Murray River cruise steams through pioneer history
There’s a story at every turn on a cruise of the mighty Murray.
To skipper Warren Hardiman, the experience of handling a shallow-keeled paddlesteamer is like “an empty milk carton floating on a puddle”.
It’s some puddle we’re on. In Australian lore, our longest river is never anything other than the mighty Murray, and after drought-breaking rains this year it’s a lovely cushion for PS Emmylou, the only wood-fired paddle-steamer in the world offering regular overnight cruises.
But it still requires an artist at the helm, and Warren makes constant tugs at Emmylou’s wheel to get around at least 75 bends and innumerable snags between the vessel’s home port of Echuca, Victoria, and our destination of Perricoota Station six hours downriver and just inside NSW. By road it’s 28km and by river still only 61km. But neither Emmylou nor its 16 passengers are in any rush. On this two-night cruise, chilling out is non-negotiable.
No offence but Emmylou looks much older than its years. It was conceived in 1980 by enthusiasts seeking to create a vessel that could accommodate overnight passengers and incorporate the best aspects of the golden age of Murray paddle-steamers. These boats were once true workhorses, hauling cargo along the colonies’ busiest highway; in the 1870s Echuca was the third most important port in Australia after Sydney and Melbourne.
Emmylou was authentic enough to feature in 1980s miniseries All the Rivers Run starring Sigrid Thornton and John Waters. It was built around a genuine antique, a 1906 Marshall engine discovered in a shed on a NSW farm where it once powered a sawmill. It’s astutely attended to by engineer Dale, who provides a diet of redgum and beer cartons.
At Echuca’s historic wharf, with paddle-steamers of various styles and vintages moored along the bank, Rohan Burgess, one of Emmylou’s owners, likes to “introduce” guests to their cabins. Ours doesn’t take long to get to know. It’s cleverly designed to fit two single bunks overlapping at right angles, leaving maybe a square metre of floor space but oodles of storage underneath plus, in the context of this bonsai of bedrooms, a generous bathroom.
There are eight ensuite cabins in total, topping out at the queen-sized Emmylou Suite. All were refurbished in 2018 in tasteful white, taupe and grey. The native flora fragrances of the toiletries evoke our setting, into which we venture on this sunny Friday afternoon.
At first it’s all monotone, river and forest merging into a grey-green melange. But that changes every time Emmylou rounds a bend. There are cosy nooks fore and aft on both decks, so guests can follow the sun. Emmylou even has a promenade deck, but at only 60 or so steps, forget about maxxing out a fitness tracker unless it’s recording calorie intake because scones, jam and cream appear as a precursor to more great tastes.
There’s a story at every turn of the Murray, but our skipper doesn’t shatter the calm too often with snippets. Just outside Echuca he does announce the junction of the Campaspe River on the Victorian side, so named by explorer Major Thomas Mitchell, who was something of a classicist. Campaspe, Hardiman tells us, was Alexander the Great’s favourite concubine.
The vessel is quieter than expected. The swish of the redgum paddles neutralises the thrumming of the engine and it’s easy to pick up the sound of wood being chopped in the forest that flanks us on both sides. There are occasional modern developments, more so on the NSW side, as Victoria generally forbids building within the old survey measurement of three chains (60m) of the bank.
From a redgum sapling wedged into the bow, Emmylou flies the Murray Flag, an unofficial ensign for the river for almost 170 years. No photograph or sketch exists of the original flag, so today there are several versions, all educated guesses based on a lone published description of “a red cross with four horizontal bars of blue … being charged with five stars as emblems of the Australian colonies”. Plus a Union Jack.
At dinner, social distancing creates an almost Valentine’s Day vibe, with eight tables for two strung around the perimeter of the dining salon. Chef Greg Andrew’s offerings are substantial: savoury bruschetta, a porterhouse steak that provides an annual iron intake in one hit, and a deconstructed crumble of poached pears with toasted almonds and cream. The wines from the Echuca-Moama region are sterling examples of their respective styles, such as a rich chardonnay from St Anne’s, an organic semillon from Restdown, and a Cape Horn cabernet with yummy blackcurrant notes.
We tie up at Perricoota Station at about 9.30pm, and wake in the morning to a chorus of screeching corellas. Hardiman leads a tour of this former sheep station and citrus orchard, which was established in 1843 and extended in the 1860s by two Cobb & Co owners to accommodate the company horses.
The fine two-storey homestead has royal credentials, having entertained Queen Victoria’s second son, Alfred, in 1868. Current owners Barry and Jo Clark are converting heritage outbuildings for accommodation to service the restaurant/reception venue that was once the packing shed for the property’s now demolished grove of 22,000 orange trees. What has survived is a stand of impressive peppercorn trees, including the one into which lovelorn cousin Adam crashed and died when Perricoota was a location in All the Rivers Run. The property is lushly green, being prone to “voluptuous floods”, and there’s plenty of curated rust in the display of farm machinery and tools beside the old shearing shed.
Mid-morning and we cast off, heading back towards Echuca. Hardiman is happy for passengers — one at a time — to come up to his wheelhouse eyrie to chat about the river he has been navigating for 20 years. Because his eyes are constantly on the water, he is an avowed nature spotter and often spies turtles, water rats and snakes, but never a platypus. A first for even this river veteran is the sight of a chap on the Victorian bank playing bagpipes.
On Saturday night we moor, still two hours out of Echuca. After dinner, a campfire is lit on the bank and Hardiman breaks out the guitar and harmonica to treat us to a couple of hours of classics, from John Williamson and Neil Diamond — “I’m a solid, hairy man,” he croons — to Neil Young and a rousing Eagle Rock to which we provide the chorus backing
Next morning, we steam back into Echuca. It has been less than 48 hours on Emmylou, but for many of us it has been a welcome respite from respective levels of COVID lockdown. We’ve relished lashings of comfort food, absorbed the eucalyptus freshness of the landscape and taken a form of transport that’s as Australian as it comes, even if it was named after American singer Emmylou Harris who, the skipper reveals, has travelled on board.
In the know
PS Emmylou sails itineraries of one to six nights from Echuca, plus one-hour lunch and dinner cruises aboard Emmylou and sister vessels PS Canberra and PS Pride of the Murray.
Echuca is 220km north of Melbourne and is at the heart of a thriving food and drinks scene. As well as the region’s renowned fruit and dairy offerings, there are wineries, a brewery, a distillery, the excellent Echuca Chocolate Company and even a camel milk farm.
Jeremy Bourke was a guest of Murray River Paddlesteamers and Visit Victoria.
