A RIVERLAND council hopes the recent visit of an iconic paddle boat could lead to more local voyages for the vessel.
The Murray River Princess paddlewheeler boat recently spent time docked in Renmark before beginning a seven-night ‘Welcome Back’ cruise, examining the history of the river and surrounding Riverland towns.
Renmark Paringa director corporate and community services Tim Pfeiffer said some repair work had been conducted on the boat prior to its departure.
“It comes up here every couple of years, because we’ve got the dry dock here,” Mr Pfeiffer said.
“It’s been in dry dock for a couple of weeks now and they’ve been undertaking a number of different works.
“It’s particularly been works you don’t actually get to see. A lot of it is the underwater works, so fixing parts of the hull and repainting parts.
“It’s work that is vital to them maintaining all of their licences and staying afloat.”
Mr Pfeiffer said council members also held discussions with representatives of the vessel regarding more frequent voyages to Renmark.
“Elected members and myself had a tour of the boat last (week) and we spoke to the various representatives, including the captain and management of the boat,” he said.
“We would love to see them up here more often, because it’s a great addition to the town and a great tourist offering.”
Mr Pfeiffer said water level risks – sometimes preventing the boat from visiting the Riverland – would be examined on its return cruise to Mannum.
“They are enthusiastic to come here more often, but the problem they have often is a physical problem… there’s parts of the river that are a bit shallower between here and where they usually dock,” he said.
“There’s a few really tight spots they struggle to get through unless the water levels are where they are at the moment… it’s a big needle to have to thread through some of those tight bends.
“On the way back they are going to be doing a very careful survey of water depths in various locations, especially the tight spots.
“They are going to feed that data back to us, so we can support their case to have a chat with the powers that be.”