Victoria Tourism Photo Gallery Vic Australia

Two stately paddlesteamers, the "Adelaide" and the "Emmylou" on the Murray River at Echuca on the Victorian / New South Wales border Australia.

Echuca was founded in 1853 and with the coming of the railway in 1864 to the Port of Echuca it became the largest inland port in Australia, second only to the Port of Melbourne in the 1870s.

Paddlesteamers traded along the Darling and Murrumbidgee Rivers as far as the Queensland border, bringing wool for discharge at Echuca for transport to Melbourne mainly for export to London. The centre piece of Echuca is a huge redgum wharf, once a quarter of a mile long, where up to 240 paddlesteamers were unloaded in 1872. Echuca is now the home to the world's largest collection of paddlesteamers.