Day 557 | Speewa Rd crossing: no trailing "h" down south

95 km | zzOz total: 18,071 km

The world has ended and I’m loving it.

Predicting 36ÂșC for this first post-apocalyptic day but instead of being up early riding with minimal traffic, wind and heat, I’m enjoying the pleasant riverside spontaneous campsite.

It had taken a while for the river camping sites to reveal themselves, Herons Bend was the first, but now I’m really getting into the swing of them.

Later I’m sitting at Boundary Bend having my first steak sanger with the lot in a while, always the lot, $8.95, what it lacks in quality it sure makes up for in quantity, it’s swimming in a sea of chips, I glance out at the petrol pumps, $100.18 for 65.85 litres of Diesel, $122.78 of Premium Unleaded, and, for some unknown reason, a chainsaw perhaps, $6.38 for 4.20 litres of Regular Unleaded.

I’ve managed to unhook myself from car dependency, $122 is close to my living expenses for a week for much of my travels, out here it’s the price of standard travel, for what, maybe 5 hours.

Here today, gone tomorrow.

I guess sometime all too soon people will be astonished at what civilisation and the easy affluence of this country has churned foolishly through.

Behind the pumps, on the other side of the road is the hairpin Boundary Bend, once home to the humungous fish pictured on the Trophy Wall, photos of burly blokes struggling to hold up immense fish, the mighty Murray Cod, now endangered and we can see why with that wall of slaughter, 40, 50 kg fish wrenched in number from the bend over the decades.

These more enlightened days, I guess if you land a monster you just grab a quick snap with your iPhone, give it a quick kiss, that’s the Australian way, and lob it back.