Pooginook Conservation Park

A new road!!! After the noise and rush of the Hume, followed by the bumpy, truck (and grasshopper) ridden Sturt, I was pleased to turn onto my third road. The Goyder Highway. The Goyder is by far my favourite of the three. I was overjoyed to find myself off the truck route, and peacefully winding my way toward the Southern Flinders.

Not long into my newfound bliss however, I found myself staring at yet another double puncture. It looked as though a sharp object had gone straight through my tube and pierced both sides! I patched it up, but the holes were too big... "what did I run over!?" I ended up changing the tube altogether, and it wasn't until I was about to get back on the road that I realised what had happened. I had snapped a spoke, and the end of the spoke went through my tube. Whoops! "I'll have to remember to fix that later..."

While I was on the side of the road changing my tube a guy stopped and asked if I needed a hand. It has only happened a few times so far, but I never know what to say. "Have you got a spare spoke... or a muesli bar?" haha. I can imagine the blank face staring back at me, so I usually just say "I'm fine thanks, just stretching" and let them go on their way.

With such a slow morning, I had decided that I would camp somewhere between Renmark and Morgan, and had the perfect location appear before me in the form of Pooginook Conservation Park. There weren't any signs to say I could camp there, but then again there weren't any to say I couldn't, so I found a space amongst the trees about 400m from Mr Goyder and set up camp.







I had such a great spot, and felt bad for every person in the world who spent time in an office that day. I cooked some dinner in the last of the sun, and then sat up and watched the stars come out. I got up once in the middle of the night to use my sizeable ensuite, and found myself gazing into the clear night for some time. The only other occurance that night happened when I was asleep and drowsy, and that was that a car drove up past my camp site, stopped, and a torch shone on my tent. I was too tired to realise what was happening in the moment, but awake enough to know it wasn't a dream. Anyway, whoever the mystery people were, they didn't cook me any breakfast, so I was left to do that myself when the sun came back around.

Camping night number 2: another screaming success!


(above: sunset at the sand dunes just outside Mildura... late addition)