PS Melbourne centenary (Mildura, Australia)

[Roderick Smith]

The return of PS Adelaide to Echuca is less ceremonial, but the greater achievement: current is knocking speed to 6 km/h, 60 km days; it is munching through wood.
The boat left Mildura on Saturday, and must have taken 2 days to Mansell's Colignan (100 km) for wooding.  It may have pushed on, to save an hour next day.
By Monday night, it was at Wemen: that looks like 78 km, but Retail Cutting saves 6 km over the marked distance.  This is another wooding stop.
The plan is to move again on Thursday, probably 2 days to Meilman (looks like 108 km, but Bumbang Cutting saves 12 km).  This will be another wooding stop.

This voyage must be replicating the mood and conditions of 140 years ago.

Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

[Roderick Smith]

Today, PS Adelaide was leaving Wemen in the morning: ~7 h to lock 15 Euston, and into Robinvale for overnight.

Enclosed: Two pages of Fri.31.10.12 Swan Hill Guardian, done in grayscale to keep within the 500 kB image size for attachments.
Adelaide's crew were impressed by the size and warmth of the Swan Hill reception, and the hospitality over the prolonged stay.
The voyage from Echuca hadn't been easy: a locking, two bridges, and a very snaggy section.  This was a welcome respite.
Swan Hill's own PV Pyap and private PV Iron Dry were out in the morning to welcome Adelaide.
Swan Hill Pioneer Village was a very fitting mooring, with a chance of getting PS Gem into the same view.  The boat crew spent time inspecting steam machinery in the museum.  There was a convivial dinner held in the adjacent 'Spoons' restaurant.
Another large crowd assembled on Friday for the triumphant opening of the bridge, out of use for overhaul for the last few years.

'Any port in a storm' is an old boating phrase.  I took advantage of the camera format to include a related port:  Two of PS Marion's engineers maintain and operate steam equipment there.  Google for the Nov.12 100th rally, which will be double the size of any predecessor.

Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

[Roderick Smith]

The next five articles.
Shane Strudwick is well known as a Murray lover and photographer; many of his photos appear on a Murray Website, and he has a stunning book available.

I have yet to track the vessel behind Melbourne in the vintage Echuca photo, but for many years Murrumbidgee was in that position.  It was an early conversion for the tourist trade, but didn't last long: it burned to the waterline while on a cruise.  PV Coonawarra was built to replace it.

Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

[derekwarner_decoy]

Hi PD's .....& thanks as always Roderick for the text & images of our paddlers over the past weeks.....

I did notice however    ...that the two bottles of OZ RED ned were empty......... we hope they were enjoyed......  .....Derek

[Roderick Smith]

Mon.1.10: Adelaide has reached Tooleybuc in the morning, but the bridge opening won't be until 11.00 on Tuesday.

Picking up: Thursday was to be Wemen - Robinvale; Friday Robinvale - Meilman.
That fits with:
Sat. Meilman - Boundary Bend (60 km)
Sun. Boundary Bend - Wakool Jn (50 km), wooding stop, push on for part of the 36 km to Tooleybuc.
Mon.: the balance, by 9.15.
Nearly 400 km to go, at best 7 more days, and missing the heritage festival.

Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

[Roderick Smith]

From Michael this morning (Wed.3.10.12): Adelaide goes through Nyah 9.00 this morning and into Swan Hill tonight (below the bridge), load wood and through the bridge early as possible Thursday.
Here are four of the final eight newspaper scans.  The others will accompany the next progress report.
I posted the cover page of Mon.10.9.12 Mildura 'Sunrayasia Daily' in a two-part post at the time, from Mildura library.

Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

[Roderick Smith]

I was phoned from the field: PS Adelaide went through Swan Hill bridge at 7.00 this morning (Thurs.4.10), and is booked to go through Murrabit at 9.30 Friday, then Koondrook/Barham at 16.30 (an unusual time, but it is a school-holiday period, so there are no school buses).  Even pushing on long days, and with a convenient locking, that is still 3 days to reach Echuca, just missing heritage weekend.

Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

 

[Roderick Smith]

On Friday, I was out of the driveway at 5.15, at first light (a common boating move), with an easy run via the ring road and onto Calder Fwy at 5.55, Marong 7.15, Inglewood 10 min breakfast stop, Kerang 8.35 and Murrabit 9.00.
Adelaide was moored there, under the shade of a coolabah tree, while the engineer sang and waited for the gauge to rise.  The bridge crew was ready, with the clamps off, but had been instructed not to lift early: at Tooleybuc, a lady had complained to the council when the bridge went up 2 min early.  Locals had gathered.
Iron Dry arrived from around the bend; we all sat chatting.  One local had been born there in 1936, and had managed the farm on the NSW bank.  He recalls there being no trees, particularly along the road and railway.  The property owner flooded his land, and all of the smaller trees seen today grew self-seeded.  He had helped the operator raise the bridge, when it was a hand-winch job and traffic was still regular.
This bridge was built in the 1920s as a combined rail & road bridge for the extension of the railway to Poonboon (later renamed Stony Crossing).  It replaced a vehicle punt at Gonn Crossing, a couple of kilometres downstream.  Apart from using metal girders instead of trusses, I suspect that the lifting span is wider than on older bridges.  When I photographed the set, I never thought to measure the spans.  All locks were built to standard widths, with two standard lengths: 1-10 long; 11, 15 & 26 shorter (but still capable of holding a paddlesteamer and three barges).  The railway service was suspended from 1943.  In 1972, rails on the approaches and bridge were intact.  By 2003, some rails had gone.  By 2011, all rails had gone.
The bridge went up promptly at 9.30; the boats came through, and the bridge was lowered again.  I waited, crossed back to the Victorian side, and set out to various side roads with vantage points.

Two of the photos show the mud where the level has dropped since the Aug.-Sept. downriver voyage.  It looks deceptively solid, but is highly glutinous, and makes docking tricky: sink to your ankles or more, and lose shoes.
It's not a treat to beat your feet on the Murray River mud.  <www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQMeB64Setk>

Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

[Roderick Smith]

I got to three vantage points between Murrabit and Barham.  I could have got to more, but I needed to spend time working on RNV.
This selection shows Adelaide and Iron Dry passing Port Dunbar, which formerly had a very large shearing shed, and a short tramway leading to a loading point onto barges.
The others are part of a sequence in a badly-snaggy section, which required precision steering to wriggle around them while allowing for the current.  I had been through here in Jessie II last December, and there were worse parts than this one.
No snags may be removed from the river, but it is possible to drag the worst ones sideways and towards the bank to clear  the main channel.  Lots of snags are marked, but in the less-travelled reaches they are not marked, and a skipper has to be able to read the pattern of the ripples, and judge which side of a tip is the safe side.

Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

[Roderick Smith]

PS Adelaide passed Cadell on Murray motel nearly an hour ago.
I have the webcam running:
<http://echucamoama.com/river-web-cam>
As I post at 14.29 local time, Adelaide has not come into view.  Canberra went downriver about 20 min ago.  AA is at the dock.  I don't know where Pevensey is, but I suspect downriver to welcome the voyager home.

'The great voyage downstream began with a single splash'.
'The world did not end at Torrumbarry'.
'To travel hopefully is better than to arrive'.
'All's well that ends well'.

In quick succession from 14.35: Pevensey arrived from downriver.
Canberra came back upriver.
Adelaide arrived, and Canberra had rounded up, and came down again as Adelaide docked ahead of Alexander Arbuthnot.
Iron Dry came round the bend, came past Adelaide, then docked in the gap between the wharf and the wet dock, facing downriver.
By 14.46, the emails of triumph were flying.

Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

[Roderick Smith]

Backtracking to Friday, here is my Koondrook (Vic.) & Barham (NSW) selection, taken from the NSW bank.
Iron Dry had been here before: as part of the fleet assembled to celebrate the bridge's centenary.
The fourth of this series was my last view of the fleet.  This was day 42 for Adelaide.  I had been watching online from preparation day 0, and for days 1-4, then joined the chase on day 5.  Thanks to Michael and the port webcam, I was still able to keep watching progress to the arrival in Echuca on Mon.8.10: day 45 of this grand adventure.

There was a comfortable 1.6 m of water over the sill entering Torrumbarry lock.

Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

[Roderick Smith]

Excerpts from Kenneth Grahame 'Wind in the willows', a book which could well mean more to riverboat owners/operators now than when they were children:

* "There is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats."

* "...all this is so new to me.  So - this - is - a - River!"  "The River," corrected the Rat.

* "Beyond the Wild Wood comes the Wide World," said the Rat. "And that's something that doesn't matter, either to you or me. I've never been there, and I'm never going, nor you either, if you've got any sense at all."

* Sudden and magnificent, the sun's broad golden disc showed itself over the horizon facing them; and the first rays, shooting across the level water-meadows, took the animals full in the eyes and dazzled them. When they were able to look once more, the Vision had vanished, and the air was full of the carol of birds that hailed the dawn.

* Home! That was what they meant, those caressing appeals, those soft touches wafted through the air, those invisible little hands pulling and tugging, all one way!  Why, it must be quite close by him at that moment, his old home that he had hurriedly forsaken and never sought again, that day when he first found the river! And now it was sending out its scouts and its messengers to capture him and bring him in. Since his escape on that bright morning he had hardly given it a thought, so absorbed had he been in his new life, in all its pleasures, its surprises, its fresh and captivating experiences. Now, with a rush of old memories, how clearly it stood up before him, in the darkness!...the home had been happy with him, too, evidently, and was missing him, and wanted him back, and was telling him so, through his nose, sorrowfully, reproachfully, but with no bitterness or anger ; only with plaintive reminder that it was there, and wanted him.  The call was clear, the summons was plain. He must obey it instantly, and go...It's my home, my old home! I've just come across the smell of it, and it's close by here, really quite close. And I must go to it.

For Adelaide, a grand adventure was completed on Monday.  My Wooden Boat Association journal arrived today, with the suggestion that Adelaide had been considering continuing, to be at Goolwa for the wooden boat festival (Mar.13).  Other steamers have done the journey before:
* PS Oscar W: Goolwa - Echuca - Goolwa, once or twice in recent years.
* PS William Randell: Goolwa - Echuca - Goolwa, 2003.
* replica PS Mary Ann & PS Lady Augusta : Mildura - Goolwa - Echuca - Mildura, 2003.
* PS Etona - Echuca - Goolwa - Echuca: twice in recent years (the second being 2001).
* PS James Maiden: Echuca - Goolwa - Wentworth.
At the centenary celebration for PS Pevensey, the Goolwa mayor described Goolwa and Echuca as 'the bookends of the Murray'.

My last live view was of PS Adelaide rounding a bend at Barham; I then headed to another paddlesteamer adventure (PS Curlip on Gippsland lakes).  Michael and Belinda captured the final stages of the return, and I watched the final minutes on the port's webcam (see the earlier post, out of sequence, but I won't change it now).

Of the Mildura adventurers, PS Marion is still at Berri for survey slipping, which makes the 19-26.10 return to Mannum seem like a separate exercise.  Karadoc (Mildura) PV Kulkyne headed for SA, but I don't know how far or for what duration.  Swan Hill PV Iron Dry is at Echuca; hoping to reach Yarrawonga before heading home.  I don't know the moves of SA boats PV Amphibious and PV Tamara Rae (which may have been tempted to revisit its former Wemen home first).  Other adventures in progress include SWPV Dromedary up the Darling, and another proposing to tackle the Wakool.  PS Curlip is sitting at Lakes Entrance ready for good conditions to sneak around the coast to Marlo.  I'm off to USA, probably with no riverboating, and Jessie II has to wait for November to start a new season: hopefully Barmah - Tocumwal.

My final photos from the 25.8-Sept.-8.10 Echuca - Mildura - Wentworth - Mildura - Echuca adventure.

Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

[Roderick Smith]

Mildura Paddle Steamers business shut down by NSW border restrictions
Michael DiFabrizio September 13, 2020 Mildura News
Even as some rules ease, Mildura’s iconic Murray River paddle-steamers are set to remain docked – all because of where the NSW state boundary starts.
Mildura Paddle Steamers marketing manager Ashton Kreuzer in front of PS Melbourne.
New South Wales border restrictions have brought an iconic tourism business to a grinding halt.
Mildura Paddle Steamers, which typically operates a three-vessel fleet, has been docked because of measures to keep Victorians out.
Murray River is part of NSW and therefore is covered by the state’s permit system, intended to stop the spread of COVID-19.
Mildura Paddle Steamers marketing manager Ashton Kreuzer said the business wanted NSW to introduce an exemption to allow regional Victorians to access the river.
As it stands, even a journey that begins and ends on the Victorian side at Mildura Wharf, and provides no opportunity to disembark onto NSW land, is not permitted.
“We are a commercial business, so it’s not like we’re just ferrying passengers across,” Ms Kreuzer said.
The PS Melbourne, one of three boats operated by Mildura Paddle Steamers, is docked.
In a cruel irony, even though Mildura Paddle Steamers has the option of servicing NSW customers, local accommodation on that side of the border has been booked out by defence force personnel and police officers staffing the border

checkpoints, leaving little room for tourists.
Ms Kreuzer said after the first lockdowns, the business was in June able to begin cruising again at limited capacity – then, a month later, the border closure hit.
“We had an income that was meeting the cost of maintaining the business without dipping into our emergency reserve funds,” she said.
“Whereas now, we’re eating into our reserves and there’s no income whatsoever, but there’s ongoing expenses having these three vessels, they are heritage vessels as well so there are a lot of costs.”
Defence force personnel at the New South Wales border checkpoint at Buronga, near Mildura.
Mildura Regional Development chief executive Brett Millington said tourism businesses had been “hammered” by border closures.
He said about 20 per cent of the region’s visitor market comes from South Australia, which has introduced harsher border measures.
A further 33 per cent came from regional Victoria and Melbourne.
“We’ve copped a hiding on all levels,” Mr Millington said.
Mildura Mayor Simon Clemence has written to NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian, asking her to allow border residents to make use of the Murray River.
He said it would have economic and wellbeing benefits.
“We’re a river community and for many of us enjoying the river for boating, fishing or camping is part of our lifestyle,” Cr Clemence said.
<www.heraldsun.com.au/leader/mildura/hyperlocal/mildura-paddle-steamers-business-shut-down-by-nsw-border-restrictions/news-story/d139aedc3415f1ef4357e9fa034043aa>
* How ridiculous. Anyone would think the Chinavirus is somehow going to jump off the boat and go ashore on the other side of the river.
* I assume the paddle steamers and houseboats at Echuca are under the same restrictions
* This is absolutely ridiculous all ports are in victoria the boat is in NSW only while it operates and no disembarkation in NSW does the NSW premier want these businesses and tourism to fold
* Australia has this year become an Idiot Country.
* When was the Murray River "given" to NSW?
* The Murray River, as a border, is rather an oddity, especially when the border is on the banks on the Victorian side of the river. Why is it so and why hasn't this been fixed long, long ago?
* Common sense gone missing again,but hey it's alright for the AFL players and Wags to swim in a resort pool in Qld?
* No common sense means no dollars and cents. Pedantic Politicians lurk in every corner of this country.
* There are lots of silly things in place to supposedly protect us but this takes the cake. The power hungry NSW Premier has finally flipped her lid. What has happened to that zone that stretches either side of the Border?
* This can't be true surely, Scomo and Dutton have said border closures are unessasary and shouldn't happen. Oh that's right only when imposed by non Liberal States. Border areas should not be victims of the NSW, SA and Federal Liberal

mismanagement of borders. Open border says Scomo, whilst you can only travel overseas if your Tony Abbott.
* Another rule that’s totally stupid
* How come the NSW premier is not copping it like the Qld one, clearly political. Why should Mildura or Swan Hill be restricted from using the Murray when they have hardly had any cases and none for months.
* Ridiculous..trouble when no commonsense is applied to anything anymore.
* The boaties don't wish to go to NSW, they just want access to the river.  Sounds like nit picking by NSW to me.
* Mildura you have to remember your on the west side of the Blue Mountains very few in Politics have ventured over these mountains and have no idea whats on the other side 
* same problem at Echuca
* Some businesses in Melbourne haven’t been operating since March, you’re lucky to have ‘emergency funds’
* Is it possible to base the vessels on the northern bank, and operate exclusively for NSW citizens on NSW water? Victorians can wait for a better life hereafter.

Roderick Smith