Lookouts and the Temptation of Showers.

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 There were no factories to wake me up in Walker's Flat, but the pelicans had plenty to say in the early morning.   I caught the ferry back across the river with another chatty ferryman who had started work at midnight and done the graveyard shift.  I don't think many people use the Walkers Flat ferry between midnight and 07:00, when everyone has to go to work and there's a huge rush, at least four cars waiting so I'm told.


I didn't even try to ride up the road from the ferry to the top of the cliff and Forster's lookout.  Forster was on this side of the river and Walker Flat was on the other side and goodness me, don't confuse the two.  

Looking north, with Walkers Flat ferry visible below.

And south.

The road meandered along the cliff top with, glory be, both a downhill trend and a tail wind.  I stopped off at the Len Kroehn Lookout,

I took river pictures too, but this a glad-I'm-not-on-the-road-at-the-moment picture.

and Smoke Signal Hill, with Nildottie perched on the cliff beyond it.

Not a mail box or a farm gate, but glad to see that someone is getting creative.


I stopped in Nildottie to discover that Nildottie had a shop (closed) with fuel bowsers (closed) and a post office (Closed, all your mail will be redirected to Swan Reach DO NOT KNOCK ON THIS DOOR!)  Despite all the nothing going on in Nildottie they had a beautiful little park courtesy of Edna and Max and the Back to Nildotte weekend.  There was a picnic table, multiple potted geraniums and other assorted flowers, trees to provide shade, and a hose freely dripping potable water.  And there I was having carefully filtered a whole crank tank full of water back at Walker Flat and lugged it all the way to Nildottie where I could just have filled up with a hose. 

Thanks, Edna & Max.  Much appreciated.

The Big Bend lookout came next, with lots of advertising for Dark Sky adventures and dire warnings about falling off the cliff.

South.

According to the Big Bend information board the Murray River is:

  • the 3rd longest navigable river in the world, after the Amazon and the Nile
  • continuously navigable for 1986km, from Goolwa to Yarrawonga
  • has 4 major dams, 16 storage weirs, and 15 navigable locks
  • is the major dmestic water supply for over 1.5M households (probaby more by now, this sign was pretty old)
  • along with its tributaries is part of the 3rd largest water catchment on earth
Well, there you go then.

Middle.

North.

When I finally rolled in to Swan Reach I had every intention of camping at the Tenbury Hunter reserve, the Swan Reach Caravan Park having inconsiderately stayed shut after the latest floods. "Isn't there a motel or something?" asked Roger.  He was somewhat concerned about my hygiene given showers haven't been a thing at the last two campgrounds.  What can I say?  Bicycle touring encourages standards to slip.

I was chilling in the park at the time, waiting for the ferry over to Tenbury Hunter.  I'd had to put on my fly net to deter a few zillion mosquitoes.  I was hot, dripping in sweat, and could see that the Reserve was jam packed with caravans.  To cut a long story short, in next to no time I was unpacking into a pub room at the Swan Reach Hotel and discovering that the drawbacks (no power point in the room) were more than compensated for by the bonuses (little kitchen area with power points and breakfast makings).  The moral of the whole story is that I'm not as tough as I thought I was, and I really enjoyed my shower.

Home for the night: Swan Reach Hotel.

Later in the evening I indulged my FOMO and went for a closer look at the Tenbury Hunter Reserve, ticking off my 6th ferry crossing on the way.  This ferry man wasn't nearly as chatty as Peter Purnong and Walker Flat, even if I was his only customer on the way over.   Come to think of it, maybe that's why?  He had to get himself activated and run the whole ferry across for the sake of one pedestrian and I didn't even have my bicycle with me.

From the ferry.

 Tenbury Hunter had stunning views of the cliffs lit up by the evening light, but it was tetrised with caravans and well populated with dogs.  All the noise from the pub echoed across the water, and quite the party was going on so there was a lot of noise. I didn't feel so bad about staying in my little cupboard on the hill.




In fact, I felt pretty good.

Finally! A solo entrant for mailboxof the day.


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