The Tennis Courts

October 25, 2024

A Day Of Two Halves

I had to wait until 9am for my bike to be released from the Cornucopia's locked storage. For an early riser such as myself, this was thumb-twiddling torture but at least my precious was safe from "gentlemen", and even had another bike to keep it company.

I couldn't leave Wallaroo without a quick lap of the beachfront and jetty: I watched the ferry leave for Cowell and spoke to the fishers on the jetty. They all sang the same song: all the big fish were staying in the water, the crabs were shy, the wind was cold. I'm convinced that fishing is just a cover for sitting down by the sea and talking to your friends. We all took a break to watch a big crane lift Big Things in and out of a trawler to the accompaniment of vigorous arm-waving and shouted but largely incomprehensible instructions peppered with trawler embellishments.

Enough of the lollygagging. I made a concerted effort to get out of town and bumped into Trevor and Kay on their way for a quiet ride along the waterfront.

Cycling Without Age is a charity which takes the elderly and disabled out to experience the thrills and hopefully not the spills of cycling. I pilot a trishaw for CWA in Adelaide, and the camaraderie is such that I can't pass by another CWAer without saying hello.

Enough of the lollygagging. I rode to Kadina along the rail trail, an uneventful ride apart from a brief chat at the rest area with an old man and his excitable dog. I say 'chat' but it was rather one-sided, given he couldn't speak on account of missing vocal cords and an active tracheotomy. So I talked, the dog barked, and he breathed heavily and did a lot of mime and we all got along just fine.

I spent hours in the park and library in Kadina, tidying up the aftermath of the stolen wallet.

The photo you take when you're listening to 'hold' music.

Finally it was time to get on the bike again and in no time at all I was out of town, turning off the bitumen onto a little gravel road, and feeling as if the tour was finally, properly, beginning.

The impenetrable scrub that once covered the Yorke Peninsula is all gone, long burned up in the copper smelters at Wallaroo, and camping spaces are scarce out in the wheatfields. The free overnight camps demanded self-sufficiency which, lacking the ability to carry a porta-potty and grey water tank, I didn't have. I had two options for bush camping, both of them scoped from Google satellite view.

Green Plains School was on private land, tucked behind sturdy barbed wire. That made the decision easy then, back I went to the cross road where the remains of an old tennis court gave sufficient shelter from the road, and as the sun set over wheatfields I settled in for the night.

My personal tennis court, in need of work.

There was a fertilizer factory's worth of pigeon poo inside the little shed. I opted for the tennis court, snuggled up to the trees and close by but out of sight from the road.

Today's ride: 28 km (17 miles)
Total: 28 km (17 miles)

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