Following on from this previous post about reconnecting to the Mallee Routes project after the easing of the Covid-19 border closures in SA I made a small photo trip in early March 2022 along the interface of the Mt Lofty Ranges and the Murray Plains. Stepping out from the shadow cast by Covid-19 included passing through the South Australian towns of Monarto, Cambrai, Sedan and Eudunda and briefly camping at Eudunda. The latter allowed me to explore Tableland Rd that wound its way along the top of the Mt Lofty Ranges.

It was a brief trip because the sou’-easterly winds became gale force and put paid to the large format photography I had planned. Though brief, it was a multipurpose one. It was based around picking up on my 2020 trips that explored the eastern side of the SA Mallee on both sides of the River Murray.

I was based at Kapunda and Clare and my interest was reading the ruins of the white settler-colonial history. I was thinking in terms of absent history, in particular tracing the old railways lines that had been constructed in the early 20th century to transport wheat for export to the UK. Australia was still an integral part of the British Empire then.