We then went directly South down to Burra & grabbed some bread & a pie for lunch from the bakery on the way through. We then headed out towards Waikerie & had to get our first ferry across the river. It was a novelty we never got sick of & they are run really well & are free & operate 24 hours a day.
We then followed the road towards Barmera calling into all of the free campsites on the way. We looked at about 4 campsites & they were all packed to the rafters with families & people jet skiing on the river. There were a couple of spots that we could of camped in that we're okay, but they didn't have great river access & were close to the neighbours, so we decided to keep looking, but there are heaps of fantastic free campsites on this stretch of river. In the end we ended up in the Moorook Conservation Reserve, run by SA parks & wildlife for $10 a night. We got a site right on the water, that had access for us to go swimming, away from any neighbours & with enough shade but also a good spot for the solar panels. By this time is was close to 4pm so we were very glad we found it & were more than happy to pay $10 a night. Once we had set up & were sitting having a drink overlooking the river, it made the long day well worth it.
Camp at Moorook
Our Murray a River view
The next day was New Year's Eve, so we decided to hang around camp. The temperature was heating up & it was about 40 degrees, so very hot for us compared to what we have had for the last 3 months! We even went swimming, the first time in ages. The day was spent staying out of the sun, enjoying the views & relaxing. That night we cooked up a nice feed & listened to some music to celebrate the end of 2014 & the amazing time we have had. We only made it to about 10.30pm, but it was a great night.
The next day, January 1st 2015 we decided to stay around camp, as we figured it would be really busy in any of the towns. It was also another scorcher & we did plenty more swimming. Mat also did some fishing, but only managed to get a few carp, big sized ones though & as per the rules we didn't return them to the water. There are no facilities at all at Moorook, so we had the bush Dunny set up, but didn't bother with the shower as we were swimming so much & just had a quick swish with the soap in a bucket at night. We had enough shade, so we didn't have the big trailer awning up, but we did have the back car awning up to help keep the fridges cool. The poor old fridges & especially the freezer worked very hard for those few days that were above 40 degrees. We found putting towels up across the windscreen & windows really helped to keep Ruby cooler. We had phone reception at camp. We had some great sunsets over the river, saw heaps of water birds & had fun watching the kids stack it while water skiing in front of camp.
The next day we decided to go for a drive & have a look around the local area. We made our way into Moorook town which is tiny, but has a pub, general store & some camping with nice green grass right on the river. We kept on heading down towards Loxton.
These river towns are really lovely, right on the water, with that quintessentially SA stone houses & lovely gardens. As you drive down towards the river the surrounding areas go from almost desert country, to wheat fields, to the lovely irrigated farm land with acres & acres of fruit trees & vineyards. A really lovely spot. There are also houseboats everywhere & we reckon that would be a great way to have a holiday, the fact you can pull up & tie your houseboat to the front of a lot of the pubs, made it more attractive to Mat!
Another ferry ride
We were surprised to find Loxton had a Woolies, so we grabbed a few groceries & then headed towards Renmark. Another fantastic town. We filled up our drinking water drums at the visitors centre & then had a look around town. There are some fantastic caravan parks on the river with excellent water parks for the kids, great for families. We ended up going to the club for lunch overlooking the river, it was lovely. We decided we should get moving again & made our way towards Berri. Another lovely town, with more irrigated farmland, an oasis in the dry landscape. Berri had heaps of services as well & we are supprised at how big these towns are. By this stage we were keen to get back to camp for a swim as it was really hot, so we decided to check out the rest of the area the next day, so we went back to camp.
It was really really hot. We were listening to the radio about the fires & just hoping one didn't start near us. The next day we finished our tourist circuit & went towards Waikerie & across the river again & along the northern side. We found a pub along the way called the Overland Corner Hotel, a historic pub & we called in for a beer. It reminded us of some of the pubs in Tasmania. A cool little place.
Overland Corner Pub
We then kept moving & then crossed the river back near Barmera. It was hot again & started to get windy so we decided to go back to camp just in case a fire started. It was the hottest afternoon we have had & we spent most of our time in the water. We would go swimming & then get out. We would literally be dry in 10 minutes & the metal frames on our camping chairs were burning us, even though they were in the shade. To also cool us down we had bought some Zooper Doopers at the shops, so had a few of them in the freezer each day, I may have eaten about 4 that afternoon! The poor old car fridges were working to the max again, but did a great job, gotta love the Engels. There was a bit of a cool change coming through the next day, it was only supposed to be 35 degrees so we decided we should move camp before the temperatures got hot again as was forecast. That afternoon a severe wind warning was issued for our area & it built up quickly. There was plenty of thunder & lightning & we were convinced we were going to get a big storm. We got plenty of wind, a few drops of rain but that was about it, luckily. So that was the first part of our stay on the Murray River. We loved it. It really cheered us up & even though it was hot, to be honest we much prefer that weather. Camping on a river like the Murray is one of the best types of camping you can do & it was great. We decided to try to find another spot on the Murray further south for a few more days of champagne camping! More to come soon.
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