17/04/26 Lake Victoria to Fort Courage

 

My little morning friend.

Sunrise, Lake Victoria.

I met Dave when he walked along the levee bank past the lookout as I was packing up my hobo camp and boiling water for breakfast to placate my complaining stomach. Dave had been coming to Lake Victoria from Stawell since he was 15 years old. He and his mates Craig and Tony still came once a year to catch fish, build camp fires, and practice their bush cooking skills. They were camped down by the outlet near the toilets and showers, and Dave raved about the showers which were a new addition to the campground. "The toilets are all cordoned off," he said. "But they work perfectly. We've been using them." I guess I'll add user-of-closed-public-toilets to my growing list of lawlessness then.

Five minutes later Tony shouted up from his camp and offered me a cup of coffee. I was down there quicker than you could say "Kettle's boiling!" I even brought my own cup. And while I was there the fishing gang made bacon and eggs on toast and let me charge my phone off their generator. "Do you want some drinking water?" asked Dave. They had one 20 litre container for the three of them for a week.

"I don't want to run you dry," I protested.

"Ah no worries!" Tony was quite relaxed about the whole thing. "Most of the water we drink has hops in it." He thought about it for a minute. "Except for Dave. Dave's partial to grape juice." They offered me some hops water and grape juice but it was way too early in the day for that.

I waved goodbye to my fisher friends from the Lake Victoria Outlet viewing point as I rolled out of town. I'm sure there was more to Lake Victoria than what I saw, but I wanted to get a start on nursing my busted rack toward Mildura where the bike was already booked in for a service. Navigation was easy: follow Rufus River Road all day long.

Although it was in NSW Lake Victoria was managed by SA water. It is a major water storage reservoir, supplying water to multiple towns and communities in the riverland, as well as contributing to conservation and management of water flows in the Murray.

My fisher mates settling in for a solid day of fishing.

It was a blessedly uneventful day. Rufus Road continued its benign and sandless way across floodplains of saltbush while the sun hid coyly behind clouds and a crisp little breeze kept me cool.

Back in big sky country.

The bonus sealed road ended 6km outside Lake Victoria.

While it looked empty, the country teemed with life. Rain had washed the sand with a million shades of green, blue, and grey vegetation. On close inspection tiny flowers bloomed and hundreds of little butterflies carried out important butterfly business at ankle level. Unseen birds sang and chattered in every bush.

Saltbush blue butterfly, one of Australia's smallest butterflies, on a Potato Weed (common heliotrope)

Desert glasswort.

Pop saltbush.

The river lurked off in the distance but Frenchman's Creek kept popping up to say hello. I snubbed Locks 7 and 8 on the basis that it was too far, too bumpy, and too boring (gantry side) to visit them, but I dropped in to Scaddings Bridge which was where I would have camped in a parallel life where bolts didn't shear off and locks were worth visiting.

The tree trunks in Frenchman's Creek bore testament to varying river levels, in part due to controlled flows from Lake Victoria.

At one point the locals had set up a road block, and we had a brief stand-off before I beat them back and made my way through.  

At the end of the day Rufus Road turned hard right and donned some bitumen and in no time at all I was rolling into the Fort Courage Caravan Park which was a little oasis chock-a-block full of the happiest, friendliest, come-join-us-it's-happy-hour-est grey nomads and fishers that I had ever had the pleasure of meeting.

There were jigsaw puzzles and a reading library, a commercial kitchen and lots of comfortable chairs, pristine ablutions blocks and a little floating pontoon where one could take one's morning coffee while watching pelicans. 

This is the spot.

My caravan neighbour quite astutely observed that I was riding a bicycle and sang the praises of my achievements to everyone who walked past. It was all quite flattering and I had to be careful lest my head swelled so much that I couldn't get out the door.

Home for a couple of nights: Fort Courage Caravan Park.

I think I'll stay here an extra day.