A 98-year-old paddle steamer has sunk less than a year after moving from Victoria to its new home in the Thomson River at Longreach, Queensland.
The Pride of the Murray’s shock demise comes just weeks out from the start of peak tourist season.
It was moved at great expense last year from its original home in Echuca in Victoria to become a major tourist attraction in the Outback capital.
Tourism operator Outback Pioneers said the vessel had been moored in the river ahead of the upcoming tourist influx when it sunk.
Longreach Major Organised Crime Squad Rural officer Allan Cook told the ABC that police were notified by a kayaker that the boat was sinking early this morning.
Working paddle steamers were a familiar sight on the Murry at Echuca in the 1920s. PIC: State Library Victoria
He said it was unclear why the boat sank, but his squad was investigating.
Officers said they were treating the incident as suspicious until proven otherwise.
“There would be no circumstance that we would be looking at that would suggest this would be a natural event, so we have to treat it as suspicious,” Detective Sergeant Cook told the ABC.
The 100-tonne boat was trucked 1,750 kilometres from country Victoria to western Queensland last year, was completely submerged in the river.
In a statement, the boat’s owners, tour company Outback Pioneers, said it was already looking at what could be done to restore the paddlewheeler once it was retrieved.
The company said it would contact tourists who had already booked tours on the boat, and its other vessels were still operating.
Outback Pioneers says that the Pride of the Murray was originally built in 1924, as a barge to tow behind other boats with 80-100 tons of wool aboard. It later had an engine added to transport timber to the mill at Echuca.
When she was no longer needed for timber duties, the Pride of the Murray was sunk in her namesake river. Beneath the water, she was well preserved and, in 1973, Captain Maxwell Carrington decided she was worth restoring.
Her new lease on life appeared to have had a happy ending when she was transported to Longreach last year. But that all changed this morning.
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We did the sunset cruise in 2019 and it was a great experience.
We also did the sunset cruise on the Thomson. It was a really great night.
‘Sank’, not ‘sunk’.
Just saying.
You owe me….
Went on the Pride of The Murray in Echuca many years ago so when I was heading to Longreach in 2022 & discovered it had been moved up there & was doing sunset cruises I just had to do it again.
So glad I did especially now. Hope they can get her going again.