PS Melbourne owner Adam Auditori showing state Member for Murray Plains Peter Walsh how to get the boat up the river to Echuca — when the water arrives.
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A crucial part of Echuca-Moama’s history is on its way home.
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But no-one is quite sure when the PS Melbourne will finally tie up alongside Echuca’s historic wharf because the Murray’s low water levels have left it — and new owner Adam Auditori — stranded in Koondrook-Barham.
He expects to be there for at least another eight to 10 days, waiting for water releases upstream to finally fill the river and reach him so he can cast off and head south-east for the three days it will take him to arrive once it gets up a head of steam.
The trip from Mildura began on October 3 and the going has been so tough, in one six-hour period in one day they managed just 1km, winching their way upstream metres at a time.
Sitting in the weekend sunshine at Koondrook’s wharf, Adam said the Melbourne was an integral part of the river’s history.
The PS Melbourne tied up at the Koondrook wharf at the weekend. The 113-year-old vessel is on its way from Mildura to Echuca.
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He said construction started in 1912 at Koondrook, with the hull launched in July the following year. Trials up and down the river saw it reach Echuca just before Christmas, where it was greeted by a gaggle of government ministers.
Because, he said, the Melbourne had been created to serve as a Murray River workhorse.
“She was equipped with a powerful winch, good for hauling fallen trees and snags from the river and playing a key role in building bridges, weirs and locks along the Murray,” Adam said.
“Her official first day as a public works boat was New Year’s Day in 1914 after she had been loaded with all the rigging equipment from the original PS Melbourne, built in 1865 and also built for the Victorian Government.
“Some of her jobs would often see her anchored in the one spot for months, even a year, which helps explain why the Marshall Sons boiler and all the working parts are originals and still in great order.”
Still with the original boiler and equipment, the PS Melbourne burns about a cubic metre of redgum per day.
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A period photo of the PS Melbourne and her winch working to construct a bridge across the Murray early last century.
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The paddlesteamer setting sail 111 years ago from alongside the Moama slipway completes a remarkable connection.
Adam now operates the slipway as well as owning the Melbourne.
The Echuca-trained shipwright has spent most of his life on the river, and the Melbourne is just the latest chapter in keeping that river’s story alive.
The PS Melbourne would eventually be sold to the Evans Brothers in Echuca, who used it for the occasional picnic or excursion, operating until 1942.
From 1948 to 1964 she remained moored here while RJ Evans completed extensive hull works, new timber decks and waterproofing the deckhouses, ensuring the survival of the vessel in a period when so many others were lost.
In 1965, the Melbourne was acquired by Captain Alby Pointon and his wife, Freda, to compete with the PS Canberra at Mildura, where she was reconfigured as a passenger steamer, embarking on her first tour from Mildura Wharf on January 1, 1966, and running daily until the COVID-19 shutdown in March 2020.
Since he purchased the Melbourne in July last year, Adam has been working hard to get her shipshape and back into survey to carry passengers: she is rated for a maximum of 300.
“We would probably not have got this far without our captain, Angus McCullough, who is the youngest master on the river,” Adam said.
“That and the hard work of engineer Zoe Bartsch — they have both done a brilliant job.”
If you want to know just how hard this trip can be using technology this old — to get her under the Tooleybuc bridge, Adam and his team had to cut the funnel off.
They cleared the obstacle with inches to spare, as the person in charge of lifting the bridge was on a rostered day off.
And a detour up the Wakool came unstuck when a log, too big to be believed, pushed them back.
Now the Melbourne, Adam and his crew sit and patiently wait for the water so they can have her ‘home’ to celebrate the 111th anniversary of the day she began her remarkable career.
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