We left Burra at lunch time and made our way East towards a lovely camp spot in the tiny town of Moorook between Kingston on Murray and Loxton. We had noticed this spot on a previous trip and the reviews on Wikicamps were positive.

The road was incredibly boring and straight but it was interesting to once again watch the changes in vegetation. Around Burra there were cleared hills and broadacre cereal farms, but these soon gave way to the desert vegetation prevalent in the drier parts of Australia, with saltbush and only the odd tree. Some areas were not even fenced while one or two contained very small mobs of sheep who would have been hard pressed to find a blade of grass.

It wasn’t long before we passed through Morgan and then crossed the Murray on one of the dozen or so car ferries in SA to take us into Waikerie. We stopped for a break and the dogs loved the sight of the first green grass for some time and had a play in the water. 

The five star brigade was catered for on the paddle cruiser Murray River Queen advertising “fine dining”, while cattle grazed on the opposite shore.

We continued on our journey and I could not help but ponder the tension between the environmentalists who want the water to flow down the Murray into the ocean and the people who depend on the water to turn what would otherwise be desert into productive farms. We saw quite a few properties that looked as though they were previously irrigated but due to lack of water had returned to desert scrub. 

We arrived at our destination at Moorook mid afternoon and set up the van on lovely green grass directly on the river. This spot is just beautiful, with lots of birds. The site is used for water skiing but unfortunately no one was out to entertain us during the week.

Among the birds is very cheeky white goose (I think that is what is was) – not sure where is came from but it checked out all of the campsites looking for food. We had to offer up Flash as the “anti goose dog” to some of or neighbours to keep the bugger away.

Another resident character was “Pete the Pelican” who stood guard at the fishing rods and chased all of the other Pelicans away – the neighbours caught a few yellow bellies and Pete demonstrated that he had catching fish frames down to a fine art.