Day 11 Wednesday 21/8/2024 Laura to Murray Bridge, overcast & cool

We pull into the Laura servo to fill up and find ourselves with barely a cm to spare from hitting our water inlet… Phew, that was a tight one.

From here it’s rolling green hills down through Gladstone, Georgetown and Yacka. As we reach the outskirts of Clare, the last paddock is alive with grazing kangaroos. Clare is jumping, handsome stone buildings and upmarket shops. We’re on the Riesling Trail now and just the mention of the name is enough to reminisce over lazy summer lunches paired with luscious Clare Valley rieslings. The towns are all household names Sevenhill, Watervale, Leasingham and more, with vines marching down every slope. Generations of winemaking families. Good Catholic Girl cellar door, keep going!

It seems that every day we are getting phone calls for appointments and my notebook is scrawled with dates and times. Bloody doctors, they won’t leave us alone, but we can be thankful for the breathing space to get way.

We stop for a coffee at Tarlee bakery. It’s only 12 degrees, Crossing the Light River we note that there’s water in it, we are back in the southern climes. With all the romance of wine we’ve left The Clare and now we’re skirting the edge of The Barossa.

Gawler is busy and urban, but we soon scoot out into the hills before dropping steeply to the river flats of the Murray at Murray Bridge. The showgrounds are away from town out on the eastern side of the river and we pay our fee before we realise that they aren’t providing much, no toilets, or showers. One must not assume. They do provide a grumpy caretaker though. Elle gets into trouble with him for parking to the left of the sign and not the right. Who’s right hers or his? Then Woody is told that he can only empty our grey water bucket on the tree behind when it is dark. But I shouldn’t say that there are no toilets as there is a large show pavilion and a long row of locked toilets just beside it.

It’s too cool to sit outside so we have happy hour in Elle’s place and whinge about grumpy caretakers.

Accom: $20.00, Fuel: $80.51, Towing Kms: 267Kms