Cadell to Barmera

Cadell to Bamera = 85km 

Cummulative totals = 7796km and 27,797km

Lake Bonney Discovery Park = $19.80 unpowered (with TT discount)

It was a chully morning this morning and it was great to have the table and shelter for brekky.  We left at the usual time of 8am however we did get lost getting out of Cadell - now this is a tiny town of a population of about 3 people so how we got lost getting out of this town I don't know!  Lets just say we took the long way to get to the road that takes us to Waikerie.

Finally on this road and we have ridden along it before and you would have thought we would have learnt our lesson as it is a shocker of a road especially 10km before Waikerei - very patchy and full of filled in pot holes. Despite the state of the road the scenery is nice - nothing but vineyards and orange farms ... there are still oranges on the trees but most have been picked ...

 At Waikerie we had a cuppa alongside the Murry river and when we went to leave I discovered that I had a puncture in the rear tyre so we had to unload my bike and change the tyre, so that put us back about 30mins.

To get out of Waikerie there is a climb up through town and it is quite steep but the legs coped okay!  We did get a great view of the river ...

 We linked up to the Sturt Highway which again we have ridden and I remember this is an awful highway to ride and today with the strong southerly winds it was absolutely horrendous.  The traffic was heavy especially with trucks and coupled with the wind coming across on our right we copped the back drafts of trucks going both ways and we constantly had to keep the bikes under control.  Also we had to ride in the shoulder and that was as rough as riding on an unsealed road ... it was a real bone rattler!  We had to ride on this highway for 45km to Barmera, so we broke it into 3 x 15km lots. After our first stop we realised that we were on the old road that was the highway so we decided to continue riding on this road for about 200m it was like having our own highway - you can see the main highway on the left of us ...
 In the shoulder we found this pouch there and we thought that it might be a camera but it wasn't is was a self breathaliser which is completely useless to us so we threw it away but did rescue the 2 AA batteries from it!
So we had looked at our tourist map that we have as we don't have a proper road map with us (they are at home!) and saw that the road into Kingston on Murray continued on to the Sturt highway so we decided to take a detour to get of the highway only to find that the road doesn't connect to the highway at all and being in South Australia (who are a bit like Queensland - idiots!) they hadn't indicated at the start of the road that it was a no through road (they did at the end of the road when you couldn't go any further - yeah good one!) so we had to back track about 2km and up the hill to rejoin the highway.
So back on the highway we are both tired and worn out and all I can hear from behind me is alot of sighing and cursing ... me I just kept on peddling letting Neil have his little moments as it is very rare for Neil to have a 'moment' usually it is me!

12km to Barmera and we get there on 3pm and worked out that we have done about an extra 8km today ... fortunately the campground is at the west end of town and it is a nice park, great now as there is no one around but come the summer and holidays this is a park to avoid!  It sits on Lake Bonney and has its own beach front.  Here is Kouta enjoying the view and we were rewarded with a lovely sunset ...

tomorrow we head to a small town called Paruna which is south of us.  We have decided not to rejoin the Sturt Highway and go to Mildura but instead head south to Pinnaroo and then turn east and head in the Ouyen direction - we have done this highway before and it is a much more pleasant highway to ride rather than the Sturt highway!