We woke up to birdsong and nothing else in Parilla. There
was no life in the town at all! If it wasn’t for the occasional motorist or
truckie having remembered going through it, the town would cease to exist, it
would just vague out into nothingness. To put it bluntly: there was absolutely
NO Sars in Parilla!!
But who am I to criticise a town that almost doesn’t exist
but lays on first class facilities for free? Gift horse, mouth and all that. We
showered lustily, yodelling joyfully as we lathered up. Once dressed and ready
for breakfast we noticed a familiar side-effect first experienced on our Big
Trip of 2012: our free shower was supplied by bore water and we wore this faint
but pervasive parfum-de-bore, a sort
of farty, rotten egg gas odour. Mercifully it was not strong, but every now and
then you would get a whiff and you would bemoan the lack of the pure crystal
waters of Tasmania (sounds like a Boag’s ad!).
We photographed parts of Parilla to help prevent it from
disappearing for good, including the mural depicting the town in 1914, complete
with a Temperance Hotel – the original Pub With No Beer??!! Then we scooted
back to Pinnaroo and took a left turn north along the SA-Vic border to Loxton
on the Murray River. It amazes us time and again how many and varied are the
landscapes which make up this wide brown land. We went through a selection of
them until, approaching Loxton, we broke into lush pasture and orchards, all
benefiting from the water of the Murray.
Loxton was our morning coffee spot and it was a
pleasant-looking town. It is surprising how one can take to the layout of a
country town, or not, as the case may be. In Loxton’s case, the effect was very
positive (at least on us) and we lingered there longer than we should. Then on
to Waikerie which was also pretty and had as its strong point a wonderful
riverside park where we sat down on lush grass and watched the vehicle ferry
cross the Murray to and fro while the boaties dodged it while towing their
biscuits and water skis.
Thus refreshed, we set off again on the southern bank of the
Murray, ignoring the GPS to end up at another 24-hour ferry. We went down a
steep bank and across, and up an even steeper bank on the other side – and the
Ranger didn’t even blink. I reckon I would have sweated purple doing that with
the X-Trail! As we drove off we reflected that we had now crossed and recrossed
the Murray at quite a few points over the years: from Jingelic in the
Australian Alps to Murray Bridge near the mouth, with Albury-Wodonga, Echuca,
Tocumwal, Swan Hill, Mildura and now the ferry near Morgan in between.
Our Murrayside jaunt was to end at Morgan, the town at the
point where the Murray turns south. From there we cut across a 100 kms of arid
land to get to Burra. It was a good road, straight through a pretty bare
landscape. At Burra we headed for the showgrounds which were open but deserted.
Dreading the thought of getting something for nothing (and lacking the security
code to get into the shower….) we rang the number in Camps 6. Yes, they said,
the lady will be around soon. Sure enough, much later, she turned up. Cheerful
duck, took our $15, gave us our code and choofed off in her ute with the 3 dogs
in the back.
We antproofed the van as much as we could, as we
seemed to have more than our fair share on board. Every time the van got really
warm they would be running around the kitchen tops and along the walls. A
reasonably thorough inspection did not reveal any concentration of them and we
thought we might have picked up a number of strays during storage in Beaufort.
I let my OCD run riot with a stabbing finger until Joke declared enough was
enough.
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