All aboard the historic paddlesteamer Enterprise

Australian Community Media

Tim the Yowie Man climbs aboard the historic paddlesteamer the PS Enterprise on its mooring at the National Museum of Australia jetty on Lake Burley Griffin.

Transcript

00:00As part of the National Museum of Australia's collection, the paddle steamer Enterprise

00:07has been moored here at the museum's jetty at Lake Burley Griffin for several decades.

00:13Since it was first launched at Echuca in 1878, the PS Enterprise, which is regarded as one

00:18of the oldest steam-powered vessels in the world, has been used for many different purposes,

00:24including a working cargo boat, a floating store and a houseboat.

00:30Jocelyn Krieger, now of Corion, grew up on the boat in the 1930s and 40s when it was

00:36moored near Renmark.

00:38And when Jocelyn recently made a rare visit here to Canberra, right at the top of her

00:44bucket list was, of course, a nostalgic return visit to her childhood home.

00:53Jocelyn, it's been 21 years since you were last on the Enterprise?

00:57Yes.

00:58It looks totally different and I wouldn't recognise the Enterprise as I lived on it

01:03because it's just so different.

01:05How is it different?

01:06In every way, it seems that it's much smaller, the rooms look much more cramped.

01:11I'm sure they were bigger, I'm positive, even though as you get older, space might

01:17seem less where you think it was bigger when you were little.

01:20Because when you were little, this was your home, you lived on there.

01:23It was your bedroom?

01:24In one of the cabins up the front of the Enterprise, and it was all mine.

01:30My brother had one on the opposite side of the front of the Enterprise, directly opposite,

01:35and his had the same in it, just a little bed, little stretcher bed, a small cupboard

01:43beside the bed, that was the only furniture I can remember.

01:47And we had shelves along the back and that would be for bedding, extra pillows, clothing.

01:52Do you like the fact that it's part of the National Museum of Australia's collection?

01:56Well, I just feel astonished almost, and I often wonder how my father would have thought

02:02about it all.

02:03What he would be thinking now, I know in my mother's time, she did get to see it here

02:08on Lake Burley Griffin, so that was great for her, but my dad was the one that really

02:16was brought up totally on paddlesteelers, he'd been a fisherman all his life, for him

02:22to come back now and see it as it is, he'd be gobsmacked, I think, and to know that it's

02:28so famous.

02:29Yeah, that his boat is famous.

02:32That's exactly right, yes.

02:34When you walked over the gangway a little while ago, it's a very small and modern gangway

02:38now, but it wasn't always the case, was it?

02:40No, we had a few long flanks to walk over sometimes, quite a long way.

02:45It kind of allowed for the boat's movement up and down, and if it was further away from

02:49the bank, sometimes it had to be further away, so there was three planks in total at one

02:55stage.

02:56And you had to learn to walk the plank, so to speak?

02:58Yes, we certainly did.

03:00Did you ever fall in?

03:01Of course we did.

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