Day 9: Resting in Murray Bridge

Today was sched­uled as a rest and recov­ery day, to allow me to

1. recov­er from the past eight day’s jour­ney, and
2. rest in prepa­ra­tion for tomor­row, which might turn out to be the hard­est day’s ride yet.

So I stayed anoth­er day at the Mur­ray Bridge Mari­na & Car­a­van Park on Rop­er Road, Mur­ray Bridge. The park gen­er­ous­ly pro­vid­ed me with one night’s free accom­mo­da­tion if I stayed for two (i.e. half price) to sup­port the char­i­ty ride.

With noth­ing planned for the day, I spent my time fish­ing down by the Mur­ray Riv­er, read­ing No Friend But The Moun­tains by Behrouz Boochani in my ham­mock, doing my laun­dry and eat­ing the rest of my pro­vi­sions, and re-pack­­ing my bike and trail­er for tomor­row’s last leg.

I also received some inter­est in a news­pa­per arti­cle from local jour­nal­ist Peri Strat­hearn, of the Mur­ray Val­ley Stan­dard. He came out to the car­a­van park at about 1530 and inter­viewed me about my ride and the char­i­ty, etc. It was a nice chat, and Peri struck me as quite a decent guy. We took some pho­tos in my school dress and bike and then I changed again and set­tled back into the day’s rest.

I did­n’t catch any fish today, but thor­ough­ly enjoyed myself and am nice and relaxed, and about to cook up my din­ner and spend anoth­er evening by the com­mu­nal camp­fire at the park.