All Aboard the Murray Princess
The paddle steamer era on the Murray River began in 1852 when William Richard Randell built his boat the Mary Ann and commenced trading in March 1853. Fleets of paddle steamers and their barges carried produce from stations and farms to transit points downriver. River traffic included floating shops, mail steamers, mission boats and passenger liners.
In 1915, a series of locks and weirs were built along the Murray, to improve water storage. At about the same time, modern rail and road networks took over heavy transport, and the riverboat industry rapidly declined. But it’s been revived is a beautiful tribute to that important and romantic era. Built in 1986, at a little over sixty-seven metres in length and weighing just over fifteen hundred tonnes, she is the largest paddle wheeler in the Southern Hemisphere. While a cruise provides beautiful scenery, cups of tea, piano music, and bingo, it also offers much more.
