River Run
Yesterday an old school mate had a trailer load of furniture to move to a shack at Morgan, on the upper River Murray. Being retired I can now do things "because I want to" and not do them "if I don't have to" so I helped. It was just the two of us. Sort of a very small "Route 66" adventure, but with a trailer full of stuff.
The shack's right on the river, the sort of place Ratty, Moley and the rest would have loved (assuming they didn't have to carry furniture upstairs). The lounge looks out over a balcony to the water, although there's a small distance to the river edge.
This part of the river has plenty of water despite our drought, but it has to. Pipelines to other cities start there. The lower river and lakes are an ecological disaster; but up here the traffic's as normal, and the skippers wave and greet landlubbers as they pass.
There's still plenty of bird life around. This is just part of a flock of raucous Sulphur Crested Cockatoos that was circling the area. (A piece of trivia; if you Google for "white cockatoo", among the results is a naturist club of that name. We are interested in the bird, not the club. Although I am sure the club is as good as anywhere else to spot a white cockatoo...)
We grabbed lunch at a bakery in town - always a good thing out in the country! Pasties and buns, eaten by the river. There's a cable ferry (once called a "punt") here. Lower down the river is often too shallow for ferry operations, but above the lock this one is still doing steady business. They have priority on the river, but can activate green flashing beacons to signal other traffic to pass instead of waiting. Unfortunately the ferry just signalled some houseboats through, when an ambulance on a callout came on board.
The wait for the boats to pass so the ambulance could cross was tediously long and, I suspect, one of the forgotten hazards of rural living.
There's a flood marker (in metres) near the ferry. That's my mate next to it for scale ;) and way up the top is the mark for the 1954 floods, over 11m. We haven't worried about floods for the last 8 years :(
This is a shot on the way home, through Eudunda. It's the type of war memorial found in half our country towns, erected after the Great War (WW1, 1914-18).
What's interesting is the area was settled by Germans. The Aussie military has since then had plenty of German names in it. Notwithstanding that, in a fit of rabid patriotism, during WW1 Australia renamed many towns with German names (for example, Blumberg, near Adelaide, became Birdwood). Some have since begun reusing their original names.
The shack's right on the river, the sort of place Ratty, Moley and the rest would have loved (assuming they didn't have to carry furniture upstairs). The lounge looks out over a balcony to the water, although there's a small distance to the river edge.
This part of the river has plenty of water despite our drought, but it has to. Pipelines to other cities start there. The lower river and lakes are an ecological disaster; but up here the traffic's as normal, and the skippers wave and greet landlubbers as they pass.
There's still plenty of bird life around. This is just part of a flock of raucous Sulphur Crested Cockatoos that was circling the area. (A piece of trivia; if you Google for "white cockatoo", among the results is a naturist club of that name. We are interested in the bird, not the club. Although I am sure the club is as good as anywhere else to spot a white cockatoo...)
We grabbed lunch at a bakery in town - always a good thing out in the country! Pasties and buns, eaten by the river. There's a cable ferry (once called a "punt") here. Lower down the river is often too shallow for ferry operations, but above the lock this one is still doing steady business. They have priority on the river, but can activate green flashing beacons to signal other traffic to pass instead of waiting. Unfortunately the ferry just signalled some houseboats through, when an ambulance on a callout came on board.
The wait for the boats to pass so the ambulance could cross was tediously long and, I suspect, one of the forgotten hazards of rural living.
There's a flood marker (in metres) near the ferry. That's my mate next to it for scale ;) and way up the top is the mark for the 1954 floods, over 11m. We haven't worried about floods for the last 8 years :(
This is a shot on the way home, through Eudunda. It's the type of war memorial found in half our country towns, erected after the Great War (WW1, 1914-18).
What's interesting is the area was settled by Germans. The Aussie military has since then had plenty of German names in it. Notwithstanding that, in a fit of rabid patriotism, during WW1 Australia renamed many towns with German names (for example, Blumberg, near Adelaide, became Birdwood). Some have since begun reusing their original names.
posted by DadB | 6:25 PM
|
0 comments
