Laughs, Corpses... and a Little Romance Read online

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  I've worked on this river all my life, as my dad did before me. He was a riverboat skipper in the old days when everything was carried by horse or boat, so on the river there were quite a few boats carrying passengers, post, freight, goods for sale and so on. Then the government built roads and railways everywhere, cars and trucks came into common use, and the need for riverboats gradually faded away, except for some properties on our river that still don’t have access roads because they’re built on the river’s edge at the foot of steep cliffs, or because they’re within National Parks where no new roads are allowed.

  I was born right here in my dad's house on the riverbank, an only son. I was christened Edward, but everyone calls me Ted. My mother died when I was twelve, which meant my dad had to raise me on his own. At sixteen I left school and started to work with him and he taught me all he knew about the river and river craft. I regret now that I didn’t stay at school longer. I wish I’d studied things like English and history and science, and maybe a foreign language, but it’s much too late now.

  Eight years after I started work with my dad he died of a stroke and left me his house and his boat. He'd worked many years to pay off the mortgage on his house, so at twenty-four I became the proud owner of a house on a quarter acre of land, debt free. That brought prospective brides buzzing round, like flies round a dung heap, although I suppose my good looks might have had something to do with it. Nowadays the house is regarded as a bit of a tired old shack, timber frame sagging a bit at one corner, a rusty tin roof, ancient electrical wiring and plumbing, a worn out kitchen. Mind you, a real estate agent would probably describe it as "Prime Waterfront Property", except that it fronts onto mudflats at low tide, and shares a side boundary with a mangrove swamp. Lucky there’s no saltwater crocodiles this far south. Years ago after each heavy rain a flood would come down the river and a couple of times we got water in the house. Nowadays most of the water gets caught in the big Sydney dam, and as Sydney grows it needs more and more water, so floods are a thing of the past.

  Dad's boat on the other hand was no gift. It was a worn-out wreck, with a petrol engine that never wanted to start and a rotting timber hull that leaked all the time. I realized I was going to have to make my own way in the world from then on, so being young and carefree, and full of self-confidence, I sold the boat pretty much for scrap value. Then I mortgaged the house, bought Lady Annabelle, and set myself up as a riverboat skipper just like my dad. At that time there were several riverboats up for sale and not many buyers, so I picked up Annabelle for a bargain price. Even so, river folk thought I was mad buying a boat when demand was dying out. I had the last laugh on them though; soon afterwards the Post Office put the mail delivery contract for the Hawkesbury River up for tender, and I was the only skipper who could be bothered to fill out all the forms, so I got the contract, and it's kept me going ever since. I'm proud to say I'm the last river postman left in Australia, and to me every day is a pleasure, well almost.

  The Lady Annabelle is still almost as good as new, and quite frankly she's my pride and joy. She's part passenger ferry, part mailboat, part tourist boat, part freight carrier, in fact an all-can-do sort of riverboat. Every day we run up one side of the river delivering mail, boxes, sacks, boxes of groceries, hardware, mail orders and booze, and at the same time picking up outgoing letters, then we cross the river and do the same thing back down the other side. Lots of tourists come with us just for the wonderful trip. Annabelle is sixty feet long, (that’s twenty metres for young folk) with a flat-bottomed hull for shallow water work. Her hull is made of oregon, the decks are tallow-wood and she has beautiful polished hand rails made of real teak. Yachties looking at her often say she should be in a museum, but they're just envious of those fine timbers that you can't get any more. I bet I could sell those teak handrails alone for a thousand dollars. She has seating on the afterdeck for thirty-two passengers, and space for one and a half tons of freight for'ard. In rainy or very hot weather we can rig a canvas awning over the passenger seats, but in fine weather the passengers seem to prefer the sunshine and the open air. The wheelhouse has polished brass brightwork on the doors and lights, and a ship's wheel made of real timber, not one of your modern plastic ones like a car steering wheel. There's also an antique magnetic compass in a brass binnacle with oil lamps for use at night. I think it must have come off an old-time sailing ship. That always brings a bit of respect from the yachties! Annabelle might not be fast or modern, but she's seaworthy in all weathers, fine or foul, and the passengers love her.