Riverlands 2014, Part Six: wine by the truckload, the world's biggest sheep, and one amazing sunset

Loxton, on South Australia's Murray River, is a wine region producing an amazing volumes as well as
some really wonderful wines... 

Dave checks out the visitor information. As the sign says, "Welcome to Loxton" --!

Everywhere you look, it's tanks of wine ... and watch out for trucks crossing!

Wineries also frequently offer restaurants, cafes and accommodation ... makes it just too easy.
Now, if we could only remember which this one is! Pretty, at any rate.

But the time really had come to turn for home, point the Mitsubishi Magna called Lola toward Adelaide
and put the foot down. Heading west from Loxton on the Karoonda Highway, you run into wheat country...

...and the road is a rollercoaster. It was laid down on ancient dunes -- this whole area was once (in geological terms)
the bottom of the sea, and later a desert like the Sahara. The road shows that wave-pattern of dunes...

...as it takes you to (!) Karoonda, on its way from Berri to Murray Bridge. Now, those are grain silos.

Karoonda has quite a history -- perfectly readable here, if you view this image at large size --

-- and also, Karoonda boasts probably the biggest sheep in the world ... concrete, of course! He's HUGE --
known as "the Big Ram" for obvious reasons. It's a tribute to the Merino sheep which made this region prosperous.

Wall art depicts something of Karoonda's past -- neat. (Actually, this graces the west wall of
the public facilities! Neat bathrooms, too ... and halfway from Loxton to Murray bridge, very welcome!)

One of the enormous windlass sails -- these devices played a major part in opening up this country.
As the sign there says, "No wind, no water, no life." Very, very true.

Main street Karoonda ... and at this time on a Sunday evening, almost everything is closed. The pub's open...

Back on the road, we're headed almost due west into the the rapidly-lowering sun...

A beautiful evening, maybe half an hour east of Murray Bridge ...
shot from the side window, at 100kph, hence the movement-blur in the foreground.

Back in Murray Bridge at last, as evening begins to settle down over the hills...

Tail lights gleam in the twilight on the Southeastern Freeway. Headed for home: looks like it'll be a lovely sunset.

Sunset -- perfect conditions! Grab the camera. All these images were captured (by Jade ... Dave was
driving). We didn't even have to pull over. Check out those "god rays."

It's amazing what you can do in two days, if you make an early start and get home late. Looking back over this series of posts, we're astonished ... we packed in a lot. This last post covers just the final few hours as we finally turned for home -- in Loxton. We put the trusty Mitsubishi Magna on the Karoonda Highway to Murray Bridge, through the region known as "the Murray Mallee," and settled in for the long haul.

Halfway back to Murray Bridge you can take a welcome break in the rural town of Karoonda, which is not-quite-world-famous, but a most pleasant community ... with arguably the biggest concrete sheep in the world. "The Big Ram" is a masterpiece statue done as a tribute to the Merino sheep that made this region prosperous in the early 1950s. If you're interested, view the info panel, above, at full-size: it's perfectly readable. (Traveling around, one can be inundated with these pages of history, and Jade usually photographs them to read later. Sometimes there's the makings of a major novel in them -- like the story of the mines in Burra.)

The shadows were long and it was actually getting quite chilly as we left Karoonda with far to go. We knew we'd be getting home after dark, but there was one more treat in store: a thoroughly spectacular sunset, which was photographed from the road at 110kph -- Jade with the camera, Dave driving, obviously. Not too long after the last shot was captured, we pulled into our driveway, home again, home again, too tired to do the jigging part.

Apologies to all that it's taken so long to get these posts up. It's been an "interesting" year. These last episodes are being uploaded after the 2015 road trip -- in fact, as soon as the quick-list for this one is done, Jade will be starting on the next: lions and lakes, bison and barrages, fall colors and fur seals, and the place where photography meets art when the sun rises over Milang. It was a lot of fun, about one month ago at the time of this writing.

Riverlands 2014, Part Four: The food basket of South Australia, and the proverbial "pub in the scrub"

Destination Murray River ... and we're there! The river is the life's blood of South Australia, and --

--driving through the Riverlands, you're surrounded by vineyards and orchards...

... it's the richest agricultural country we've ever seen, on three continents.

Little communities like Cadell supply much of the state's fruit and vegetables --

-- such as oranges, which are year-round crops in South Australia.

South Australia's Riverlands, near Waikerie ... orchards as far as you can see.

And here's the Murray River at Waikerie, where the paddle steamer Murray River Queen ties up...
and check out those houseboats moored a little way along the riverbank!

