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PS Murray Princess - Captain Cook Cruises
Fast Facts - PS Murray Princess
Vessel: PS Murray Princess
Cruise Line: Captain Cook Cruises
Star Rating: Not yet rated
Launched: 1986
Tonnage: 1504 grt
Cabins: 60 (including 2 disabled cabins)
Max Passenger Capacity: 126
Facilities: Dining room, bar, two-level lounge, two saunas, two spas, gym equipment on sun deck, tender boats. No TVs or phones in cabins.Virgin Blue flies three times daily to Adelaide. It is approximately a 60-90-minute drive (depending on traffic) from Adelaide to Mannum, where the Murray Princess begins her cruise.
The PS Murray Princess
In the 1850s there were 250 paddle-steamers and barges trading up and down the Murray River and another 100 ferries crossing it at various points along the banks. I find this statistic a little hard to fathom as I stand on deck of the Captain Cook cruise ship the Murray Princess, just outside my cabin, staring out over the river one black night.
There's not a human soul out there, but we paddlewheeler passengers are not alone. About 50 pelicans glide up and down the river alongside our floating home, and stay there for hours on end. Their unmistakable form, white against the black river, is a surreal sight and I am mesmerised by it. Every night around dusk, the stately boat pulls into a remote bank of the river and the crew ties it up to a sturdy gum tree. When darkness descends, they flick on the floodlights and the pelicans arrive.
They're there for the fishing, hoping for an easy meal of the river's boundless supply of European carp, which swim to the surface attracted by the light. I learn a lot in the four days I spend cruising down the Murray, along a beautiful stretch of South Australia's inland.
The roundtrip cruise begins in Mannum, 89km east of Adelaide, and travels upstream in a leisurely fashion to Swan Reach and then back again, calling at the hamlets of Piggy Flat, Nildottie and Younghusband, and passing the stunning sandstone cliffs at Big Bend.
My first and most important lesson is about the river itself. Despite the negative reports, the Murray is not dead or dying, a fact quite obvious to me and my fellow 120 passengers, as we drift along it and then zip over it in a speedboat on our last day. Captain Trevor Bedford, a third-generation riverboat master, is passionate about the Murray, and keen to dispel the damaging press reports.
There's no denying the drought, he says, and the river is a good 80mm (or 2.6 inches he tells the American passengers) below its normal level. However, there is plenty of water in the stretch from Murray Bridge to Swan Reach for our big boat (which weighs 1504 GRT and measures 70m long) and the other river craft we pass in daylight hours. He says continued careful management, which includes the rigorous restrictions on commercial irrigators (who are down to 16 per cent of their allocation) and harsh penalties for polluters, will ensure the river survives.
Captain Bedford has been at the helm of the Murray Princess, Australian's largest inland paddlewheeler, since its launch in 1986, give or take a few years when he drove catamarans to Kangaroo Island. He is a man who clearly loves his job and appears as happy at the wheel as he is chatting with passengers and playing in the crews makeshift bush band at our outback barbecue at a remote clearing called Sunnydale.
I find it hard to argue with his claim that South Australia has the best part of the Murray River; I marvel at scenery that changes from lush weeping willows, red river gums, miles of mallee scrub, backwater lagoons and drying salt pans teeming with birdlife, an occasional vineyard off in the distance and those amazing cliffs, some 30 metres high, that blaze golden in the setting sun.
The PS Murray Princess was built in the style of the classic Mississippi riverboats, rather than the side-wheelers that used to ply our river in the 19th century. The false wheelhouse on the top deck is purely for show, however, the mighty wheel is genuine and powers the boat along at around six knots.
The bar and restaurant have an Australian colonial design with mahogany walls and ceiling, while the paddle lounge is split-level and connected by an impressive brass spiral staircase.
Accommodation is a mixture of internal twin-bed cabins that open out into a hallway on the lowest level, and two decks of river-view cabins that open onto a deck.
Captain Cook Cruises acquired two riverboats when it bought Murray River Developments in 1988. It transferred the Murray Explorer to Sydney Harbour (changing its name of course) and moved the Murray Princess from its base in Renmark to the historic port of Mannum. Today it operates a three-night wetlands itinerary that travels downstream to Murray Bridge and my four-night outback heritage cruise that ambles upstream, and you can combine both. Each day there is something new to see and to learn: we visit a winery and Lock 1 in Blanchetown, check out the quirky Swan Reach Museum, listen to tales of 19th century river life, view ancient Aboriginal rock art and watch the best woolshed and sheep-shearing show I've ever seen.
My fellow Captain Cook Cruise passengers are mostly of the mature kind, aged from 50 upwards, with a fair contingent of US travellers. While I love the boat's exterior and cannot fault the crew, I feel the interior could do with a face-lift in parts, particularly some cabins, while the inadequate library needs an overhaul.
The meals were plentiful and hearty - some better than others - with the bush barbie and the final seafood buffet being the standouts.
The most enjoyable factor was the river itself. After four days afloat, I felt a real bond with it, a little akin to the good captain's.
The Murray River stretches from the Snowy Mountains on the NSW-Victorian border some 2530 km to the Southern Ocean in South Australia. There are plenty of opportunities for day-trips on the river, plenty of houseboats for hire in all three states and a handful of operators offering over-night and longer accommodated cruises.
Written by Caroline Gladstone - issue 30/summer 07/08