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Published: October 2nd 2019
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Murraytown Hotel
Must obey the "Blue Stop Sign"! So we finally left this picturesque forest hideaway of much tranquillity, and rode to Wirrabara General Store to replenish our food supplies. Walking into the store on the well worn wooden floorboards, it was good to see that the Ole Gen. Stores still exist. Complete with the distinguished kind old grey haired man, that seemed part of the furniture, It was like a visit to the pioneer days, everything and I mean everything was hanging from the wall, the rafters, even the kind old man was on full display and for the right price was probably for sale. We filled our food panniers and set off for Murraytown with a welcome tail wind pushing us along under the autumn sun. An easy 15 klicks found us having morning tea at the Murraytown Rest Area, yep more herb tea and yummy cake from the general store. Looking at the sun, I kinda guessed it was right on Beer O'clock, like the Wirrabara General store, the North Star Hotel in Murraytown, was from a bygone era, it sits under the back drop of Mount Remarkable. We hitched our bikes to the railings outside the hotel, where horses and carts would have done pretty
much the same in the good ole days, I'm not so sure they were that good. But hey anyway we downed a few coldies over a few games of pool. My Aunt Margaret and Uncle Roy knew our planned route and asked me if I could do a nice favour for them. Several years ago on their journey in their caravan across the Nullarbor to the East coast, their beloved moggie went missing around Wilmington not far from where we are now. The obligatory notice in the local shops with photo of said moggie and contact number drew the attention of some locals who found Kitty and phoned their home contact number. Delighted to be reunited with pussy they drove to nearby Morchard to pickup their stray cat. Unfortunately Mr and Mrs. Foulis were not home at the time, but a farmhand handed over the runaway. The favour in question was to visit Mr and Mrs. Foulis, to thank them for their kitty kindness all those years ago
So Colin and I were on a mission, we set off with a nice tail wind on a hard dirt picturesque road for 26ks. The flat road was so good for
riding, I hit 48ks in top gear. We soon arrived in Morchard where we consulted the local publican for directions over a few welcome coldies. Today was just one of those "It's great to be alive days", warm 25 degrees tailwind, every cycle touros dream day. !0 ks' out of town we saw the Foulis name on their RMB and rode up the long driveway to the farmhouse. A knock on the door, an Aussie Cooee, Anybody home? All this way and there is no body bloody home. Soon after, a quad bike turned up with probably same said farmhand. Can I help you gentlemen"" he enquired. So we told him the story, "Yes I remember Roy and Margaret and their cat, I am so sorry but Mr and Mrs. Foulis have gone to Port Pirie for some shopping". Talk about 'Groundhog day' You gents rode from
where to thank them?, Yes we left Lilydale 37 days ago. He kindly filled our water bottles with precious tank water and wished us well for our ride.
After Morchard we had pretty much a straight road, just cruisin' down the road, warm sun on our bare backs, welcome tail wind once
again. We rode past some old chimney stacks belonging to what was once a grand old homestead. Solitary sentinels standing in open grasslands are all that is left of what was once a family home in a far distant memory. Casting our minds further back into the long history of the indigenous peoples, we imagined these wold have been happy hunting grounds for thousands of generations, all gone now for indigenous and white settler. We soon arrived in Wilmington, 294 ks north of Adelaide. Looking west over grassy hills we could see the range leading up to Horrocks Pass in the distance, figuring the end to the flatlands and that we now have some climbing ahead of us, something we havn't tackled for quite some time. We embraced the sense that now we were now entering the beginning of the desolate, complete with all of its rugged remote beauty. Something that we had much anticipated since leaving home. It had taken us over 1,500 kilometres to get to the beginning of the sense of the awe inspiring magnitude of the outback and this was only the tip of the long journey waiting ahead of us over these imminent ranges. We
found a grassy roadside campsite, where we set up for the night. It was similar to our first grassy campsite in the You Yangs on day 1. We even settled in for a jam with our wooden music things over a small cooking fire. As night fell over the impending range we turned in, after a good day of riding with the tailwind we covered 112 ks today, our longest dayride since the Coorong.
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