Day 98 Miva

The trail sign and a private property sign.
Always makes you wonder.

Friday 23rd July, 2021 23.9km

2344 / 2754.9km

Cold start to morning as I walk out of the State Forest area where they had been harvesting and chipping. A quick walk down a road then turn left along a track that follows the Mary River.

The road peters out to a track and enters a heavily forested type area that the owner has deemed a nature reserve. A lot of signs about private property again and then I start passing shacks built in the bush. Can't work out why people who want to live off grid have to have so much junk lying about. Sort of spoils the ambience I thought you may have been looking for.

I pass a shack that I'm sure I've seen in a movie where a kid is playing a banjo, I think I hear a pig squeal. (Movie reference)

Following the trail along the Mary River.
Getting spooky along here

I stop and have breakfast between shacks and it starts to rain, so I spend 5 minutes getting everything covered, have two bowls of cereal as I think I can afford it.

I'm sure I remember a boy playing a banjo on
this verandah once. (Movie reference Deliverence)

The next bit is a tricky creek crossing but with signage and a couple of up to date notes I figure it out OK. Then I am delivered back out of the duelling banjo country into some open farm land.

I pop across a major road then another country road which took me to the village of Miva. Two cars stop and have a chat and I turn off trail to head down to Dickabram Bridge.

Trail heads thataway

It was a camping site but now has a no camping sign up. They allow a 20 hour stopover for vans and since it has a toilet block I decide to ignore the sign. I would have moved further away if no toilets as I would have to go bush to pee and a BBQ rest area is not the right place for that.

Yep, that's the trail

Just as it's getting dark I meet a gent that one of the cars told me about. He has walked 10 kilometres from a bridge on that major road I crossed earlier as it goes across the Mary River. He puts his kayak in at this bridge paddles the river to the next bridge, walks back to the car after hiding the kayak to get the car and drives back to pick up the kayak. He is 70 and we talk for an hour on backpacking, walks we have done, and the enigma that is woman. One subject we can't resolve. He leaves me with his stash of sultanas and cashews then walks across the bridge to his car.

Look at me

Now it's dark I put up the tent, use the BBQ to heat some wraps and go to bed. It's a quiet road till someone crosses the bridge and depending on how fast they travel the noise level of the clatter of boards is loud or very loud. A couple arrive in a van but they setup the satellite TV and disappear real quick.

Dragon Fruit Farm

Dickabram Bridge