30 May 2026 – 65 kms – Wakool to Moulamein
Wamba Wamba Country
My watch alarm alerts me that it is ‘sparrow’s gurgle’ at 5am. I immediately start packing up. Let’s see how far we can get toward Moulamein before the wind picks up. 5am is more sparrow’s fart, or even first light, in summer. But at this time of year, it is still pitch black out there. Sunrise is close to 7.30am. Sparrow’s gurgle it is.
Last night, as the wind stayed up and the cloud returned in the late hours, I had hope that maybe I could pack up a dry tent for the first time on the trip today. But alas, there was a series of rain showers that came through between 2 and 4am that have splattered the fly with wetness. Sigh….
I’m rolling away right on 5.40am. Today will be the test of my darkness visibility. I’ve got a solid rear light on the rear rack, a rear blinkie on my helmet, reflective patches on both rear panniers and my high vis, high- reflective- tape vest that goes over my raincoat. I have my torch strapped on as a front light and a front strobe on my helmet.
It is cold again. I have my fluoro shirt, thermal layer and raincoat on. Normally the raincoat comes off pretty quickly, but it stays on today until we’re just about 20 kays shy of Moulamein. A headwind sends that cold right into you – so it takes longer to warm up than the days with little wind.
We ride north of town on the main road down the centre of the lane. It is completely dark and I ride more by feel than by the illumination of my forward lights.
There is an almost full moon nearing the horizon to the west. Its colour is best described as the deep piss yellow of dehydration. The low light creates silhouettes of scraggly, individual paddock trees that dot the distance between me and the moon. As the moon sinks, it gets deeper and deeper yellow, as if its getting further and further dehydrated. By the time it sets, it’s almost orange. Once it’s gone, it leaves a smudgy stain of brown clouds on the western horizon that fade as first light makes its way to the eastern horizon.
Just as first light comes, a large shooting star rockets across the sky from northeast to north, right over the road in front of me. It’s one of those big flare-like ones and I appreciate the show.
It’s kinda appropriate in a way. When I was originally thinking of a westward route, I had thought that I might try to ride through the centre point of the Deniliquin Crater. Various things nixxed that idea, but it’s probably only 75 kms east-northeast of where we are now.
The Deniliquin Crater is a deeply buried impact structure that researchers believe is the world’s largest known asteroid impact crater – spanning 520 kms in diameter. We’ve been riding across it our entire trip so far. The asteroid is thought to have struck the earth between 420 and 450 million years ago and was likely responsible for the Late Ordovician extinction that wiped out 85% of the world’s species at the time.
The structure was discovered through aeromagnetic mapping. They don’t have some of the conclusive evidence required to definitively say the structure is an impact crater, but the initial evidence is supportive. The scale of it is a bit mind-blowing and I look forward to reading more about this as they discover more in the future. Here’s a couple layman’s articles about it:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-10-22/potential-asteroid-impact-crater-deniliquin-unsw/102996302
There’s a light up ahead that I originally thought were car headlights. But the light never advances – it just lights up the sky ahead. When I finally get up to it, I can’t believe it’s just a really piercing bright light on the side of a grain silo. I could see it from 10 kms away!
We have 1.5 hours of riding in the dark this morning. The lack of sensory input means I have no sense of time or distance. I’m just pedalling along in a little sphere of blinkie light and forward motion in some linear plane. But I love it. I’ve always loved night rides.
I see three cars in the darkness. Two come from behind. One comes from ahead. I am reassured that my visibility is sufficient. I watch in my mirror as the two vehicles from behind approach at different times. They both slow down a bit and both move all the way over to the other lane. I don’t know if they had any idea of “what” I was as they approached, but they definitely identified me as something to give some room. This gives me confidence for more dark riding in the future.
I take the shortcut. It should shave off 15 kms and keep me off the main road for awhile. My map shows all of it as gravel, but the first 9 kms is now sealed up to the JBS Feedlot (this is where the 3 cars were going). Wow – does JBS own everything now? (No, they have 25% of Oz’s beef processing and 30% of pork).
The gravel beyond is okay, as we continue to follow the rail line. The wind is already there.
Light comes to illuminate the land, but the shadowy greys of dawn just become the lighter greys of day. The grey kangaroos blend in with the grey vegetation until they bound away and the dark undersides of their tails give them away. It’s all salt bush plains given over to empty rice paddies and trees along the creek. It’s a messy and uninspiring landscape. It’s so boring I don’t even take any pictures.
