Last night proved very stormy indeed, the tent was rattled and rolled and even got a bit wet but winds gusting to 60+ km/h do that. By the time we got up it had all calmed a little and the sun was showing it’s face, once packed we followed the B37 out of Goolwa. This was quite busy with general traffic (and a few school buses as you can imagine a number of students must live long distances from the school).

We stuck on this for 8 km then turned off towards Milang. The road traffic vanished, now almost non-existent, we dropped down to a flood road, it was now only around 20 cm deep so we cycled through it. There were several kilometres of vineyards all looking very bare, some were still being pruned as well. When you prune a vine first it is roughly done using a specialised tractor then a person (often on a student working visa) hand finishes it.

Talking to the vineyard owner who happened to drive his tractor past, he reckoned the water was 1 m deep over the road on the next flooded road. When we got there the level had dropped considerably and was now 25 cm deep, as was the final one of the day.

Crossing the receding flood

The fields returned to “normal” farmland for quite a way now between here and Milang.

Milang is a very small township with a mini mart, a bakery and gas station. It is on the shore of Lake Alexandrina, the Murray River empties into this and in turn becomes The Coorong we will cycle along this in a few days. Pausing in the park (every township seems to have a lovely well looked after park, all with a memorial to those lost in the great wars) we had our snack break.

On from Milang the road became totally flat, the lake margins on our right brimming with bird life. This is the first open fresh water of any size we have seen in Australia.

Then the nice bitumen road stopped and we cycled on a gravel road for the first time in quite a while, this time it did prove to be a good experience, very easy riding.

For the final section the gravel road turned on to the B45 (a bitumen road) which we followed all the way to Wellington. Again flat, very little traffic and the wind behind us.

After 77 km of very nice riding we booked into Wellington Caravan Park, for $24 We had a grassy site next to the showers and toilets plus it was very well sheltered. More information on Wellington click here.

Wellington has the privilege of sitting on the bank of the Murray River where a small cable driven ferry takes cars and smaller lorries across to the other side, it is a state run service so is free. We will be catching this tomorrow.

The wind today, even though it was strong was in our backs for most of the journey making fora most enjoyable days cycle.