Ashley took me out West from Mildura, to Lock 9 on the Murray, the Lock system was built in the 1920's and maintains Murray River flow and height levels whilst allowing boats, and recently fish, to travel up and down the various river sections. The fishways are pretty cool, allowing the fish to swim upstream through the lock (where water height changes around 8-10m).
From Lock 9 we rode around 30kms West along the longest, straighest and flatest road I've ever ridden, along the Murray and then through Kulnine Station. The only vegitation is scrub, and the terrain is so flat (we climbed a mere 45 vertical meters over 68kms!) that you can see to the horizon in all directions, there's just no doubt the earth is round when you can see in a circle like this.
The earth is red, and beautifully Australian, it feels like your in Mad Max or something as you cruise along through the desert scrub. We cut into Neds Station, an old farm that has been converted into a Nature Reserve, and North to the Murray and Lock 8 where we had a nice stop for a bite to eat and watch the birds having a field day fishing where the water is churned up on the downstream side of the Lock.
River gums grow here and Mallee Scrub, there's beautiful creeks to explore and the mightly Murray to ride along, she's a great river and I hope they can sort out the long term term water management issues with her so she's there for our children and their children to enjoy.
The crew:
| Jason | Giant Trance |
| Ash | Giant MCM Team Carbon HT |
The Stats:
| Distance | 68.0km |
| Time | 3:47 |
| Climb | 45vm |
| Speed | 21km/h avg, 36km/h max |