Wonderful finds Sean.
Bourke had the first Murray-Darling weir with lock, and (IIRC) the first Murray-Darling lifting-span bridge. The lock was filled in, c1940. The bridge has been replaced with a modern one, but is retained as a monument.
There are similar scenes from the archive in a four-section program on a single videotape 'Bayside memories'. I don't think that they are the same scenes, or perhaps they are both different cuts from a long original? The tape shows a boat docking at Sorrento. Towards the end of the clip which you cite, see that there are two boats at the dock: Ozone or Hygeia is in port too. The lengthy dock has been dismantled. Today's roro ferries back in against dolphins to just the main stub.
The Murray clip is similar to those used in Riverboats remembered (a cd), but is not one of them. That has to be Ruby. I was thrown by having only a wheelhouse and captain's cabin on the third deck, but I can't check fast for the date of the crew cabins being built on that level. Ellen had only a wheelhouse and captain's cabin, but had a shorter (and fatter) dining saloon, and no second-deck toilet/shower above the paddlebox.
I'll have to check again, but I am fairly sure that one of those, dated c1922, is closer to 1926: the car models are the dating clue. In all cases, the clothing is 1920s.
My father and cousin were bay regulars from c1930: young men on the prowl in an era before nightclubs and discos. Find a girl through the day, and be dancing on deck on the way home. 'Down the bay' was a Melbourne phrase and ritual for decades, but those decades predated the boom in family motoring from c1950.
There is a reasonable coverage of Lucinda in Queensland Maritime Museum.
Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor
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