May 10, 2017
Day Eight Sale Rest Day
We always stay at the Sale Caravan Park which is an easy walk north wards across the Princes Highway into the CBD, and we always enjoy the short walk along the Princes Highway east wards to Canal Reserve and the Port of Sale.
After we had eaten our porridge breakfast, Michael walked over to the visitors centre and came back with a brochure about cruising on The Rubeena, along the canal and into the Thomson River to The Swing Bridge, which we had never done before.
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After booking our places on The Rubeena and having morning tea we set off from the caravan park to buy supplies for lunch at the local shopping centre. Passing the local Magistrates' Court House, Foster St - Princes Highway, Sale and the new police station build upon the site of the old demolished prison on the corner of the Princes Highway & Reeve Street, we came to a pedestrian mall which runs through the centre of Cunninghame Street, where you can sit next to the Clock Tower and its small gardens.
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Here we met a cycling German couple who had bikes so loaded with stuff it took our breath away. They said the cold weather was catching up with them and they had run out of time to cycle and camp along the coast to Queensland. They were waiting to catch a train to Melbourne where they would travel north by train and continue cycling in warmer weather. We spent about one hour exchanging cycling news with the couple, and Michael told them how the Sale Station Staff load bikes into the guards van on the train for the journey to Melbourne.
After lunch we walked the short distance to The Port of Sale and found The Rubeena. Alan the owner / captain of The Rubeena hearing of our trip knew the farmer who had given us morning tea : small world. Alan also told us of two cyclist who had taken the morning cruise, soon we were joined by a group from a Melbourne Probus Club who were holidaying in the area.
Cruising along the hand cut canal which joined the City of Sale to the Thomson and La Trobe Rivers (and eventually the sea) the classy Kauri wooden hulled boat first launched at Lakes Entrance, Victoria in 1912 moved soundlessly and effortlessly along, the vessel runs on electricity.
Alan had been the City of Sale Engineer in a previous life and had
helped many local and conservation organisations in the area, he had a wealth of knowledge which was staggering. Alan passed around photograhpe albums showing how the river had looked in bygone years, as well as maps and printed books. As The Rubeena passed along the river we saw one or two Aboriginal canoe trees, where the local aborigines (the first people the Gunnaikurnai) cut the bark from a living tree in the shape of a canoe, which they then cured and use to paddle along the river : could have been made hundreds and hundreds of years ago.
The Swing Bridge is the oldest surviving swing bridge in Australia. It was restored in the early 2000's, reopening in 2006, is National Trust classified and recognised as an Engineering Heritage National Landmark. An interesting fact about the bridge is that the original designer was John Grainger (father of Australian pianist and composer Percy Grainger).
The bridge was the first movable bridge built in Victoria. Its wrought-iron structure, 45 metres long, pivots on cylindrical steel columns, allowing the bridge to swing parallel to the river bank allowing boats to pass on either side. At its peak, the bridge was opened up to 20 times a day, allowing the movement of steamers between Sale and Melbourne.
As Alan turned The Rubenna around under The Swing Bridge to return to The Port of Sale he spotted two waving cyclists who had taken his cruise earlier in the day. They had followed Alan's directions and cycled from the caravan park through the wet lands to take a closer look at The Swing Bridge. We caught up with the cylists the next morning as we were preparing to leave the caravan park for Maffra, and found out they lived only two suburbs away from us in Melbourne.
A replica of the Paddle Steamer Tanjil, stands next to the Visitor Infomation Centre, in the children's playground, Sale. The wooden, PS Tanjil was built at Yarra Bank, Melbourne in 1877. The PS Tanjil was designed specifically to operate in the shallow waters of the Gippsland lakes and rivers. She was built to carry passenger traffic between Bairnsdale and Sale.
Sale Swing Bridge https://www.weekendnotes.com/s...
view time lapse opening of The Swing Bridge
Wellington Shire Council - Port ofSale and Swing Bridge website
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