Wellington to Murray Bridge via Tailem Bend.

I had breakfast overlooking the Wellington ferry.

The river at Wellington ran 25 m deep and barely 1m above sea level. I planned to catch the ferry over the river and ride the busy road to Tailem Bend, because the busy road followed the high side of the river with great views. I changed my mind at the sight of morning rush hour: at least 20 utes, trucks, commuters and mums doing the school run, all lined up for the frazzled little ferry as it shunted them, up to eight at a time if they were all little, across the river.

I followed Jervois road out of Wellington. Jervois sat across the river from Tailem Bend, suffering from forgotten little sibling syndrome. The road hugged the bottom of the river escarpment. To my left old stone farmhouses looked out over the floodplain to the levee bank and the cliffs on the far side of the river. 

Irrigation channels laced the floodplain: fat cattle munched their way through shockingly green grass and flocks of black swans foraged in the shallows.  

I said hello to wee dairy calves, and a portly black steer said hello to me when I stopped beside his yard to put on my fly net.

Can I borrow your fly net?

I pedalled past dairies and small industries centred around whole and healthy food, past enough roadside stalls selling eggs for $5/dozen that I was conveinced everyone in Jervois was a clandestine chicken farmer. Eventually I turned right and rode through corridoors of rustling reeds to the ferry. 

The ferry was crowded.

If Jervois was quaint and countrified, Tailem Bend was all fuss and bother, from the moment I wheeled off the ferry under trees festooned with corellas and cockatoos to the ride along the service road to the lookout while semi trailers roared past on the highway. And to think I'd planned to ride that way, goodness me that would have been a terrible choice.

I had iced coffee and vanilla slice on the deck behind the OTR, looking out over the river while a murder of crows shouted at each other in the treetops,

and then I caught the ferry back across the river for more riding beside dairy farms and hay paddocks. And a little bit of cross-training when it came time to leave the flood plain behind, but we won't talk about that.

Leaving the floodplain behind, about to play with the trucks.

Unfortunately good things don't last forever and eventually I was spat out onto busier roads and there were lots of trucks and it was scary. I thought I was clever and took a detour to avoid the interchange, but the detour turned out to be 5 extra km with more trucks and less shoulder which suggested I wasn't as clever as I thought I was.

Eventually the scary trucks went away and I set up camp in the vastly overpriced Murray Bridge Big 4 Marina Caravan Park where there was a jumping pillow should I have wished to use it. The park fronted onto the river and boasted floating cabins for hire along with a little marina of permanent houseboats. It all looked very cosy from my tent on the hill, squeezed in with caravans and exposed to sun and wind. 

Home for two nights,Murray Bridge Marina Caravan Park.

Floating cabins at the caravan park Marina.

The caravan people were all very nice mind you: I met Brian and Julie who loaned me a hammer to bash in my tent pegs; Howard who at 94 still went caravanning every year and quietly grieved his wife who died 7 years ago; and Barry who told me hair raising stories of having his mountain bike stolen from its position locked onto his caravan. He was gratifyingly amazed by the thought of carrying one's entire camping needs on a bicycle and fascinated by my crank tank to the point that I was rather thankful when his wife called him in to dinner.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to put another lock on my bicycle before I go to bed for the night, least soomeone do a Barry on it while I'm sleeping. At least if someone steals my crank tank I'll know where to look.