At around 11 pm on 14 September, 1853, the coals of a dying camp fire were glowing on the banks of the Murray River just upstream from the Murrumbidgee junction. Nearby, the paddle-steamer Mary Ann was tethered to a tree, her engine and boiler still ticking spasmodically as they cooled and contracted. Aboard the boat, William Randell, his brother, Tom, and four others were asleep.
A few minutes later the lightest of the sleepers might have been stirred by the distant gentle throbbing of a steam engine. Through the redgums that crowded the banks of the river, he might have seen a pinprick of light, heard the gentle murmur of paddlewheels gradually swelling, tracked the flickering firefly of its lights through the forest. By the time the Lady Augusta surged around the bend, all the crew of the Mary Ann were awake. The beam of her single headlamp startled them all to their feet, as they peered
down the river, shielding their eyes with their arms. A pandemonium of laughter and conversation, clinking glasses and popping corks, the floating cocktail party ploughed past without slackening pace, without a backward glance from its passengers or crew.
Randell would later claim that he had no prior knowledge of a rival on the river during this, his second voyage in the Mary Ann, nor that the South Australian government, in an effort to kick-start Murray River navigation, had offered substantial cash prizes to the first river boat skippers to reach the Darling junction.
He would also claim that he had never seen a paddle-steamer when he took time off from his fathers flour mill in the Adelaide Hills to cut and shape redgum ribs, drag them to the river near Mannum, clad them in heavy planking, and launch the first steamboat on the Murray on 19 February 1853.
All three claims are just a little hard to believe. Everyone else in the colony seemed to know that two rival boats were on the river and Randell had earlier been forced downstream to Goolwa to gain customs clearance for his venture before setting off upriver on 15 August. He cannot have missed seeing the barge under construction there, at Winsbys yard, for Captain Francis Cadell. Cadell himself had got under way on the 25th and had been slowly pegging back Randells lead ever since.
Randell claimed ignorance of riverboats does go some way towards explaining the idiosyncratic design for the Mary Anns boiler. Flying in the face of conventional wisdom he had specified a rectangular boiler which, at its first successful trial, swelled and bulged, its sides bloating in an apparent effort to become cylindrical as all boilers should be. The Randell brothers responded by wrapping a couple of lengths of bullock chain around it and ramming a collection of wooden wedges between the chains and the sides of the box. Throughout its life, however, the boiler continued to expand and contract, panting like an overworked buffalo.
If the skipper of the Mary Ann seemed a little naive and amateurish, his rival was quite the opposite. Francis Cadell knew all about ships, about river navigation and about paddle-steamers. He was born in Scotland to a family of sailors, shipowners and industrial revolution entrepreneurs. He came to the Murray River with an impressive seagoing background and a properly built paddle-steamer, the Lady Augusta, from Chownes shipyard in Sydney. Randell may not have been aware that Cadell had been hard on his heels all the way up the river, but Cadell was in no doubt about the situation. Cadell later claims, however, like Randell, are a little tendentious, he was not trying to race anyone, he said. He did not consider the flour-miller to be a threat to his own ambitions. But with a river queen named for the Governors wife, and a passenger list that included His Excellency himself, three members of parliament, two reporters and a Whos Who of the South Australian riverboat push, he must have been glad at last to have taken the lead. And Randell must have been equally irritated at losing it. Captain Billy had steam up by 1 am, and at dawn it was his turn to sweep past the other boat. For the next 24 hours it was fast and furious.
Passengers and crews hurled good-natured abuse across the narrow gap between the vessels, while their captains maintained a frosty silence. Gradually the Lady Augusta pulled ahead, but in all the excitement Cadell took a wrong turn and found himself battling up the Wakool River. Randell followed as the esteemed sea captains navigation could not be wrong. When an overhanging branch carried away the Lady Augustas mast, Cadell was forced to accept that he was no longer in the main stream. He backed and filled laboriously in the narrow channel and chased the smaller boat back to the Murray. The Mary Anns manoeuvrability was paying dividends so, at Coghill Station, 80 km short of Swan Hill, Cadell unhooked the barge (which had been lashed alongside the steamer providing a kind of promenade deck for the VIPs). He left his first officer to load it with wool that was stacked on the riverbank awaiting this brandnew express transport to Goolwa. Unencumbered, the Lady Augusta caught up again that evening, but another disaster lay in store. A gust of wind caught the top-heavy steamer and she became entangled in overhanging branches. After hours of axe work, she was finally freed at 2 am in the morning, and Cadell pressed on into the night. The next morning, the Lady Augusta chugged into Swan Hill, to be greeted by the towns entire population of 10 white men, two white women and 15 Aboriginal men and women. Randell arrived a few hours later, and everyone celebrated that evening at an impromptu ball..
The Cache is easy to find and has heaps of swaps for children.
Please remember that this is a farming region and may host the odd slithery wildlife. This road is not real busy but please watch out for your children and pets.
Most of all, have fun and enjoy what Echuca has to offer!!