to Woollies.

Waikerie is collecting murals in the main street: Murray cod.

From the cliffs.

Old irrigation infrastructure in town

Looking across the river to Jaesche Lagoon.

Also old irrigation infrastructure.

Back in camp I discovered that I'd donated my soap to the laundry in Cadall.  Calamity!  I wept with grief for my soap holder which was just the right size for cycle touring.  I suppose I wept for the soap too, it being somewhat necessary to maintain socially acceptable standards of cleanliness.  I had to walk all the way back to Woollies to buy some soap I didn't want, which I would have to keep in a zip lock back due to the dearth of acceptable soap containers.

With all that drama over I went to make my dinner and that was where I met Drew and Love, and had to go hide in the Rec Room because I didn't want to have any part of being in  viral video. And then I left the Rec Room to wash my cup and along came the groundsman 30min early and locked up the Rec Room with all my electronic gadgets in it, so I had to hunt him down through the caravan park in the dark and get him to let me in again.

By then I was quite worn out by all the excitement so I took myself off to my tent in the mushroom paddock, and went to bed.