But of course that left two crossings to make on the original route inside South Australia - the Lyrup Ferry and the Paringa Bridge.
After that excellent sunset in Lyrup on Sunday night I stayed an extra couple of days to catch my breath and write up the previous post, which took about a two days.
With a heatwave forecast, I packed up on Wed morning (31 Oct) and headed down to the ferry landing.
Enjoyed my final South Australian ferry ride (for this trip)
And headed off to Renmark. I had booked a motel so I could escape the heat (yeah yeah weak Steve, but I didn't really fancy camping in 40ยบ heat with no escape route). I had a couple of hours to kill before I could check in, so I did my laundry, then got a pie'n'coffee, then went for a stroll down to the river. Renmark is another spacious green and pleasant tidy town.
Stalling tactics having done their job, I checked in, had a shower (!!!) and sloped along to the plain but clean and honest restaurant attached to the plain but clean and honest pub, where I indulged in a t-bone. Very nice change from Steve's hash.
Up next morning and down to the Paringa Bridge - my last crossing in South Australia. The bridge has a road lane on each side, and a pedestrian lane through the middle of the structural frame (I'm guessing that at one stage there could have been a rail lane across the middle of the bridge. Upon checking, Wikipedia says that was the case so it must be true.)
Just before 9:30am this gentleman turned up and checked out the traffic on the Renmark side ...
... and the Parings side ...
Then, almost silently, the middle section of the bridge elevated by about 5 metres (have a look at those massive concrete counterweights!)
Then a houseboat passed under the bridge (it is travelling from right to left)
and another, about 500m behind
Then the span began to un-elevate
And before long, traffic was back to normal (I think the cyclist is riding through the middle pedestrian lane, rather than in front of that truck and about to be one dimension less)
And apart from a couple of days escaping the heat, that was the End of the Beginning of my trip Stitching up The Murray. The next part of the trip will be the Beginning of the End, in which I venture into Victoria then alternate between NSW and Victoria as I zig-zag across the river border between the two states, working my way upstream towards Albury.
