Julie and I were supposed to be hiking the 5,000km Continental Divide Trail in the US in 2020, but COVID-19 derailed that plan. Instead, we will have an adventure in Australia, circumnavigating the country on our bikes, a distance of about 16,500km taking approximately five and a half months. We will use minor roads where possible and occasionally catch ferries across rivers and inlets to avoid busier inland routes. We will camp some of the time and stay in motels, hotels, etc, at others. There will be stretches of up to five days with no accommodation or resupply available, so we will need to be self-sufficient.

Round Australia Bike Ride - Day 112 - Pinnaroo to Renmark

Day:  112

Date:  Wednesday, 21 October 2020

Start:  Pinnaroo

Finish:  Renmark

Daily Kilometres:  146 (click for Julie's Strava and photos)

Total Kilometres:  11761

Weather:  Cold early, then mostly sunny and mild with occasional spits of rain

Accommodation:  Motel

Nutrition:

  Breakfast:  Egg & lettuce sandwiches

  Lunch:  Chicken schnitzel & mayo sandwiches

  Dinner:  Fish & chips/Hamburger & chips, ice cream

Aches:  Nothing significant

Highlight:  None really.

Lowlight:  None really.

Pictures: Click here

Map and Position: Click here for Google Map

Journal:

We left our motel around 6:30am on a cold and sunny morning and made a short  detour through the centre of Pinnaroo to have a look around.  Our impressions were that it was a well-kept little town and that large scale agriculture was the main local industry as there were huge machines in sales yards and repair shops.  This was confirmed as we headed north and saw vast crop fields stretching as far as the eye could see on low hills on both sides of the road.

Further along, there were fewer fields and we saw more and sandy and hilly woodlands.  Some of the latter were in conservation areas but, to my uneducated eye, it was hard to determine why there were crops in one place and arid woodland in others when the topology seemed to be the same.  Maybe fertiliser explains it, or perhaps land-clearing regulations.

We rode the first 70km without a break to the tiny hamlet of Browns Well, where there was a tiny picnic area/campground, a few shuttered old buildings, a few houses, and not much else.  Seventy kilometres without a break is a bit longer than we usually like to go for our first leg of the day, but if we have the option of a picnic table and/or toilet block we'll usually ride a bit further (or shorter) to take advantage of that.  And, even though it was further than we would have liked, it's always nice to have put a big dent in the day's mileage by breakfast time.

From Browns Well the country continued to be a mix of crops and sandy hilly woodland until we got closer to Loxton where we started to see orchards and vineyards.   There was a long stretch of roadworks on this section and we got to know another traffic controller.  We also had the driver of an eighteen-wheeler pull his rig over to the side of the road in front of us and wave us down for a friendly chat about where we were riding.

In Loxton, another well-kept town, with 104km done for the day, we stopped for a snack in a park and then followed the out-of-sight Murray River eastwards for 20km through irrigated orchards and vineyards to another sizeable town, Berri, where we crossed the Murray and found a service station and some sandwiches for lunch.  From there, we had an easy 18km to the regional town of Renmark and our booked motel.  On the way into town, along an attractive tree-lined avenue, Julie commented on how many roses were blooming in the beautiful gardens of houses, and we later found out that this is the Renmark Rose Festival Week.

We checked in around 3pm, and did the usual showers, shopping and relaxing before walking down to the town centre to buy take-out for dinner (no microwave in our motel room).  We took the opportunity to have a look at the attractive riverside on the way, and then ate our food back at the motel.

By

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)