Day 24, Neds Corner – Lock Seven, 4 Nov

Tony

My home for the past four weeks - cosy!

A fairly quiet day on the river today, passing through lock eight and ending at lock seven in the Murray-Sunset National Park. I’ll be glad to get to SA and turn the corner of the river at Morgan - then I’ll be on the home straight and heading south towards the mouth, even if that does mean having the wind in my face!

Distance paddled: 52 km

Pan

A very bad day on the road which ends in disaster. Driving around dodgy, unsealed roads and tracks all day, I struggle to find our planned meeting points using the river access book maps. I should unhook the caravan and go exploring in the Land Cruiser like I said I would in this situation, but foolishly carry on trailing it.

I go 10km by river upstream from our planned endpoint to see if I can catch Tony there as it doesn’t look like there’s any good exit points further down. He’s passed that point already and I blow my whistle hard and yell “Tony! Tony! Toooooonyy!”, which he says later that he heard but thought it was the fishermen he’d passed. I go a bit further down and it’s the same story – he’s too far ahead, it’s really frustrating and we have no phone reception.

So I go back to the area of our planned endpoint and try one last track that I’d avoided earlier because it’s tight – ‘this must be the track on the map that leads to the campsite’, I think. I make a huge error of judgement and take a corner too sharply, thinking the van is clear of a sawn-off branch, but it isn’t and I tear a big strip out of the side of the van.

I feel terrible and walk towards the river to see at least if the meeting point is down here, but only come to Mullaroo Creek. When I drive to the lockmaster's home Tony is there waiting for me and is understandably devastated to see the damage. But he didn’t direct his anger at me and for that I’m eternally grateful.

I’m far from the ideal person for this job, being very impractical and capable of this kind of ignorance and clumsiness, but Tony’s been very patient and understanding of my weaknesses. I’d like to say sorry again to Tony and Susan for not being careful and damaging their caravan, and thank them for sticking with me to see the journey through.