Daytrips and Paddlesteamers

I've been working and living in a small town in Central Northern Victoria, right on the Murray River. The river forms most of the border between New South Wales and Victoria. It's part of a massive inland system, and used to be the highway for trade and transport. I remember watching a mini-series as a kid called All the Rivers Run. I loved the boats, and the scraggly dusty gum-tree Australian-ness of the Murray. It seemed harsh and tranquil all at the same time. I can't remember a damn thing about the plot of the series, but the main thing is that it left me with a desire to see the Murray, and a love for the Paddlesteamer - the main form of transport on this once mighty highway.



The town of Echuca was a busy port and crossing on the Murray - it's docks used to stretch for three quarters of a mile along the river banks. Only a small section remains, but there's quite a few paddlesteamers in operation as tourist boats from the dock area. Also, some are being restored for private use, as well as there being a few modern-day versions as private houseboats. Interestingly, some of the ones being restored were wrecks. As the industry died out, they were moored on the opposite side of the bank to docks, and abandoned. One by one they would have sunk. In the fairly recent drought times the river got to very low levels, and all these boats started emerging. They were preserved in the mud and water. Some got re-floated and restorations began.



That's the boat I wanted to go on, and did eventually. It's the PS Pevensey. She still has her original steam engine. Built in 1910 as a barge, she was turned into a paddlesteamer a year later, and carried cargo along the Murray. As trade died out, she was left to be a floating museum in the town of Mildura. But luck changed for this boat - she was restored to be the star of the series that made me fall in love with the Murray and paddlesteamers in the first place. She starred as the Philadelphia in All the Rivers Run. I had no idea that the steamer in the series was an original, let alone still operating.



This picture was taken while I was standing next to the loud and sweatingly hot muscle of the Pevensey's steam engine. I watched the man stoke it up, and was awed with the whole thing for a while. The paddlesteamer Etona, in the centre of the view, was and still is a missionary boat, a floating church. It still sports the cross above the wheelhouse to show what it is. On it they would perform things like christenings and marriages. I can just imagine it - hey hun, let's get married next time the boat comes past - whaddaya reckon?

I got one of my dreams - to be on a paddlesteamer on the Murray. I heard the steam whistles, I walked through what remained of the docks, felt my feet on the rickety planks and looked down through the cracks to the muddy water so far below. I stood in constant amazement of this river that is so totally different to the ones I had grown up on. Scraggly, muddy and dusty, in the bare shade of the river gums. This is the Australia I've dreamed about but have only seen in movies.



Yes, it's Vic on the bow of the PS Pevensey with a dumb grin on her face and a section of the Echuca docks in the background. Next is Vic also, still wearing dumb grin, on the upper deck after being in the wheelhouse with the captain.