I've just recently finished reading two books from my collection that I have obtained at various times in the last year!

One Riverboats and Rivermen was excellent, it's basically the biography of one of the Murray Captains and goes into extreme detail about how the paddlers were run and the struggles they faced. It also has detailed diagrams of various things such as the boats, barges and how to pull your steamer off a sand bar!

The Second is a Riverman's Story which was also very interesting, again it is a biography and tells the story of an outrigger bargee and his wood cutting career around Echuca, once again a great read...I didn't know there was so much vulger behaviour  :wink: in those times...well actually I did, knowing that Echcua has one of the world's only heritage listed brothels!

Anyway they are brilliant reads especially if you want to find out how tough we did on our steamers.