Heading home on the old mail route, June 29th

We took a longer (and definitely slower) way home.

We took an unplanned break before we had even left, when Ian McLean strolled over to chat while we were packing, and invited us to have a last cuppa with them before we headed out.  After doing our official 'check out' we parked and visited them for a bit over an hour before deciding we really had better be on our way.

Trevor had noticed the Old Mail Route, which travels just south of the Murray from Merbein to almost Renmark,  on the map we had.   It was just a dotted line, so it took a bit of guessing to find the start of it at Merbein West, and then a little ignoring of station signs to stay on it.  We believe that it is a public road, but some of the "Private Property" signs note that it is OK to come through if you are on the road, and others don't.  I guess they just assume that those using it will know...

The road is a dirt road and is of varying condition.  Even though we had had a few days now without rain, it was holding a lot of water in places, and gets really muddy when wet, so there are lots of side tracks to avoid the sticky holes and chances of getting bogged.

Thanks to National Parks for these two maps lifted from their Parks info 

The lovely thing is that there are numerous access spots to the river along here, (including the ones to Locks 9-7).  Not so many people seem to brave the road, and after they do that, they still need to brave the river tracks, which also get sticky and boggy.

National Parks have done a great job of signing "river access" to point people to the good access points (great for camping), which seems to stop tracks from being formed everywhere.  Mind you , we had plenty of times when we followed tracks and really had no idea where we were.

In the Mucra Island/ Lindsay Island area we had to cross a number of ditches which would have water in them in the wet tines (we guess that is why it is called an island), as well as a couple of bridges over larger areas which did have water in them (and reasonable amounts of it).

Our lunch time spot

one of the river tracks

an ideal campsite (called "The Caravan")

When we finally exited form the old mail route, we came to fruit trees growing in orchards and soon after that a factory.  Large piles of brown substance were accumulating near the processing area and we wondered what it was.  A little further down the road we took a little side track and doubled back to investigate.  It appears that the local almond (Lindsay Point Almond Development)  growers pile up their discards in heaps with dirt, pruings and rubble and it turns into compost over time??

We tasted a couple of the almonds and they seemed pretty good. 

We took a turn into Renmark to check out our booked airbnb for the stay in September/October for the champs before taking the Sturt Highway to Barmera, picking up the Advertiser (for the cryptic crossword) and taking in a snack by the side of the lake.  I reminisced about sailing there as a teenager, while we shared a chocolate donut and a noisy miner bird attacked his reflection in our car.

We took in a drive up the eastern side of Lake Bonney (stopping to find a quick cache at the old Lake Bonney hotel which is at the northern end of the lake)  and then along the northern side of the Murray, until we crossed the river via the ferry at Waikerie. After a quick memory drive around town (past my old homes and school etc) we hit the Sturt highway again and made tracks for home.

We had realised that we only had one headlight working and dusk was fast approaching.  Then the rain started along with a strong wind.  It wasn't the best drive home with the kayak on top catching the wind to make it more fun and a road train swaying crazily in front of us, also struggling towing three trailers with a side wind.  We worked on the crossword until it was too dark to see the clues, and then gave up.  We were happy to arrive home in one piece.

Total distance for this trip: 1646km