11 Jan 2024
Today was far more interesting than yesterday! I started the day by getting to the Red Cliffs lookout, but there are lots of trees pretty close to the fence so I couldn't see that much actually. I thought the big bend lookout in South Australia was far more impressive, but I actually am very far away from it right now.
From there I turned onto the dirt tracks along the Murray River which were really nice, and I could see a lot of the river. I quickly came across some sandy points, but it was hard to see where they were so I fell off on the first one because of not unclipping in time. Luckily the sandy surface didn’t cause any damage to me. Since I had already decided if I fell again I would take the cleats off for the rest of my trip, I sat down and set about doing that. I couldn't find my swiss army knife to help me dig the dirt out of the bolts to fit the allen key in, so I had to try to do that with some sticks, a smaller allen key, and a cable tie. I got there eventually. I later found my swiss army knife in the bottom of one of my panniers, so if I had been bothered to look for them maybe it would have actually taken me a lot less time to sort out my shoes. It was a bit of an extended process. When I stood up I had some bindis stuck to my bag and my clothes, so I now had it in the back of my mind that I might get a puncture at some point today.
My verdict now is that cleats are a bad idea for bikepacking, I think I'll just use them in Melbourne. Maybe if you're sure all the surfaces will be good quality they would still be good, or maybe I just need to get better at using them! Maybe within a year I’ll be less clumsy with them and can try them bikepacking again, but for now I will be setting them aside.
I then had a section where all the roads kept saying they led onto private property, so I ended up on a gravel road that went a bit more inland, and eventually I had to find a new route on google maps. I got halfway down that route and it also led onto a private property, but there were some dirt tracks going left and right, so I took one that was going south east, which is the direction I'm heading.
The track was pretty sandy so a bit of a challenge to ride, but I felt way more confident without my cleats and actually managed to ride a fair bit of it, but still had to walk some. I started hearing gunshots again and at one point got to a fence that made me question whether I was actually on a public track/road or not. Eventually I finally got to the river again for another bit of a nice ride.
In the early afternoon it was over 30 degrees and I was close to Nangiloc. Looking on google maps, I was surprised to see a caravan park and general store with a pub attached to it! Though the caravan park was pretty cheap, I decided I wanted to spend my rest day on the Murray and I wouldn’t be bothered leaving the caravan park if I stayed there, so I thought I’d stop at the pub and rest inside before finding the closest nice campsite to finish for the day. Since today was slower than I thought and I covered less distance, the food I had might not cover the whole section to swan hill anymore. So I got a proper meal (parma) and I stayed for a bit longer too to bask in the air conditioning.
The police bend campground turnoff is about 100m down the road from the pub and it's really nice! There’s just not really anywhere to cover yourself if you need to pee so I had to walk a bit down the track each time which was a bit annoying. There is a pretty nice public toilet one the main road next to the turnoff onto the track, but the track to the camp is around 2.5km long so not convenient for a quick leak haha.
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