Water Water Everywhere

So the day came to leave my friends in Adelaide and continue east. Many thanks to the Brennan's for their fabulous hospitality as always.

My last post had me at the dilemma of how to tackle the floods of NSW and whether or not I'd be able to make it through, so I set off knowing that water would be an issue for this leg of the journey.

I didn't however expect it to impact my journey in the 1st kilometre of travel.

The very first major intersection on my planned journey was closed due to a burst water main. I has hoping this wasn't a sign of things to come.

I was soon heading out of Adelaide and into the Adelaide hills, with some nice bends and hills, but unfortunately little in the way of road options, so the major highway it was, at least for a while.

I soon reach the point where I could make a run for the country and I found a nice road with mallee woodlands along the sides of a road with a designer that understood that fun does not travel in straight lines, so unlike many country roads in flat terrain, it did not stretch for mile after mile of arrow straight tar, but rather had some beautiful sweeping bends every kilometre or so.

I was really enjoying this road and before I knew it I was crossing the border into Victoria. It this point I was testing the accuracy of the Tiger's computer, in particular its ability to calculate how much fuel I had left and how fast I was using it. I was also testing my nerve as to how close I was willing to cut it, as not every little town had fuel, and I didn't know which would be my last for a while.

I gave the beast a little faith and pushed through to Ouyen, arriving with 4km to spare according to gold and black guru, and squeezing 19.4 litres into a 20L tank, I would have to say it performed its job nicely. A range of 380km while not being overly conservative on the throttle seemed like a pretty good deal. I felt confident knowing that I could be a bit more gentle on the revs and manage 400km on a tank comfortably. It's always good to know that you can stretch the legs between stops if you need to, as the more remote back roads I prefer don't always have regular fuel stops.

After Ouyen I was soon it Piangil and crossing the Murray River into New South Wales, my third state for the day and it was still morning. Despite the heavy flooding across central NSW and also coming down the Darling river from the north, the flows had not got too significant at this point yet, and wasn't forecast to reach flood levels this far downstream.

The road to Hay however was closed, so all traffic was diverted east to Deniliquin. This was fine with me as I was heading that way anyhow, but did increase my chances of encountering more traffic, particularly vehicles of the many wheeled variety. (Link goes to you tube video of a song by Hunters and Collectors).

I turned the corner on to the quiet back road I'd been anticipating all day, the kind just wide enough for a couple of cars, and grass right to the edge of the tar, it was just what I was after, well maybe I'd envisioned more trees. Sure enough, no sooner had taken the corner and two B Doubles (box and a half road trains) came hauling through. I had a few more to dodge, one who was really pushing too hard for such a narrow road, but at least with flat terrain I'd seen him coming.

I reached the town of Moulamein on the banks of the Edward river, and after finding a place to grab lunch, then found a nice picturesque riverbank to stretch my legs. Note to add 2 weeks after this photo was taken. The Murray River is still not in flood in this region, but the Edward R. pictured here is now at minor flood status scheduled to peak on Tues 27th March.

From Moulamein it was not far to Deniliquin which was where the floods started to be a dilemma. I always knew that reaching Deniliquin would not be a challenge at that time, however the route from here would be a challenge. My first plan was to take a back road via Conargo to Jerilderie, onwards through Urana, Lockhart and eventually coming out at Wagga Wagga. However Conargo had been flooded, and while no longer listed as closed, could pose a problem. The entire area around Urana and Lockhart were completely closed out (see map in previous entry for this area).

I chose plan B, which would still test the waters, but hopefully would not require a snorkel. I pushed east through Finlay to Berrigan, and then chose a road south othe the Urana area to Oaklands.

