Day 5 Lock 3 to Marker 410 26 km

We couldn’t go through the Lock until 8.00 am SA time but Joe’s phone battery and spare battery were both flat. While not essential the phone had the Map Me GPS app which we have been using to confirm our location so we paddled over to Lock early because Simon had spotted a power point in the public toilets. Unfortunately when we tried it out there was no power.

At 8.00 am we found the Lock Keeper Tim in the office (Joe didn’t realise it was the same guy who had let us through Lock 5). Tim asked if we minded waiting 20 minutes while he completed some data work. He invited us to make ourselves comfortable and to make coffee and get water from the fridge. Tim works 12 days on 2 days off (which he has with his young daughters – he is divorced). He had been driving a harvester for 8 hours overnight picking grapes. We had a good chat before he opened the big gates half an hour later and we went through Lock 3. 

With no breakfast we paddled onto Overland Corner where there is an historic hotel. More in hope than expectation we wanted to visit hotel. We reached a point where we knew the hotel was close and asked a couple of fishermen if we were that the right point to walk to the hotel. According to them we were but as one said “I wouldn’t walk that far”.  Turns out they were clueless - following their directions we set off and walked about 2 km before checking the GPS and walking back and then overland to the pub.

Overland Corner Hotel

The pub wasn’t opening for another 30 minutes but we were prepared to wait and were rewarded with a fish and chip lunch. We had to endure the very chatty “know all” publican who gave us the benefit of his vast knowledge. He was able to advise us on the Water Act  (Malcolm Turnbull’s fault), the Murray Darling Basin Plan, Indigenous weather prediction (they’ve been here for 100s of year) and much more - we were able to escape when other guests arrived. We had a good laugh about wanting to cut off our ears to escape. Nice historic building and the meal was good (cooked by the publican’s wife).

Back on the river we passed the landing area for the hotel only about 1 km downstream and much closer to the pub. The wind picked up and we had to work hard down some long reaches alongside some massive cliffs. Even when we changed direction the wind seemed to funnel down the river at us.

Eventually we pulled up opposite the 410 km marker near a moored houseboat. We set up our tents and kicked back before rushing to have 2 minute noodles for dinner as the rain started to fall. About 2 mm over all through the night but it was dry next morning.