Australia 1997

Sunday 7 December — Cumberoona Day

By half past nine, I was down by the river waiting for the ten o’clock cruise on the Paddle Steamer Cumberoona, myself and six others. At five to ten, the purser appeared and announced that there were insufficient passengers to justify sailing but he would give it another five minutes before cancelling - behold, another half dozen folk appeared and we sailed. I spent most of this cruise in the engine room.

Cumberoona was built in 1986 as an Australian Bicentennial project, utilising a couple of agricultural engines built in the early years of the century by Marshall and Sons of Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, one was a static engine and the other fitted to a traction engine. (This genesis matches the paddler Decoy on the Avon at Perth, Western Australia, though it has only one engine which also was built in Lincolnshire.) A single boiler feeds both engines and they can drive the paddles independently, affording enviable manoeuvrability for a paddle steamer. The crew comprises Captain, Purser and Engineer (who emigrated from London in 1969). There was an earlier Cumberoona on the Murray, named after an upriver station.

After the cruise, I hung around for an hour, taking a couple of photos, and then boarded again for the 1200 cruise. This gave an extra half an hour spent downstream as the Union Bridge between Albury and Wodonga limits upstream travel. I persuaded the purser that I should get a frequent traveller discount and he gave me the concession rate and a free cup of tea, but I did buy a couple of postcards and a stubby holder.

I did not take the third cruise of the day, contenting myself with taking more photographs, and then returned to the town for a walk up Memorial Hill to admire the War Memorial and the views over the town and surrounding countryside.

Back in the main street, I photographed some of the town’s main buildings before taking myself into Termo for a couple of beers and a packet of crisps, which cost $1.10 here as opposed to $1.50 in Jindabyne. I returned to the hostel to clean up a bit before dining in the Metra Fe cafe on milkshake, vegetable quiche with salad and chips and frozen yoghurt for desert before heading for bed.

Monday 8 December — Albury

It was time to replenish the pockets so I had to loiter until the banks opened at nine when I changed a couple of travellers’ cheques and bought some very expensive milk (90 cents for 600 ml in a newsagents on Dean Street) for breakfast before heading down to the river and across the Union Bridge into Victoria, but after a quick look at the exterior of some craft shops near the bridge, I decided against the short walk into Wodonga and returned to New South Wales.

The Hume and Hovell Trail runs along the Murray bank round Doctor’s Point. I tried to find a direct route from the Union Bridge but after two dead ends, thwarted by impenetrable scrub, I had to resort to the roads as shown on the map. The trail itself was a pleasant enough walk though a bit on the short side and I returned to town along the Riverine Highway with another carton of milk for sustenance.

At the railway station, I discovered that I had the choice of two buses tomorrow to Echuca, one in the early morning and one in the afternoon. Since I could not think of anything to justify another morning in Albury, I booked for the early bus. I’ll worry later about how to get up for 4 o’clock.

It was overcast by now (well, it had been for some time) so I had a couple of beers in Brady’s before returning to the hostel for a wash and brush up then out for some food. Unfortunately, the Metra Fe was shut and I couldn’t raise much enthusiasm for alternative establishments (not hungry enough for a large meal) so settled for a couple more beers and returned early to bed to maximise my chances of getting up in time for the bus.

Tuesday 9 December — Echuca

I woke conveniently at 0330 and was out of the room before my alarm went off at 0335. Then I realised that I could hear water running down the drains and, yes, it had been raining. However, the rain was off at that moment so I made my way to the station in the dry. I phoned home and all was well.

There were few people around until the Sydney - Melbourne XPT came in and folk off the train swelled the crowd. This bus provides a connection from Sydney to the various town along the Murray. I had a double seat to myself when we set off at 0422, across the river to Wodonga, then changed driver at Wangaratta. As it got light, I realised that what I had taken for farm roads alongside the main road were actually irrigation canals. We reached Echuca at 0732, stopping at the Ampol Roadhouse at the far side of the town whence I had almost an hour’s walk back into town to the Youth Hostel.

A quiet place, there was a lad leaving as I arrived, apart from him I had the place to myself. Glen (the manager) sold me a discounted ticket for the Port of Echuca (a tourist operation which includes the wharf but not all of the vessels offering cruises) and I wandered along in time to catch the first sail on the preserved paddle steamer Alexander Arbuthnot. A nice boat, basically still in the shape of the work boat which she was, with safety chains rather than railings round the outside (a similar situation appertains to the Pevensey and the Adelaide. I was invited to stay on for the next sail but realised I was hungry (no breakfast and not much to eat yesterday) so I went ashore for smoked trout pate and a pot of tea in the Wisteria Tearoom.