We turn left at a CFA shed and t-intersection and navigate a very sandy and corrugated gravel road back to the main road. There’s a lot of sheep through here. I figure the road will ride much better in six months time when all that loose sandy stuff gets shifted off to the side and the clay base comes through again. But today it is shaky, slippery and slow. It flicks all of that slightly wet sandy gravel up onto the bike everywhere. (It’s just the start – I transport a heap of sand on this trip!).
We get back to the main road. Traffic is light. More boring rice fields and scattered salt bush. The only thing of interest in the landscape is spotting the various watercourses in the distance by the lines of trees. On and on. Into the wind. Slog. Slog. Slog.
We cross the Niemur River and appreciate the black box and river red gums that grow in and on the floodplain. There is a bit of colour and depth in the landscape for a moment with the white and dark tree trunks, the red shifting courses of sand in the river bed and all the variants of green in the weeds and bushes below.
I finally stop for a drink of water and some peanut butter at 50 kms into the day. When it’s this cold, you just don’t get thirsty. And when you’re concentrating on pounding out the kms, you don’t notice you’re hungry. This stop is just more for a break from the incessant wind than water and fuel anyway.
We finally roll into Moulamein. It bills itself as the oldest town in the Riverina and was an important town in the riverboat trade. The courthouse used to hear cases from as far away as Albury. So I guess I’m a little underwhelmed when I find the main street is just two blocks long and there really is not much else to the place. And I never do see any clusters of historic homes – which I thought I might given its age. Maybe they all got wiped out in floods over the years – there are a bunch of 1950s clad cottages about the place but nothing grand or historical.
I find a nice place in the sun with a view of the river and cook up some peanut butter and porridge. I relax and take my time. I feel smug when the wind really picks up and I don’t need to ride any further.
I roll over to the caravan park a bit before 2pm. I’m hoping maybe I can wait out the stormy weather that’s coming here. They have reasonably priced cabins and really cheap unpowered sites.
The owner is out mowing the grass when I roll in, but he comes over when he sees me. He tells me to pick anywhere I want, even if it’s a powered site, and suggests I camp near the camp kitchen. He doesn’t have any cabins available though (all the cabins are vacant – he just doesn’t want to rent me one and then have to clean it before they are all booked out next weekend). However, he just had someone vacate the onsite van, and he might be able to get his cleaner to come and fix that up for me. He’ll let me know tomorrow. For now, just settle in.
Okay. If I can’t get a cabin here, I’m going to need to figure out some different plans for the next week. Tomorrow is meant to have showers in the arvo, like today. But the four days after that are meant to be very windy and very wet. The storm that’s coming this way is big – it is being called a ‘once in a decade’ storm over in WA as it comes ashore there. So we need to do some thinking this arvo.
But first we need to get this wet tent set up and the sleeping bag out to dry before the rain that is forecast this afternoon. So I find what I think is the highest ground near the camp kitchen and get everything erected and floofing. I put the bike ‘in’ the camp kitchen. It’s a big outdoor shed sort of thing with plenty of room. The only other park occupant appears to be a guy living in a caravan with a big dog, so I don’t think I’ll be in anyone’s way.
I cuddle up in the tent to stay warm when the sun is out and heating the tent and then pull everything in and zip everything up when the random rain showers come through here and there throughout the late afternoon and evening.
I go up to the owner’s residence/office in the evening to pay when the door is open. But even when I ring the bell on the desk and the doorbell thing that’s also on the desk, they never come from the residence part of the place. They are enveloped in the footy on TV. I wait for a commercial, try everything again and even walk into their dining room area and yell out “HELLO?”. Nothing. So after 10 minutes of this, I give up. It smelled so badly like cigarettes in there that I feel like I’ve picked up that smell in my clothes in just that short time.
I guess that’s what some people love about the road – all these weird encounters at businesses and all of the different folks they meet as they travel. I have about zero interest in that, as I’m much more about seeing natural features and the actual act of riding a bike. I like to ride just to ride – it’s not a means to an end for me. But all the social encounters and these sorts of odd situations… they’re all yours, take them all!
I decide we’ll stay here tomorrow, check out the little place and firm up our plans. I can aim NW, WSW or SW from here and I’m not sure yet what I want to do. That is one thing I do like about bike tours – the flexibility to figure it out as you go. Just keep the people – I get enough of them through work that I do not revel in road encounters.
