Gerald Byrnes

“I can hear the steady rhythm of the paddles as they power the mighty vessel, making its way against the current of the Darling River. Although more than ninety years have passed since my first sightings of the big boats, I well remember those magnificent craft”. Gerald smiles as he speaks vividly of the memories of his youth. The appearance of those paddle steamers and the river trade arrived with settlers coming from the other side of the world to pioneer new pastoral industries across a vast landscape reaching north of Wentworth, into the unknown. In 1859, just thirty years after Charles Sturt first reached the Darling River, Captain Francis Cadell’s paddle boat was almost able to navigate its way from the Murray River to Wilcannia. But more on the boats later...