I left the Port and went for a sail on the Emmylou, built in the early 1980s around a much older steam engine, which offers overnight cruises with accommodation. After that, I bought some postcards and started checking out the local pubs, buying some provisions along the way, before returning to the hostel where I was still the only resident.

Wednesday 10 December — Echuca

For a change, I crossed the river by the Cobb Highway bridge towards Moama and floundered through the riverside scrub to take some photographs of the various steamers from the other side. After that, a short stroll through Moama and back to Echuca for a cruise on the purpose built Diesel Paddle Vessel Pride of the Murray, a good opportunity to watch the scenery as there is no steam engine to watch. When we got back, I caught the next cruise on the DPV Canberra, still feloniously advertising herself as a paddle steamer though she has been diesel driven since they couldn’t afford a new boiler in 1972. The diesel skulks beneath the redundant boiler and drives the paddle cranks which causes the engine pistons to move.

By now it was mid-afternoon so I did some serious souvenir buying before partaking of a small pre-prandial refreshment followed by 400gms of rump steak with trimmings for $16 and a carafe of good red wine for $6.

Thursday 11 December — Echuca to Bendigo

The bus to Bendigo left at 0913 from the middle of town (but not from the railway station which would have caused some embarrassment had I not looked round the station the previous evening and spotted a notice to that effect) and took six minutes to reach the Ampol Roadhouse. From there, the route was straight down the Northern Highway to Elmore (0950) then the Midland Highway to arrive at Bendigo Railway Station at 1031. For most of the journey, we paralleled a railway line which carries one train a week from Bendigo to Echuca on a Friday night. (Maybe!)

I selected the Old Crown Hotel, an old fashioned small town hotel, as my base for two nights, dumped my bags and went for a wander. Seems like a nice town, several large old buildings, the occasional tram on the main street and a pleasant park, Rosalind Park with a small hill topped by a lookout modelled on a pithead winding tower to commemorate the many gold mines which gave birth to the town.

While perusing the guide book to ensure that I’d missed nothing important, I noticed that there was an establishment called the Rifle Brigade Hotel and Brewery so made my way there and found several beers on offer, unfortunately all lager type and dispensed by top pressure. I tried the Old Fashioned Bitter (which wasn’t) and the Fest Beer which tasted more like Irn Bru. I didn’t ask what festival they were commemorating.

Friday 12 December — Bendigo

The reason for visiting Bendigo was to see some trams so I bought a ticket for the Central Deborah Gold Mine Tour and Talking Tram, and started with the mine. Tourist access is to Level 2 at 61 metres with the lowest level 17 in the mine at 481 metres. There is still some commercial exploitation of the lower levels but the falling price of gold creates uncertainty for the future. Then I took the tram trip, back through the town with 15 minutes at the depot to view the rest of the fleet before continuing to North Bendigo (no great distance) and back to the mine. There was a reasonably informative commentary as we travelled.

At the mine, I partook of a Cornish Pasty and tea in the cafe (there were a lot of Cornish miners came to Bendigo) before going in search of a bank. Just my luck to get the teller who thought Australian dollar travellers cheques were foreign currency!. The next teller knew that it could be exchanged over the counter but didn’t know the procedure. A third teller came to my rescue and what should have been a two minute transaction was finally completed after twenty minutes.

My supply of duty-free tobacco was about to expire so I went in search of a tobacconist (I had asked about their existence in the Tourist Information Office yesterday and there are two), one was a cut price cigarette shop, the other a real tobacconist but neither had Condor, apparently it went off the market a couple of years ago. So it looks like I’ll be smoking Erinmore for the next four months.

I wandered back to the tram depot for a leisurely look at the fleet. The system is now operated by the Bendigo Trust who have managed to retain the whole stock of trams which were operating when the system closed (in 1972), plus some interesting additions to give a grand total of 28 trams most of which are operational, including 5 rare Birney cars. Then I walked a little further to admire Lake Weeronna, all 350 metres of it and home to Bendigo Rowing Club (they must be sprint experts) before drifting back into town.

