Awake early at Arthurs Lake, I packed and took a short cut along the lake shore heading to the Road House to pay my camping fee…. and maybe even buy a hot breakfast. It turned out a mistake to think the lake shore would be easier than the track – wet muddy and hardwork. Still the breakfast made all things right with the world – even delivered in a heated eating area.
From then it was a walk down the remainder of Poatina Rd to meet the Highland Lakes road. This was followed by a short walk back up the Highlands Lakes road a km or so and onto the Shannon – Waddamana – Victoria Valley back road – mostly called Bashan Road. This was much more pleasant walking and I could ditch my ‘hi vis’ vest which for safety reasons I had used on the more major roads.
The sadness on this stretch was finding no less than 5 wombats, the result of road kill! (Three more the next day)… Thankfully the kangaroo I collected on the same stretch a few days before was only shocked and I imagine, somewhat bruised, as he/she certainly took off! More damage to the plastic bumper of my car than to him/her. I wondered how protecting these wonderful creatures could work better. This made N T Wright’s work on Romans 8 and the ‘groaning’ of creation, something I had been listening to a few days, all the more relevant.
A lunch stop just shy of Penstock Lagoon and I was ready for the road again. This section was mental preparation for the long 5km downhill run to the ford over the Ouse river below the Waddamana power station. Merran and I had spied this spot out a couple of weeks ago and it looked like an OK place for a wild camp just off the road.
Part of my work is teaching ‘resilience’ – this journey is a little bit of a working lesson in that subject. There is a concept in the resilence literature called ‘grit’ – ‘the drive to sustain progress toward a goal over the long haul despite difficulty and hardship’! Around a corner, on my long knee-challenging downhill stretch, and there it was, just to remind me.
Then my little moment of grace and joy. A 4WD camping truck coming the other way pulled up and the couple stopped to say “hi”. They had passed me earlier in the day wearing my ‘hi vis’ and now came across me again many kms down the road. They were also keen walkers have done the Camino in Spain last year. “Here! have a couple of cold fresh apples for the journey”. It might just have been the time and place but I swear they were the best apples I have ever eaten.
It was time to set up for the night right on the Ouse river. I was surprised by two unexpected aspects of the night. One, the number of logs trucks on the road right through the night. I was woken by one at midnight and another at 3.00am. Then they were non stop from about 5.30am the next morning. I wondered if they were part of the story behind the number of wombats lost on the road.
And two – the distant rolling thunder of the wind turbines above me on Bashan Hill. Even though they were some distance away, there was plenty of wind, they were in full action and the sound had me looking around for a storm.
