From Murray Bridge we headed north passing through two more famous SA wine districts the Barossa and Clare.
Lunch was a stop in Balaklava, a pretty country town that made great sandwiches and had an interesting piece of history in the middle of the road – a Silent Cop, built in 1926 due to the proliferation of automobiles and the confusion at the 5 way intersection.
After the wine country and we entered endless wheat, hay and sheep before reaching the base of Mt Remarkable at Melrose. We did a rushed setup as rain was starting to fall, and then enjoyed the view – very nice.
We had planned to stay in the Mt Remarkable national park but it was closed for pest control so Melrose was our next choice and as it turned out probably the better option as we loved our stay there. Its famous for two things, it’s local pub and it’s mountain biking. It was getting late so we decided we had better checkout the former.
The North Star Hotel is a beautiful old pub built in 1854.
The intention was to explore the pub and grab a quick dinner; 4 hours later and we were still chatting with the Licensee Nadine (Nads) and a few others locals. Nads was your true Aussie bartender, full of stories we can’t repeat and many classic one liners. She was from Oonandatta, so Melrose was the big smoke.
It’s was a wonderful night, so good she signed us up for dinner again the next night and made Belinda promise to bring her quilting (there was going to be a quilting day Wednesday that we would miss).
The next day we pulled the bikes out and went for a ride along the rail trail to Wilmington. We made it about 2/3rds of the way before turning back, a 26km loop.
We stopped along the way back to check one of the many mountain bike trails but Bel said she was cooked and we decided to head back into Melrose and explore the village. It really is a lovely town, well worth a visit.
We finished the day with a return trip to the North Star as promised. Nads was busily preparing for the quilting day and Bel reluctantly showed her and others photos of her quilts. Thankfully Nads wasn’t on the bar that night so we were able to get out for a much needed early night. We were about to hit the outback.