Back when we crossed the peninsula from Port Victor to Point Turton we drove through Yorketown which, while not a particularly large settlement, is the main centre for the bottom of the Yorke. In Yorketown we saw a big bakery which was part of a camping/hardware store and you couldn't get a better combination than that, could you? Yorketown also sits slap bang in the middle of all the salt lakes that proliferate in the ankle of the Yorke Peninsula. There are pink salt lakes, grey salt lakes, dry salt lakes, and wet(ish) salt lakes. The lakes are big and small and all sizes in between, most of them plonked in the wheat paddocks with no-one taking any particular notice of them since the salt refinery in Edithburg closed down in the 1950s. With Roger still laid flat by his painful back, I took a break from seaside riding and went to explore the salt lakes instead.
The Yorketown Tourist Information Centre kindly provided a pamphlet detailing the roads around the salt lakes, and then I took liberties with the routing to accommodate such things as the wind and wanting to be back in Yorketown before the bakery closed at 3pm. Sadly Roger didn't feel up to the drive and sitting in an uncomfortable chair and generally risking back pain for a bakery but no problem, I was willing to sacrifice myself in the interest of bakery trials, and to provide him with a detailed product analysis should he so desire it (and even if he didn't). But first I had to ride my loop around the salt lakes.
I stopped for a minute on the edge of town to watch wheat stubble being collected into neat rows for hay making.
And then I started looking at salt lakes. And there were so many! I happily pedaled up hill and down dale, stopping and backtracking and leaving my bike to wander out on crunching crusts of salt. I took a lot of photos which I will now happily inflict on you.
There were directions. I like directions even when I have no intention of following them.
The first lake was pink, called Pink Lake. This was the closest lake to the St Vincent highway and therefore had the most tourist traffic and a terrible access road. The tourists didn't bother to go further than this, so the road was much smoother to the other lakes.
Further around, where the tourists didn't bother to go, I could get down to the edge of the salt. I didn't walk out here because it looked a little boggy, and being covered in salt mud is not a good look for a bakery visit.
I passed a painted water tank which I later found out is meant to depict the history of salt mining in the area. It was a nice water tank, but I thought the lakes were much more interesting.
"Boot Hill Station" was painted on the rock, along with assorted graffiti. I was on Boot Hill Station Road. I guess that means that Boot Hill Station was somewhere around here.
Just up the road from the Boot Hill Station rock was Lake Fowler, the biggest lake of the 200-odd lakes on the southern Yorke Peninsula. Lake Fowler was used for salt harvesting from 1891 through to the 1950s. I couldn't find the energy to ride all the way around Lake Fowler, I just went to look at the closest bits. It was only 10km to ride around, but the bakery was calling me.
As the road crested each hill a salt lake would come into view: sometimes blindingly white or pink, sometimes covered with vegetation, sometimes just a depression which was working hard on becoming a proper salt lake.
Sheep and samphire on a salt lake. At least I think it's samphire, I've found it tricky to identify this bright red/purple ground cover that grows in and around many of the lakes.
By the time I reached the highway with only Lake Sunday yet to see, the bakery was calling me. I left Lake Sunday for another day and headed back to Yorketown on the rough gravel edges of the bitumen, leaving the road to the trucks which roared past with frightening regularity. I thought of taking a picture of the trucks, but it was just too scary to stop so I pedaled my tired little legs off all the way back to the bakery.
Along the way I passed a collection of skins hung out to dry on a fence,
Not wanting him to miss out altogether, I bought bakery pies for dinner. It was a bit of a lottery: four 'seconds' pies in a bag with an element of mystery as to what flavour they were but hey, sometimes it's fun to live dangerously.*
Back at home Roger was feeling optimistic and walking much straighter than he had for the past week or two. We ate our bakery pies and were treated to a fiery sunset over the roofs of the houses behind us.
Today's ride: 25 km (16 miles) Total: 1,122 km (697 miles)
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Rich FrasierOK, this is nervy. But Roger's back problems are causing me to have sympathetic back pain. I'm too empathetic! To make my back feel better, I'm going to offer unsolicited advice.
Every back is different, but I was able to cure my back problems using Esther Gokhale's book "8 Steps to a pain-free back". It doesn't work instantly but for me, it led me carefully to a life without major back pain. I can't recommend it highly enough.
I hope Roger heals and doesn't need it! But if he's interested... Reply to this comment 9 months ago