I looked into the Internet Cafe, there would be a machine available in an hour, so I walked along to the Sacred Heart Cathedral, the only Gothic cathedral built in the Southern Hemisphere in the 20th Century - it was actually started in the 19th Century but soon ran out of money and work did not restart till after WW2 and was completed in 1977. Now a very nice church.

On returning to the Internet Cafe, I drank tea and sent a couple of e-mails, the first to see if it got bounced before I put much effort into the real message. It seemed to work. It was awkward typing with a membrane over the keys (protection from possible skiddled tea) but at least it was full-size.

Back at the hotel, I dined on grilled fish and asparagus with a few beers for afters before retiring. The band downstairs seemed a bit noisier than last night, or at least the folk in the street were.

Saturday 13 December — Bendigo to Melbourne

A couple of V-Line locos at Bendigo

There was no milk or tea-bags in the breakfast room. Tea is never a problem as I carry my own but I do like milk with it. So, I went out and it took me half an hour to find a suitable shop.. I left the hotel about ten and headed up to the station with plenty of time to smoke my pipe and photograph some trains before the 1130 to Melbourne. The rolling stock was a bit disappointing, a couple of diesel units (7007 + 7018) similar to my recollection of BR Class 153 though possibly a bit lighter. I made a few measurement of time and distance and came up with a top speed of 133 kph (about 83 mph) and the average over the 161 km journey was about 90 kph. (It was about 100 kph until we reached Sunshine, 11 km from Melbourne.)

We reached Spencer Street at 1323 and I phoned Queensberry Hill YH to ask for a bed. Yes was the answer so I walked there (about 25 minutes) and booked in for three nights, loaded most of my gear into a washing machine and had another play with an e-mail machine. $2 for 8 minutes, an appalling keyboard requiring more pressure to operate the keys than an electromechanical teletype. The message seemed to go ok, no doubt I’ll find out sometime. [Later - it went ok.]

I went out for a stroll round the block before dining on a vegetarian lasagne - this was different from what I had expected being layers of pasta separated by probably melted tofu with flecks of parsley in it, no other vegetables. Still, here was some veg served with it, along with potato skins and an English lad sitting nearby gave me some boiled potatoes that were surplus to his requirements.

Then it was time for an amble downtown to see how much I remembered from 1988 - not much apart from the obvious; the Kingsgate Hotel was still there though it has gone upmarket; the river front across from Flinders Street Station has totally changed; the Wm. Coop Shot Tower is now encased in a shopping mall with a glass pyramid on top. (Dave and William had warned me of this.)

Sunday 14 December — North Williamstown & the Wattle

I phoned home where all is well. Daddy didn’t know about any e-mails so he’ll check and I’ll phone again tomorrow. I had breakfast in the hostel bistro, baked beans on toast with orange juice and tea, which was a bit expensive compared with a full breakfast - $4.50 against $5.50. Then I headed off downtown to Flinders Street for a trip on the Circle Tram (free), a full circuit taking 40 minutes. There were numerous motor bikes gathering in Swanston Street, they set off southwards across the river at 1110. I never did discover what they were up to.

At Flinders Street station, I asked for a day return to North Williamstown and got a Zone 1 day ticket for $4.50. Anyway, off to Williamstown and the Australian Railway Heritage Society’s museum. A fine collection of Victorian (the state, not the era) railwayana though I was a bit disappointed to find only two exhibits with a Glasgow connection, R Class locomotive 704 built by the North British Engineering Company in 1950 (and exhibited at the Festival of Britain in 1951), and a Dubs steam crane built in 1890. There were also two fine A2 Class locomotives, 884 and 995, sisters to 996 which resides on the wharf at Echuca in somewhat lesser splendour.

Quite by chance, I picked up a leaflet advertising Sunday sailings on the steam tug Wattle from Williamstown, 3 minutes down the line. A quick check of the timetable and my interest in things on rails diminished, off I went and for a mere $10 enjoyed a cruise across Port Phillip Bay to Port Melbourne, and back. 100 tons, two cylinder vertical steam engine, one boiler with two light oil burners (mostly reclaimed sump oil, very cheap), single screw (7 ft diameter), 3 tons bollard pull. She is a nice little vessel with a friendly crew who gave me an engine room tour and mentioned that David Neill had been aboard a month earlier, but no t-shirts.

