Palmer to Murray Bridge (to Avoca Dell)
We reach the Mighty Murray
I awake to a miracle. With the log out of my eye I seem to have made an almost complete recovery and so I can ride today!
We need to back track to Palmer this morning, to complete the ride from there to Murray Bridge. It’s going to be a warm one, with the forecast saying 30 degrees. What the? In April? Imagine doing this in the summer! I feel like everybody here must just hide inside their beautiful stone houses to wait out the heat in summer.
We ride out of Palmer on the road to Murray Bridge, then turn onto a lovely, undulating, red dirt road. With some small efforts to go up, we’re rewarded with fun downhills.
We reach Reedy Creek, where a disused rail bridge remains. It makes for some photo opportunities and a short rest stop before we push on.
Greg is at the wheel today and he goes ahead to find a morning tea stop. When we find him, it is not quite by a billabong under the shade of a coolibah tree, but it’s pretty good – a luxury stop with a table, chairs, and Tim’s sister’s excellent fruit cake. The stop is almost too good, and it’s tempting to stay, but onward we go.
It’s not too long before we get first glimpses of the Murray River. (Sure, we saw the river last night at Avoca Dell, but this story is about cycling, and what we see along the way.) It is far off, then closer, then closer, then we find a spot where we look right out onto the river.
The Ninnes crew also made it to the Murray River.
We gote to Ready Creek Mine and onto the sandy banks of the Murray River. A most fearful road. – From the Thomas Ninnes diaries
Maybe they stayed on the main road (if it existed, and whatever it may have looked like), or maybe they had to pick their way along a sandy track alongside the river. We will never know. They probably didn’t take the the less-travelled gravel our intrepid bunch follows. We encounter fearful head winds for a good chunk of our last kilometres into Murray Bridge, but I latch onto the offered tail of Pat (she on her eBike) and draft as I can. But her eBike powers too fast on the hills for me to keep up!
In Murray Bridge we search in vain for a café for lunch, our group being very hungry after our hot and dusty ride. Sadly, we find no cafés in the main part of town and have to resort to the shopping centre, our bikes stacked inside against a wall, and our tables with a line of sight to the bikes. I hate to be too judgy, but there seemed a few characters around who may have enjoyed a new bike.
We finish the day with a ride across The Murray Bridge, the first bridge to span the Murray River, opened in 1879.
Stats for today:
- Distance: 50.3km
- Climb: 434m
- Average speed: 17km/h
- Average temperature: 33C
- Moving time: 2:57:47
- See our ride on Strava
The beer picture
At the end of a day’s ride, our tradition is to enjoy a beer, and to photograph it for posterity. Today’s beer picture was taken at the Avoca Dell caravan park.
Along the way today:
Click on an image to scroll through the gallery at full size.
