Australia day 15

11 July

We are definitely in a different region of Australia now. As we approached Port Augusta yesterday I noticed how many more cars and fewer recreational vehicles we were traveling with (and against). The highways of the deep interior had very few cars on them; just road trains and campers of every conceivable sort. Also, the road trains here are shorter now – double trailers pulled by a truck cab, rather than the triple trailers we had to contend with in the country's wide open center.

We drove past farmland now. We saw fields of newly growing grain (winter wheat, perhaps?). Where grain had not been planted, cattle grazed in pastures. A pastoral setting with cultivated fields – this was a refreshing sight.

Our first stop of the morning was in a preciously quaint little town called Crystal Brook, located about an hour south of Port Augusta. The buildings' facades along the one block of town that constituted its commercial area were early 20th century. We were charmed by their appearance. Time had not passed this town by – it had an ATM machine and a pizza bar, probably an Internet Café, too. But its architecture had remained what it had been and would continue to be, well into the future. We would have lingered longer, but we had far to go this day and the road beckoned.

Our next stop was for fuel in a town called Morgan. They were selling souvenirs inside the petrol station when I went in to pay, that said, "Where the hell is Morgan?" This is where our journey brought us to our first encounter with the sought-after mighty Murray River. Razelle checked our tourist literature to see if anything of tourism value was mentioned. The most intriguing entry was their original morgue. We were a little slap happy from all our driving by this point. I broke Razelle up with the observation that if Morgan were to have an all-you-can-eat restaurant next to their original morgue it would be the "Smorgasbord by Morgan's morgue". Well, it was funny at the time. It kept us laughing for quite a while (gallows humor).

We found a scenic overlook of the Murray a short distance from Morgan. I walked down to the flood plain. Lots of mud – evidence that the river had been out of its banks not long ago. I noticed that there were terrestrial snails here on the bushes, just like in Israel (a different species, but the same life-form). I wonder if these are invasive or if this type of snail is more cosmopolitan than I assumed?

From here, a ferry took us across the Murray to the south side at Weikerie. The ride only took a few minutes, barely long enough to snap a couple of photos of us in the middle of the Murray. Apparently, the Murray leaves its banks often enough to discourage building a bridge across here. An impressive oxbow curves around almost back on itself above the ferry crossing. The highway department was gracious enough to construct a rest area where we could stop to photograph the sight of the river sweeping around this great bend.

After passing Renmark, signs appeared along the highway saying that we were about to enter another fruit and veggie quarantine zone. We'd just bought some bananas and some potatoes that morning in Crystal Brook. I wasn't enthusiastic about jettisoning them. I continued driving and hoped for the best. We passed an inspection station at the Victoria state line. It was late enough in the day that no one was there. Perhaps in winter this is not an issue.

Darkness caught us far from anything. Mildura was far ahead. Our caravan directory listed a caravan park there. From the car, while driving, Razelle called them and they had a powered site available. They would reserve it for us until we arrived. The zinger was that as we entered Victoria we also entered a new time zone. We were half an hour later in arriving simply because of the half hour time difference between South Australia and Victoria. No matter. When we reached Mildura we were expected and our site was waiting for us.

Getting to Mildura in the dark, along a long straight road across empty real estate would have been torture, had I not driven more than 90 km of it behind a double-trailer road train, matching his speed the whole way. I lost count of the number of dead kangaroos we passed in the dark, but I felt secure as long as the truck led me through this land. He did a mitzvah by leading me safely to Mildura, and I doubt he even knew it.