Entry 3 – Riverland Region South Australia 20th March to
We continued spending quality time camped at the beautiful setting of Lake Bonney in the South Australian Riverland region. It persisted to tingle all our good senses. With our camp next to the lakes water’s edge we enjoyed overlooking the lake watching the ever-changing water reflections and it’s bird life activities.
Adding to some of Lake Bonney’s different characteristics, one afternoon we were struck by a severe weather storm cell. Black clouds suddenly appeared overhead coinciding with very strong winds sending dust into our caravan open windows. Before we could manage to close all our windows it started to pelt down with rain, wetting us as we were closing our windows from within the confines of our caravan. Once our windows were closed, we rushed outside to reattach our awning poles and tighten all our ropes securing the awning as tight as possible. Meanwhile, sheets of water were running off our roof with the wind blowing these sheets of water into the confines of our awning area. In under ten minutes the wind and rain had disappeared just as quick as it had arrived. Within half an hour the lake surface had returned to a calm with an interesting grey sky with streaks of sunlight breaking through the cloud cover.
There were some strict fruit fly quarantine restrictions in place, more than usual, restricting any movement of fruit & vegetables in this area of the river land. There had been discovery of some fruit fly and the authorities were in the process of eradicating any sighting of fruit fly. We were in the middle of a red zone where the movement of fruit and vegetables was not permitted. We were purchasing only enough fresh food for a few days at a time, as we utilize a flexible travel itinerary, (where to next? How long are we going to stay? Who knows? We certainly don’t!) Thus, when we arrived at Lake Bonney, we purchased some fresh food before setting camp. As we kept extending our stay, we also needed to replenish our pantry. One of those days, we drove the loop around the lake on our way to the town of Barmera located on the edge of Lake Bonney to restock our fresh food items. There were the ever-present grape vines close to the lakes edge, a predominant sight in this region and some market garden crops including a large paddock of water melons.
Occasionally we had thoughts about moving on to explore other locations and then the evening sunsets would arrive, continuing to woo us to stay a little longer.
But wait there was more. Early morning lakeside reflections would keep us captivated for hours with the bonus from the ever-present bird life activity. All of this enchanting lake side activity was viewed from our awning.
During our stay any wind had been coming from an easterly direction onto our off-awning side of the caravan. Our sixth night the wind changed direction coming from the south west blowing directly into our awning area. We woke shrouded in fog, with our lakeside visibility obstructed considerably. Our calm setting was no more, with the velocity of the wind increasing during the morning, making it uncomfortable to be outside. We checked the long-term weather forecast to see the south-westerly winds were predicted for the next several days. We took this as a sign from the weather gods, it was time to move on.
We travelled up the road about 20 kilometres setting camp on the banks of the Murray River near a location named the Overland Corner. It wasn’t as grand a setting as our last week spent on Lake Bonney, though it was still a beautiful river venue. The below picture shows our setting with our caravan on the left of the picture partly covered by trees. Directly opposite on the other side of the river was a pelican on the water with a Herron and a couple of Spoonbill birds feeding on the edge of the bank.
Late afternoon the Spoonbill birds would work their way along the water’s edge searching for tucker and kangaroos would hop down to the water’s edge, feeding on some succulent grass. At one stage we spotted a kingfisher bird, a bird we couldn’t remember ever seeing this far south in Australia.
The rising of the early morning sun lit up the nearby river cliff face providing a beautiful silhouette even if it was only visible for a short time.
The Overland Corner is a 300-hectare reserve managed by the National Trust of South Australia. It was established to protect some special nature and man-made features at this location. The main attraction, a strategically built Hotel in 1858 on the then route between New South Wales and South Australia to cater for the needs of travellers. The Hotel is still in use, publicised as a draw card to attract passing trade. There was also information and signage publicising some extensive walking trails for viewing this area’s special attractions. Sadly, most were closed due to a state of disrepair.
The Overland Corner was starting to get busy with a number of caravans looking for camp locations. Evidently caravan sales have been booming with the covid-19 pandemic cancellation of overseas travels. We decided to move on to the town of Waikerie about 35 kilometres down the road, setting camp a few kilometres out of town at a place named Ramco Point on the edge of the Murray River. We read all the brochures we had obtained from the Waikerie Information Centre and a location called Gluepot Reserve caught our attention. It was owned by Bird-Life Australia, a 54,390 hectares reserve promoted to be a bird watcher’s paradise, located about 60 kilometres north of Waikerie. Some more silo art at Waikerie, we did enjoy viewing the nice murals on both sides of the two Waikerie Silo’s.
Once we headed north to Gluepot Reserve, we thought that might be the last of our travels along the Murray River at this point in time. We have previously toured this area of the Murray River a few times. Of interest for this trip, we experienced stays at 6 new different locations out of 10 stops and there were many other unvisited locations we had bypassed. We continued to immensely enjoy its flora and fauna with its magnificent river red gum trees and bird life, a location we shall never tire of.
Some pictures of our last morning whilst at Ramco Point.
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