 Before I reached Oaklands I went past some roadworks and a stretch of gravel a few hundred metres long. There had been a road closed sign, but it was at the edge of the road and I could see that the bitumen returned quickly and the gravel was good, so pushed through. I soon realised that the gravel was not the reason for the closed road signage. The picture to the left is the first water crossing I undertook. After two more water crossings I came across a guy I assumed was from the local council doing checks of the roads and water. While he seemed surprised to see me, he didn't question why I was there, or what I thought I was up to, but merely looked at the next flooded stretch of road and asked if I was going through. Asking if it was any deeper than what was behind he suggested a depth of up to half a metre, which was not turn around and go back territory, but it was certainly getting the point where I was asking the question he was no doubt thinking "What on earth is this idiot doing out here".

Leading the charge in his 4WD it showed that the next two crossings weren't too deep after all, and when he stopped to check a fast flowing irrigation channel which was fortunately still confined to its banks at least at the roadway, I waved my thanks and pushed on.

I soon passed my sixth and longest water crossing and came to an intersection. At this end of the road they were far more serious about telling people it was closed. They had driven star pickets through the bitmen road and bolts very large signs suggesting that you should probably think about travelling somewhere else. I had to get off the road to go around, they were being pretty serious.

The road I wanted to take to the left was also crossed with as strongly worded a blockade as I'd just passed. But more convincing to me was the fact that 50 metres from the corner the road disappeared and didn't come back up for air for a few hundred metres. I'd finally been beaten, the universe was telling me even more loudly than the local council that my tyres were not welcome here, and I should take them elsewhere.

I took a final parting shot of the area I'd come through, and you can clearly see that when the road surfaced for air, it wasn't by much, and trying to proceed for another 75 kms through this region was liable to get me into trouble, or installed in a mental hospital.

I'd tested myself and discovered that within the bounds of good behavious, the Tiger could swim after all, it would be more likely that my add on electronic gadgets would get upset before the beast of black and gold started to care.

The reach my destination at the end of the day I now had to turn south to the highway I'd abandoned earlier and go via Albury and back north on the Olympic Hwy to Culcairn. With people displaced by floods in Wagga Wagga, I felt the chances of turning up late in the day looking for cheap & easy accommodation was not going to work out in my favour. So I'd done some investigating before leaving Perth and found a picture of a nice looking country pub in Culcairn. I rolled up and it was everything I thought it would be.

The downside I was finding to daylight savings in the eastern states was that by the time it got dark 8pm or so, people wanted to pack up and go home. Fortunately though they had turned everything off, the pub chef was happy to give me a feed. It turned out though once they closed the bar, I had the pub to myself, there were no other guests.

As I was relaxing for the evening and watching the Aussies win the final of the One Day Cricket, I found out from my aunt in Sydney they had some serious flash flooding that morning, and 3 times she'd been unable to continue due to flooded roads. Maybe I wasn't past the worst of it yet, I hadn't even gotten past Wagga Wagga yet, though I was fairly certain the highway wasn't affected.


 This photo is from just past Wagga Wagga, and that is not the river. The township was about 5 kms off in the distance and the river channel as much as it mattered was about halfway between. As I'd skirted around the town I'd seen a tractor in nearly a metre of water, and a guy launching a dinghy into what looked like a regular paddock.

The floods had peaked and were slowly receeding, but as much as I jest about the need to take a detour to avoid going swimming there were many people seriously affected by the floods, and I wish them all the best.

The rest of the day involved little in the way of water hazards, a lot of clouds as I wound my way through the mountains up to Bathurst, and Lithgow, and then some serious delays with roadworks after Lithgow, that apparently have been going on for a couple of years and not making significant improvements to the state of play. Fortunately being on two wheels I was held up less than most, to the displeasure of a pair of bogans in a commodore who thought opening their door would stop me. To their greater displeasure, getting around a door was no harder than getting around a car.

I finally came down out of the mountains, left the clouds behind and started to bake with all my layers on, but with 10kms of grumpy traffic snarled behind me, stopping wasn't going to be a winning plan.

I'd finally reached Sydney, and had succeeded in crossing the country in 5 days on the bike.
And guess what I found.....

More bloody water.