1 June 2026 – 75 kms – Moulamein to Swan Hill
Wamba Wamba and Wadi Wadi Country
I’m lit up like a Christmas tree, complete with reflective tape in various places that shines like tinsel. It’s a bit before 6am as we roll out of town. The radar this morning was not encouraging.
It’s cool enough I just start off wearing my rain pants and waterproof socks. It’s warm enough though that I don’t need a thermal layer under my rain coat. This trip has a lot of moisture management going on – I’m constantly putting on and taking off layers over the next five weeks.
The wind is there a little bit to start. It’s just a flutter through loose hair strands when I stop. It should develop into a northerly and push us along the last 50 kms. Or so is my plan according to the forecast.
There’s a garbage truck and a few other utes going the other direction as I put some kms between me and Moulamein. My helmet visor is so good at blocking the oncoming high beam headlights. I just tilt my head a bit. But I still keep an eye on those vehicles to make sure they stay in their lane and aren’t attracted to my own headlights like moths to a flame.
In between bits of traffic, when all is dark, it is directionless and timeless. We’re just a tiny little sphere of light floating along. You could be anywhere, going in any direction. We’re 3 dimensions but feel infinite in all that black space.
There is cloud. It covers the moon. Then a pocket of clearness forms and the moon glows with a halo around it. More clouds move over and return the shroud.
At km 16, I stop and take a pic as first light advances.
By km 21, the sun is just about to rise as we move away from the river country with its creek crossings and trees and into red, sandy and non-irrigated country. It’s hilly enough, there’s even a road cut. I am very happy for some topographical relief!
The wind is meant to be a northerly. However, it shows up as ENE and is most helpful when we go west. The road curves around a fair bit to miss the higher hills. We are getting a push but not as good as I’d hoped.
The sun rises somewhere around kilometre 28. Oooh, the clouds to the west look dark and some of the clouds to the south have strings or sheets of rain hanging from them.
A faint rainbow appears in the distance. The road curves around enough that I’m not sure if we’re heading toward that or not.
Yes, yes we are. I am reminded of lessons learned long ago. Just like you never want to see the butt end of a wind turbine, you never want to see a rainbow in the direction you are heading if the weather is coming from that direction.
There’s some traffic about – going in both directions – but it’s not hectic. It does tell me that people have 9am starts in Swan Hill and somewhere up in the Moulamein direction.
We keep riding toward the rainbow. It becomes more vibrant. The sky becomes darker to the west. I stop to put the guys in a pannier and ‘batten down the hatches’. Eventually the rainbow becomes a full arch and parts of it become a double rainbow. As we ride ‘under’ it, the sun is still out but big splats of rain start to fall. We are at km 37.
The sun and rainbow disappear and we ride through a heavy shower for the next 10-15 minutes. Oh my god, I love the waterproof socks! This was the one thing I knew I really needed for a winter trip after my experience in spring 2022 when I eventually gave up on normal socks completely and just rode around with wet feet for three months. That unpleasant experience is memorable enough that the waterproof socks were one of the first things I bought in preparing for this trip.
The rain pants are great, too. This is their first real test. After the pair I owned for decades finally died in that spring 2022 trip, I got another pair that I never really liked. This pair has a mesh inner and really good drawstrings on the ankles. They aren’t as wide as the other ones. They do a great job today. My new raincoat is also good.
We pass over a historic one lane bridge over the Wakool. Sorry no pics – it was raining and I was just trying to get across the bridge before traffic I could hear coming. Here is what the heritage listing says about it:
The Coonamit bridge is a Dare type timber truss bridge, and was completed in 1929. In 1998 it was in good condition. As a timber truss road bridge, it has many associational links with important historical events, trends, and people, including the expansion of the road network and economic activity throughout NSW, and Harvey Dare, the designer of this type of truss. Dare trusses were fifth in the five stage design evolution of NSW timber truss road bridges. They were similar to Allan trusses, but contain improvements which make them stronger and easier to maintain. This engineering enhancement represents a significant evolution of the design of timber truss bridges, and gives Dare trusses some technical significance.
