On Saturday we walked into town via the river bank. The town has beautiful reserves and parks with meandering footpaths all along the river.   The house boats and paddle steamers moored at the edge.    Just beautiful!   Today there was obviously a big regional rowing regatta on, judging by the names on pergolas and boats.   Hundreds of boats, from coxless doubles to coxed eights.   And the guy from the Mannum club, who set the whole thing up, was having a rather heated discussion with the captain of the PS Marion which had just moved its berth – right in front of the judges tent on the finish line.  

The Marion is a fully restored steam driven, wood fired, side wheel paddle steamer built in 1900 and the only one of a few original steamers still operating, in the world.   A grand old lady indeed!

Well, the captain wasn't too impressed with the polite request to leave.   It was pretty windy and he didn't really want to move.   The rowing guy had booked the venue 6 months previously and was promised the river bank would be clear of all boats.   Nobody had bothered to tell the Captain though.   More discussion and finally common sense prevailed, and with the regatta already 10 minutes late in starting, Paddle Steamer Marion, glided elegantly to another berth close by and out of range of the finish line.

We have walked a lot these past couple of days, this town really is so beautiful and so easy to walk along the river bank with its emerald grass, huge gums, willows and the like.   Just fabulous on these sunny mornings.   

 So, come Sunday it was time to see the river from another angle. At 11:30am we had to be at the riverbank to board the Proud Mary riverboat for a luncheon cruise taking an hour and a half up river and back.

The day was absolutely glorious, warm and sunny. The lunch was a really good buffet and the 1 ½ hour trip glided by with no sense of urgency and with the Captain maintaining a great monologue the whole way on history and interesting facts and figures with a good measure of humour thrown in for good measure.