When we returned to Williamstown, I took the train back to Flinders Street, then another to Prahran where I bought a vegetable pastie from a bakery and drank a glass of beer before walking the length of Chapel Street (which becomes Church Street north of the river), and taking a tram back towards the city centre, destination Prince’s Bridge. I didn’t know where Prince’s Bridge was so when we got to the vicinity of Flinders Street and a lot of people got on, I stayed on and found myself travelling backwards. (I hadn’t noticed the driver changing ends.) I now know where Prince’s Bridge is. I got off at the first stop and walked back along the river bank.

From Prince’s Bridge, I strolled along the redeveloped south bank opposite the station. Quite a change in nine years. Then I walked up Spencer Street to check out some old haunts - the Savoy opposite the station is closed and shuttered, the station bar is open Monday to Friday only and the Highlander Inn in Elizabeth Street is now a pizza parlour. Not all changes are for the better!

Back to the hostel, I booked in for Tuesday night and bought another phone card - the YHA one which offers incoming voice mail (whatever that is!).

Monday 15 December — Melbourne

Phoned home. All well. It seems two e-mails have arrived but not the first test message from Bendigo. Which is very odd. However, no one has chased up the technical questions but my Link withdrawals have appeared at diminishing exchange rates but no charges. Still over £700 in the account which could be useful. I’ll phone again next weekend.

I partook of a “Combination Breakfast” in the hostel, not brilliant but ok. [That’s what it says in the diary, I have no idea now what a “Combination Breakfast” was but it cost $5.50.] Then I headed downtown, pausing at a camera shop, Genius, at the top of Elizabeth Street to lodge one Fuji and six Agfa films for processing, but not mounting as the mounts they supply are not compatible with my usual Reflecta magazines. The films will be ready tomorrow. I bought their entire stock of Agfa CTx100, five films at $11.95 each, a bit expensive but easier than searching around for another source.

Melbourne from near the Maritime Museum

After a bit of an amble, I went into Map Land in Little Bourke Street to find out where I was and where I will be going. It looks as if there might be some good walking east of Healesville. A pot of tea and a cheese and tomato sandwich served for lunch before I headed for the Maritime Museum, run by the National Trust which meant free admission for members of the National Trust of Scotland. The main feature of the museum is the restored sailing ship Polly Woodside, built by Woodman Clark in Belfast which is well maintained. The rest of the exhibits proved interesting and I had a pleasant wander round. I complained in the tea room at the lack of t-shirts and was told the printer is waiting for the artwork. They assured me that they would have some soon and definitely if I called back in late January. (I did and they had.)

More ambling around the town before I found a pleasant pub and partook of a small number of beers before heading back towards the hostel, stopping in the Thailand House restaurant near Victoria Market for tea. The bill was less than I expected which was explained when I noticed a 20% off sign in the window as I left. I didn’t go back to ask why.

I was almost back at the hostel when I notice that the pub across the road, which had been “private function” on Saturday and closed on Sunday was now open so I had to go in to check it out. It was very quiet with a pleasant barmaid. I then walked round the block to smoke out my pipe before retiring.

Tuesday 16 December — Melbourne

[Time to tidy up yesterday’s leftovers.?] On the way into town, I bought an exercise book to serve as the second volume of these memoirs and went in search of breakfast and found myself in Druid’s Cafe on Swanston Street opposite the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. I had a pleasant chat with the man at the next table, an emigrant from Springburn in 1962, then his mobile phone rang and I was able to get on with my tea, fruit salad and pancakes.

When I passed a post office, I bought some stamps and made a mental note to buy some postcards sometime, it’s getting a bit late for Christmas cards. Then along to Genius to collect my slides - the six films are rolled inside a pretty solid cardboard tube with the single film in a reasonable little brother. I think they will survive the journey home. $11 each for processing.

Now, by chance as I was passing a subway to Flinders Street Station, I noticed an advert for haircuts at $5 so I went in, asked for a beard trim as well and was charged $15. That’s a pretty expensive beard trim but it was better than the haircut and the total price was not too bad compared to prices elsewhere.

The Dickens Pub in Flinders Lane (I think) had a board outside advertising English Ales so I entered in hope but all they had today was Tetley Bitter and Newcastle Brown Ale - keg, chilled, definitely not worth a hefty price premium, but I tried the Tetley and found it a bit thin.

I crossed the river for a stroll through the Botanic Gardens which are very nice; there were flying foxes in the trees in Fern Gully. Then I drifted back to wards the hostel, a couple of beers on the way, had a shower and spent some time writing this diary the retired at my usual time of half past ten.