Here is a link to some pics if you are interested:
https://apps.environment.nsw.gov.au/dpcheritageapp/HeritageItemImage.aspx?ID=5051366#ad-image-2
The landscape is now rolling and red – a very different character to what we’ve been riding through on the tour so far. Eventually, as the rain comes and goes, we have a gentle climb for a couple kays through road cuts and stunted, crooked mallee trees.
We reach a high point and can see big Lake Boga down below in the distance. Then we have a nice long downhill onto a flat treeless area below. Yee-ha! I’ve missed a good descent in all of the flatness so far.
The traffic starts to pick up. I swear there is a gate somewhere that releases all of the traffic at 10am so that I start to see a glug of traffic at 10.30am each day. That’s always when I see the first caravans, too. Of course the oldies have to have their laxative coffee and daily shit before they can do anything else, so it’s rare to see an early caravanner on the road.
We meet up with a road that is a cut-through from Balranald and start seeing a ton of b-double grain trucks. I have to roll off onto the side of the road a few times for these guys. This section, called Snake Avenue, is not so pleasant. There is lots of traffic and the road curves around so that we have 3-4 kms of riding a crosswind that slows me down and makes the unpleasantness draw out longer. I’ve just hammered out 70 kms, averaging 19.5 kph, on no food or drink, in the cold rain, so a crosswind in the final 5 kms doesn’t feel deserved!
However, the road gods give me a bike path from the Murray Downs Resort to the bridge over the Murray, so I guess it’s all swings and roundabouts.
I stop to take a picture of the bridge near an old pub. It’s a lift span bridge from 1896 where the one span can be cranked up (by hand!) to let riverboats through.
What is most unfathomable is that this single lane, wooden bridge has not yet been replaced given the amount of traffic using it! The trucks can only go over one at a time due to weight restrictions and it all works on people giving way and trying to see if someone is coming from the other side. Even the ancient John Foordham Bridge at Corowa-Wahgunyah has a traffic light for the single lane bridge – and that crossing doesn’t even have heavy vehicles.
I go across on the pedestrian bit – and take up the entirety of that. Thank goodness no one was trying to walk across.
I see a covered picnic table in the riverside park as I roll off the bridge. I get under there just in time as another heavy shower comes through. Good timing!
Brrrrr…. it is 9 degrees with a wind chill (in Oz, wind chill and heat index are both just called the ‘feels like’ temperature) of 3.5C. It is definitely cold and my fingers are icy. I finally get some fluids and food in. I check out the radar and google maps. I’m going to dash to the library once this rain shower stops.
The library is in an old furniture store (or something similar). It is very busy. Tons of people from all walks of life come and go. I find a padded chair with a view of my bike out the window and settle in for a couple hours until I can dash down to the motel to check-in. Unfortunately the library is cold! Everyone who comes in comments on it. But at least it is dry. Poor Atlas gets to weather the weather outside.
The motel is fine. Swan Hill is an odd place for accommodation. It’s all quite expensive – it starts at $130 and goes up to about $190, but all the motels are from the 1960s and 1970s. Even the ‘nice’ places that are charging heaps are just old, fixed up places. And Swan Hill is just a service town – it’s not a tourist mecca or anything.
The place I get is fine. It’s a ways from the CBD but walkable for active people. It includes a cooked breakfast, but I don’t really do eggs, bacon, beans or toast, so that bit is lost on me. The room is small and the reverse cycle AC is underpowered, so it takes forever to lift the temp from 11C to 17C. I’m chilled from riding in the rain and sitting in cold places for a couple hours. I have a hot shower and get layered back up and even sleep under the sleeping bag tonight. Ever since the mozzie virus, my body just does not know how to get warm once I’m chilled or cool down when I’m overheated. Where is a perimenopausal hot flush when you need one?!
The wind howls and the rain comes in heavy showers the rest of the afternoon and evening. I get the tent spread out across the floor of the motel room to dry and am grateful to have roofed accommodation. Now, we just have to sit out the next two days while this huge low pressure system passes.
Cue thumb twiddling.
