Milang Via Claytons Bay

 We've tried to stay at the Milang Lakeside Caravan Park several times and each time we've failed. The MLCP doesn't have a website, doesn't answer the telephone, and when I popped in once I was met by a verandah full of caged parrots and no one at home.

Today I can confirm that there is indeed life at the MLCP. Her name is Betty and she has no teeth, but teeth or no she was very nice and gave me a sheltered camp spot for a princely $20 because, as she said when she saw my bicycle, "You're mad!"

I'm getting ahead of myself.

This morning I was busy loading up my bike in the Finnis General Store car park while the wind howled and tried to blow things away. The morning was slipping away, courtesy of us having to do a complicated shuffle of things back and forth from our storage shed. A tardis would have been helpful.

A lightbulb lit up above Roger's head. "Why don't you ride unloaded? I'll drop your panniers to the shed in Milang. You're camping there anyway, aren't you?"

My goodness he's quite clever isn't he? In no time at all I had dumped everything back into the car and pedalled off into the distance.

In the interests of following the river I took the long way to Milang, via Clayton Bay. The road to Clayton Bay was bothered by a stiff and gusty south westerly which buffeted and tugged depending on the tree cover, and sucked me into the road when trucks went past. Luckily there weren't many trucks.

The lake was out of sight on my right. Vineyards and paddocks of wheat stubble marched past, and farm gate stalls sold honey, eggs, candles, and other stuff which was too heavy for impulse buying.

Winner of today's farm gate/mailbox creativity award.

Clayton Bay's shared path took me through the caravan park which had undergone a considerable face lift since last time I visited. Some things hadn't changed though: grey nomads still put their marriages to the test by relying on each others idiosyncratic hand signals while reverse parking their caravans.

Down beside the lake the picnic shelters were ingeniously designed to block the wind, and I feasted in comfort on lunch time hot-cross buns. When I bought my provisions last night hot-cross buns were on sale for 55c and I couldn't help myself. Now I'm a little tired of hot cross buns and will have to control myself next time I'm in Woolworths.

Looking across to Hindmarsh Island from Clayton Bay. One Mr Rankin ran a ferry here, primarily for the purpose of taking his stock to and from the island. The paddle steamers occasionally accidentally the ferry ropes, causing great excitement on the ferry and no doubt causing some robust conversations between the steamer cptains and Mr Rankin.

The road turned a corner at Clayton Bay and the km to Milang zipped past in no time at all, made longer because I stopped to say hi to a flock of Cape Baron geese, and the odd sheep or two.

I loaded up at the shed and trundled a whole 300m down to the Caravan Park, where I met Betty and her pet macaw who attempted to bite me but was foiled by his cage.

Come closer, human.

Betty yelled at him. He tried to hide.

Out at the lake the wind whipped up waves and flocks of starlings surfed on the gusts. Tucked back near the cliff, only the tiniest zephyr of breeze ruffled my tent. I ate my gourmet Deb potatoes and made friends with the self-appointed Caravan park monitor, who hovered behind me with a cleaning cloth while I washed my dishes at the sink she had just wiped. "People don't usually use the camp kitchen," she said. Maybe the towers of piggy-backed double adaptors put them off. I apologised for using the sink for such filthy purposes as washing dishes, and took myself back to my tent 

It was a good day.

Garland Lily (Calostemma purpureum), a native Australian bulbous plant. And a bonus bee.