Day 562 | Edward River Bridge: it's National Park now
76 km | zzOz total: 18,352 km
Swan Hill, well, actually Murrabit, to Echuca via that marvellous River Track is going to be a major highlight of the Murray: a just right dirt track, quite smooth, mostly, close to the river enough to really get the feel of it, unlimited free campsites, big River Red Gums, little traffic, what more could your average bike tourer ask for.
The weather’s been spot on, warm days, warmish nights, cool starts, terrific sunrises, bird songs, not much in the way of insect life, it’s all been good.
Sadly around Torumbarry Weir the joy cranks down an octave, the V8s on the river compete with the jet skis for the most intrusive noise and large numbers of other humans are intent on making the most of their holiday fun. And today I had to take to the Murray Valley Highway for the roll into Echuca, plenty of traffic despite the early hour, no sealed shoulder but my mirror has been patched up, Gaffered, to maintain vision of my imminent obliteration, I demounted the tarmac a couple of times to avoid joining the abundant road kill.
Echuca is a major tourist location, only about 200 km from four million souls in Melbourne, that’s via the direct route, not my circumlocutory ramblings, it’ll be another month before I put in an appearance there. There’s the massive wharf, unbelievably inundated during the biggest floods, and it’s, apparently, the world’s largest concentration of paddle steamers, a few were tooting their whistles, slowly flagellating their way upstream.
But I’ve been here numerous times before, accompanied by one wild and dangerous woman or other, and except for sucking up some electrons for a while and stocking up on supplies I was outta there.
Previously I’d biked the narrow Cobb Highway, not today, there’s far too much traffic, and instead I take the dirt road adjacent to the railway line, a perfect surface, better than any road, no traffic, the only issue is that it shoots 30 km or so in a straight line, one kink, I just have my head down, sunlight beaming onto golden fields.
Makes a lot of sense to take the path less travelled.