Friday, March 7, 2014

Another short day of riding, not because we are lazy, but because we have to judge our distances between camp sites carefully.  The next campsite after Meningie is another 50 kms down the road.  I never thought that I would say that 100 kms was too far to cycle, but 100 kms is too far for one day on a loaded touring bike with the wind against us.

I made a slight error when deciding to cycle from Adelaide to Brisbane, we are cycling against the prevailing winds.  That is similar to cycling from Halifax to Vancouver instead of Vancouver to Halifax with the prevailing winds or John O’Groats to Lands End instead of the other way around.  Prevailing winds make life a lot easier, especially on a bike.  The wind was not a full-on headwind, but it was constant at about 20 to 30 kms.  Ralf and I took our turn at the front as we usually do when it is windy.

We left Wellington at 9:00 am on the ferry crossing the Mighty River Murray.  A ferry has been offering travellers continuous ferry passage over the Mighty River Murray for about 170 years.  The 3 minute ride is free and runs 24/7 every day except Christmas Day.

It is amazing what the ferry can carry, on our crossing it had 6 cars, a transport and 2 bicycles. On the return one gravel hauler and a couple of cars.

The first 20 kms the road was long and straight, a couple of slight curves in it but basically very long and very straight.  At 25 kms we went up a hill!, well a bump in the road really.  Then it was back to long and straight.  At 35 kms we had a couple more undulations, then back to being long and straight.

Can you spot the change in scenery!

The road was so straight that when it had a dip in the road there was a warning sign for the dip!

Meningie is another small coastal town.  It has a lovely waterfront on Lake Albert.

The folk lore about this Ostrich is about an Irishman who held up travellers and stole their jewellery, he liked to wear the jewellery.  He was only a small man and was able to get away from the police on the ostrich, because it could go across the sand dunes a lot easier than the horses.

Tomorrow we will be heading down the Princes Highway with the Southern Ocean to our right.  This is called the Limestone Coast.  It should be a nice ride.