We finished up at Lock Nine on the Murray River at a bush camp of CMCA Highway Wanderers all heading for the rally at Berri.
On the advice of the lady in the Red Cliffs Centre, we decided to travel west along the secondary road which passes through such places as Thurla, Benetook, Pirtla, Merrinee, Karawinna,and Werimull.
The road is straight, sealed, free of traffic and altogether a pleasure to drive on. .
The places with these evocative names are something else. Each one is simply a crossroads with a wheat silo - no shops, no pubs and no houses. That is until you reach Werimull.
Werimull is a thriving rural centre with a post office, a police station, a pub, a shop and four houses including the two presently being built.
Clearly this road which leads to nowhere has been built to allow the transport of the wheat which is grown here.
The country around here is mallee scrub, red dirt plains with mallee gums characterised by their many trunks springing from a common root. This is tough country with low rainfall and poor soil. It is probably looking its best now because of the unusual rainfall this last winter and spring. The farms have been wrenched from the mallee scrub by enormous amounts of hard work clearing trees and pulling mallee roots. The paddocks are large and show every sign of considerable investment in soil improvement. One can only be impressed by the fortitude of anyone who would try to make a living by farming here. .
We finished up at Lock Nine on the Murray River at a bush camp of CMCA Highway Wanderers all heading for the rally at Berri.
We were warmly welcomed by the President and totally included in the group.
Because we were all going into South Australia and there is a manned quarantine check point for fruit and vegetables on the border, it was decided that all the vegetables in all our motorhomes would be cooked in dutch ovens in the campfire. The resulting soup, or stew, is what the "chunky soup you have to eat with a fork" in the TV ads pretends to be. It was truly delicious.
Conversation around the camp fire covered every possible subject and went on until a late hour.
Our first social bush camp was really enjoyable.