The Murray River Queen is a serious vessel. She offers tours as long as a week, cruising the river
from these waters with up to Renmark. Gotta do that one day. Soon.

Wetlands are habitats for a vast assortment of birdlife. Dead trees like this are not merely curiously
photogenic, but they are also where native parrots nest, so many dead trees are actually protected: do not cut!

On the road again, heading for Barmera and Loxton. Eventually. But first --

Toolunka Flats. Yes, Virginia, there really is a place called Toolunka (which tends to sound like a
native village from a Johnny Weismuller Tarzan movie). Actually, it's a wetlands project, and --

-- very beautiful indeed. See the orchards and market gardens stretching to the horizon, too.

Toolunka Flats under a gorious morning sky. The clouds parted, the sun shone! Grab the cameras!

Then we were back on the road -- specifically, the Goyder Highway. We've driven both ends of this highway,
but never the middle stretch, east from World's End (see it on an earlier post). We need to drive the whole thing...

Not surprisingly, it's quite a busy road; and predictably, you share it with a great many
semi-trailers hauling produce to the city.

You also share the road with kangaroos, so -- watch out. (Actually, roos are seldom active before
twilight, so during main daylight hours you're more likely to glimpse them napping under  tree.)

Desperate for a cuppa, we literally stumbled over a jewel in the wilderness -- the proverbial
"pub in the scrub," the Overland Corner Hotel...

The Overland Corner Hotel is just there in the middle of nowhere. It was built in 1895 to
service drovers and "overlanders" making the haul between NSW and Adelaide, and the
National Trust bought it in 1965. What a fantastic place!

The Overland Corner stands in a large garden where one can dine outdoors; but in 1956 --

Yes, the whole region was deep underwater in the 1956 flood.

Original colonial construction, brand-new galvanized iron roof...

...horseshoe for luck (the right way up, thank you!), and a gorgeous chandelier in the bar just inside.

The interior of the Overland Corner Hotel has been updated just a little, but the overall
construction and flavor are original. It's like stepping right into Cash and Company! (Which,
incidentally, just came out on DVD. We're loving it ... again. Saw it in 1975.)

Live music plays in the gardens at the weekend, and --

-- if you're having your cuppa outside, check out these tables. They're great slabs of polished local stone
set on upright logs. Now, we have got to have one of these at home!

The Overland Corner Hotel isn't a secret. Taking up six spaces in the parking lot was this tour bus,
just over from bushranger country -- the Victorian mountains -- and headed who knows where?
Great place to stop for tea and a taste of history.

Love the art on the back of the bus. The Man from Snowy River rides again.

We had actually parked in the wide, open space behind the hotel. Here's "Lola in the wilderness" ...
well, not quite. You could hear the music from the pub as you stepped out of the car, because --

Overland Corner is also a "biosphere reserve" and wetlands project, and the hotel
backs right onto the area being reclaimed. In the rainy season, it'll be a chorus of frogs...

...such as the Golden Bell-frog, which, like so many species, is "vulnerable" in South Australia.
Areas like Overland Corner will make all the difference to the survival of many animals and birds.

Cruising the fruit and vegetable area at the supermarket, you can sometimes wonder where it all comes from; and if you take the drive from Morgan via towns like Cadell and Waikerie to Barmera and Loxton, you'll know where it comes from! We've never seen such rich agricultural land, and it all pivots around the Murray River.

You can see this lush, beautiful region from the road, as we did, or from the water. In fact, if you're interested, there's a major website arranging tours ... check it out. It's easy for folks from Adelaide to load up the car and head out early in the morning, but we'd also dearly love to "lead foot it" through to Renmark and then get on a riverboat for the cruise through to those towering red cliffs. One day!

For the moment, we hopped from one photo-op to another, and one cafe to the next. Late in the afternoon we were dying for a cuppa -- tea, not coffee; we were coffee'd right up to the eyeballs. We hadn't know the Overland Corner Hotel even existed before we rolled up to it, and we were due a marvelous surprise. Original colonial-era building, lovely garden, live music ... great tea! Also very friendly people who gave permission for photos to be taken and uploaded. Here are just a few of about a hundred we took.

The land was pretty dry when we were there, but if you visited in late autumn, winter or early spring, the wetlands should be ... wet. You'd certainly hear the Golden Bell-frog, though you'd be very lucky to catch sight of one. Aussie frogs are usually invisible -- and astonishingly loud.

From Overland Corner we were headed toward Loxton and Barmera ... but Banrock Station and Murray River Lock 3 came up first; and those will be in the next post in this series.