PS Captain Proud at the Murray Bridge wharf

Another outing that I did, going back to May 2012, was a short cruise on the paddle steamer, Captain Proud, based at Murray Bridge in South Australia. A friend of mine from Naracoorte in South Australia came along with me, let’s call him ‘Mr D’. Neither of us had been for a cruise on a paddle steamer before so we had primarily booked the shorter cruise just for the experience.

Captain Proud’s left side paddle wheel

After nearly three hours travelling with a short break half way, we arrived at Murray Bridge and found where the boat was moored at the main wharf. After a short wait and sorting out our booking for the cruise we were given the signal to go aboard.

Swanport Bridge, Murray Bridge, South Australia

We had only booked the 1-hour cruise so we headed south toward the Swanport Bridge. This is the newest bridge over the Murray River in South Australia and was completed when the South Eastern Freeway out of Adelaide was completed to this point, and the Murray Bridge township itself was by-passed.

Approaching the wharf at the end of the cruise

As it turned out, Mr D and I were the only ones taking the cruise on this particular occasion so we were able to spend some of the time upstairs chatting to the Captain. After explaining to him that I had an affinity with the river in that the first paddle steamer on the Murray was built by my great, great step uncle, he suggested we visit the Mannum Dock Museum.

Having plenty of time after the cruise we decided to drive up to Mannum and spend an hour or so  at the museum before making our way back to Naracoorte. I had been to the museum myself previously but Mr D hadn’t. But I’ll write about that part of the trip in another post.

Written and produced by,

David