P.S. Minimus (the mighty mouse of the Murray)

[Murray Whaler]

Over the last few months Minimus has been at various ports up and down the Murray and Darling rivers. Renmark, Wentworth, Echuca and Yarrawonga/Mulwala. Attached are the photos.
1. Along side at Renmark
2. Engine room.
3. Minimus and crew at Wentworth.

- Murray Whaler

[Eddy Matthews]

Are the river levels back up to reasonable levels now then? Or is it just that Minimus is small and can still navigate them?

Regards
Eddy

[Roderick Smith]

Those launching places are in the pools of weirs, and local cruising has plenty of depth.  The problem is going  above a pool, and Minimus isn't making extended voyages.  Even with the water down, water should allow cruising from Wellington (mouth to the lake) to about 60 km above Mildura.  The main problems are:
* Sandbars on the downstream approach to lock 1.  Big vessels haven't come through for a couple of years now.
* Warrakoo, between lock 6 and 7.  The two weirs were spaced too far apart and there is a shallow stretch with a narrow and sharply-curved channel.
* Just above lock 7: about 3 km of weed-choke full width.
From Karadoc to Yarrawonga, a through voyage is dependent on river flows, except in the pools of Euston Weir and Torrumbarry Weir (which includes the Echuca section).  Yarrawonga Weir creates Lake Mulwala, which is boatable, but from there to Albury is done only very rarely.  A flush of 9 ML/day has just gone through Mildura, but flow is now down to 6 ML/day.  That might be great for the majority of a voyage, but there are some critical points (notably Bitch & Pups rapids, below Swan Hill), and some stretches which are snag affected.
The Murray Darling Website is now showing less data, and in a more-confusing way.
See www.mdba.gov.au/water
and particularly www.mdba.gov.au/water/live-river-data/yarrawonga-to-euston
I read the map to show only a 6 m drop through Torumbarray Weir, which hints that the level is down.  It also shows only a 4 ML flow below, and the rule of thumb states that 8 ML is needed to make the sill navigable.
There is a 10 ML flow coming down from Yarrawonga: that seems high, but it may be heading into irrigation channels.

Regards,
Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

[Murray Whaler]

Hi Eddy,     we tow Minimus on a trailer between any interesting place or festival we want to go to which means we can go where the big boats can't.   The paddle wheels bolt on the front of the trailer, the paddle boxes are clamped down on the inside along with the funnel.           Part of the sponsons are unbolted to make us legal width on the road at a speed of 100 km/hr. (not a bad speed for a paddle steamer)    The Murray river flows through Lake Mulwala which has no lock for big paddlers to get in.  P.S. Minimus is claiming to be the first paddle steamer to be on the lake in over 50 years.   The key word being steamer.     It was quiet rough steaming on the the lake which was a new experience for us.      The boiler water level was going up and down in the sight glass and there were waves in the hot well causing the float to turn off the flow to the boiler with each wave.  We have now fitted baffles.     We would like to do a long trip down the river but fuel is our biggest problem as there are very few places we can get it but we are working on it.   Regards Murray Whaler