270326 Waikerie to Barmera: Wind, Lock, and Lake

I caught the ferry back over the river.  I'm running out of ferries over the Murray: there's only one left now.

My ride.

Welcome swallows hitching a ride.

Graham jumped out of his car to say hello when he saw me on Devlin Pound Road after catching the ferry back across the river in the morning. "I was on the ferry with you this morning and I really wanted to ask you what you're doing. So what are you doing?"

I was really tempted to tell him I was swimming the English Channel, but I stuck with the obvious.

We had a good old chat beside the road. Graham was with the RFS and they were on flood watch as the waters from the last rsin event out in the desert crept across the thirsty earth toward the Murray. "They're worried it will cut the Goyder Highway at Cadell Ck," said Graham. "I don't think so. Everything's so dry it's just getting absorbed, even in the hard country." Graham was involved in a straight line speed event at Gardiner Lake every March, now postponed due to (gasps of shock) water in the lake. We both agreed the country had never looked so good; it could give the Land of Oz a run for its money in terms of emerald green.

Where stuffed toys go to die.

The Waikerie silos were still visible across the green.

Another driver came along and stopped to join the party. I said my goodbyes and left them to it: some of us had to keep swimming.

Devlin Pound Rd followed right beside the cliff. The wind roared across the flood plain and boiled over the cliff edge. It pummelled and pushed, sucked and tugged every which way but the one I wanted to go. The going was slow, the small mercy being that at least I was being blown off the road, not on to it.

There's a river there somewhere.

Random lookout spot.

The Goyder Highway provided trees for some sort of shelter, and picnic tables at rest stops. 

I set my sights on the Overland Corner Hotel, a recently restored relic of the past era of stage coaches and overland stock droving. A salad sandwich might be a bit much to ask for but a pub lunch would be a decent alternative.

Overland Corner was a well-watered crossing and resting point for stock traveling from NSW to Adelaide. It was also a Cobb & Co staging post, later a Post Office, and in 1855 a Police Station was established there due to a regrettable proliferation of sly grog shops and cattle duffers.

Some people stayed.

The Overland Corner Hotel overlooked the wetlands and lagoon out toward the river. A little track meandered through the scrub to the river camping spots, where caravans nestled amongst river gums. Campers could spend all day in isolated serenity by the river and then toddle up to the pub for dinner and drinks at night. I was tempted to stay but the tyranny of work and the distance to the next reliable phone coverage kept me moving.

Despair at the bowser.

Now if I'd been here a week or two earlier I could have liberated some of those watermelons from their misery.  Who am I kidding?  No way am I pedaling with a watermelon on the back!

Lock 3 arrived on the right. 5 km of headwind be damned, I was going to see Lock 3.

There were no chatty lock masters at Lock 3, and no exciting lock action involving pleasure boats or kayakers either. The water roared, the pelicans and cormorants did their thing, and I was reassured that I had reached the giddying height of almost 10m above sea level.

I like pelicans.

With the excitement of lunch and the Lock over I settled in to battle the wind all the way to Lake Bonney, where the Barmera North Caravan Park refused to answer my calls or allow me to leave a message. Lake Bonney was in a wind-induced frenzy: waves slopped and bashed the shore and dust and debris howled through what would otherwise have been beautiful lakeside camping spots. 

Believe me, it was way worse than it looks. 

The Barmera North Caravan Park was slightly seedy, unkempt, and deserted. The office was wide open and no one answered the call bell placed under an imperious "PUSH FOR ATTENTION" sign. I briefly contemplated grabbing some keys and just setting up in a cabin but in the end I just gave up and settled into a painful plod around the lake to the Discovery Park in Barmera town, where I settled onto a patch of grass squeezed in between caravans and glampers. This side of the lake was sheltered, with a beach of incongruous white sand and kayaks scattered along the shore. I met a bossy dog called Winnie and chatted to my neighbours, a geriatric German couple who had cycle toured much of Europe in their youth.

Home for the night: Barmera Discovery Park

Traffic roared on the Stuart Highway a block behind the park. As night closed in children played, cried, and threw overtired tantrums. The glampers turned their festoon lights on and settled into loud conversations over beverages of choice. Teenagers flirted in corners. Sociable Sally that I am, I put on my sleeping mask, jammed earplugs into the appropriate orifices, and went to bed.

I'll leave you with a fisherman and his apprentice watching evening fall on the sheltered shore of Lake Bonney.