While Not Working

Morning plovers at Lake Bonney. I was worried about navigating the bridge where the Sturt Highway crossed the Murray a few kms from town. Putting off the moment, I wandered up the main street of Barmera on the way out of town. Barmera had all the shops a lakeside play town needed, plus a surprising art installation or two and a beautiful art deco movie theatre that was now a gallery. As it turned out the Sturt Highway was easily avoided. I trundled down narrow roads cloistered with grape vines, along tracks of bright red hard-packed sand, and found myself at Cobdogla where all sorts of attractions waited to be discovered. From Cobdogla a little gravel road escorted me along the Kaiser Spit, part of the Cobdogla game reserve. Sweet little waterside camp grounds came and went, each with their own fire pit. Birds sang and burbled in the trees and every so often a fisherman puttered by in a businesslike tinnie. I'd reached a quiet corner of the Murray, all wetlands and lagoons, submerg...