Day 3: Around Lake Albert

Day 3: After freezing all night, I got up early and went for a quick ride before breakfast, trying to get my blood moving thru my body again and it was a good time to check out the bird life around the lake.  The pelicans and cormorants were cleaning themselves before heading out to fish for some tucker, while the New Holland honey-eaters were dashing from one bottlebrush to another.
I decided that I would check out the caravan park to see if there were any spare cabins, but lucked out there.

After breakfast we set out going north again - yep! the wind had changed overnight and it was once again a headwind.  But we only had 20kms to do before we turned left and headed towards Narung with the wind now coming from behind.  Much better!

Heading north to Narung

It was a pleasant day for riding and the kms clicked away under our wheels.  There were salt lakes on one side of the road with wheat (maybe) crops on the other side.  Black and white cows munched around the paddocks while water birds fished in the lakes. 
A lone fisherman - or was it a scarecrow or?? overlooked one of the small lakes where grey teal gathered in large flocks.

The Eternal Fisher

Salt Lakes near Narung

Morning tea was at the Old Station, Poltaloch's that is.  It was for sale - for a couple of cool million $.

Poltaloch's Old Station Homestead

We rode onto the old lighthouse - was it Pt Malcom's - near the Narrow's crossing.  

The Lighthouse

The Lighthouse

From the lighthouse, the view over Lake Alexandrina on the north and Lake Albert on the south, showed how healthy the lakes were looking, full of water again. 

Old turnstile at Lighthouse

We then loaded onto the punt to get to Narung.  

The Punt across The Narrows

Nellie waiting for the Punt

Before lunch, I rode out to Raukkan, the Aboriginal settlement.

Entrance to Raukkan, Aboriginal settlement

Raukkan church

It was a very tidy little village and I stopped at the small shop to stock up for my chocolate habit!  Then back to Narung for lunch.  Bit of a controversy here, as the later riders missed out on their share of the Coorong Mullet feast, but being a vego I wasn't too concerned about that.

Bleak open farmlands

The remainder of the ride was very pleasant, riding through farmlands.  I thought we would be riding through coastal scrub country, but that was a dim distant memory now.  Grain and dairy seem to be flourishing after their hard times during the drought. 

Beautiful banksia

Milk can mail box

Got back into Meningie early in the afternoon and rode back into the township and checked out the motel!  yes!  a room for the night - electric blanket even!!  so I zinked back to the camping ground, dismantled the bivvy and packed up my gear and went back to the motel for a nice hot shower and clean clothes before heading back to the camp site for the evening meal.

To make sure I slept well that night, I raided the bar fridge and downed the quite nice small bottle of red and slept like a log!!

Riding stats for today were:  5:02 hours, 93.5km, 18.5kph avg, 41kph max

Black swans paddling in one of the lakes