Sun, 31st Jan, 2016 Bolto Reserve, Mannum, SA (Mannum Museum)

8am 20 degrees with clear blue sky.

I walked down to the ferry and went across to check out the Museum. Chatted with a chap in his Type 7 Jaguar that he has had for 45 years. Lots of fossils have been found in the area in the limestone cliffs. Amazing fish one.

Captain Randell sitting at the back of his paddle-steamer “Mary Ann” - her first cargo consisted of 112 bags of flour, 25 bags of bran, 65 bags of sugar, 5 bags of biscuits, 400lbs of tobacco and 4 cases of sundries. They had it laid out to its true length with the boiler, steam engine and even the man unloading the cargo.

The Mary Ann’s original boiler in the middle which was rescued from its watery grave. The engine is a timber replica.

The story of the race between Cadell and Randell up the Murray River.

Some memories of the last fully commercial cargo trip on the Murray carried by PS Murrabit in 1950 ending nearly 100 years of steamer transport on the Murray.

A model of Darling Wharf which was built by WR Randell.

The (fully restored) Shearer Stripper made by the Shearer Bros at their factory in 1910. The left photo shows a number of strippers being loaded onto PS Marion’s barge at Shearer Wharf in 1910.

The right photo was of David Shearer’s car.

David’s telescope that he used in his observatory we saw next to his house, above the factory.

I sat and watch a DVD of the Source to Mouth trip many restored paddle-steamers and many other boats made in 2001.

Another section was about floods. September 1956.

Another group of the 1917 flood. Watched a DVD showing footage of flooding over the years.

Outside to the last dry dock left on the River Murray. Originally a floating dock, built in 1873 in Milang, Randell purchased it and brought it to Mannum in 1876.

Some more art work.

Steam engines and workshop. On the weekends volunteers work on the machines.

Scott’s Workshop was in Randell’s Woolshed.

Across the old ferry and onto the P.S. Marion.

The Engine.

Big steering wheel – looking up stream – PS Marion.

Back off the boat and across the river side of the dry dock.

Another restoration project – P.S. Mayflower, built in 1884. Lots of work to do.

The Mannum to Adelaide pipeline was laid in 1955.

A few of the corrugated buildings used to house the workers on the water pipeline projects.

Flood levels.

Items from the Walker’s Flour Mill which opened in 1876. A wheat crushing machine, weighing about 5 ton (on the right).

Milling stones.

In one of the huts was info about paddle-steamers.

Lots of information – it was a very good museum and I enjoyed slowly going through it. Getting hungry for lunch though so headed back across the river on the other ferry.

Steve was chatting with another WA couple who hit the road in September, Wayne and Diane.

Put on a silverside for dinner and worked on my blog. Very wind afternoon.

Dave and Lauris came up with the marinated squid and we cooked it up for happy hour – very nice. Got all the low-down on catching and cleaning squid.

The wind blew all the clouds away so we had a clear sky for the night.