Tim the Yowie Man climbs aboard the historic paddlesteamer the PS Enterprise on its mooring at the National Museum of Australia jetty on Lake Burley Griffin.
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00:00As part of the National Museum of Australia's collection, the paddle steamer Enterprise
00:07has been moored here at the museum's jetty at Lake Burley Griffin for several decades.
00:13Since it was first launched at Echuca in 1878, the PS Enterprise, which is regarded as one
00:18of the oldest steam-powered vessels in the world, has been used for many different purposes,
00:24including a working cargo boat, a floating store and a houseboat.
00:30Jocelyn Krieger, now of Corion, grew up on the boat in the 1930s and 40s when it was
00:36moored near Renmark.
00:38And when Jocelyn recently made a rare visit here to Canberra, right at the top of her
00:44bucket list was, of course, a nostalgic return visit to her childhood home.
00:53Jocelyn, it's been 21 years since you were last on the Enterprise?
00:57Yes.
00:58It looks totally different and I wouldn't recognise the Enterprise as I lived on it
01:03because it's just so different.
01:05How is it different?
01:06In every way, it seems that it's much smaller, the rooms look much more cramped.
01:11I'm sure they were bigger, I'm positive, even though as you get older, space might
01:17seem less where you think it was bigger when you were little.
01:20Because when you were little, this was your home, you lived on there.
01:23It was your bedroom?
01:24In one of the cabins up the front of the Enterprise, and it was all mine.
01:30My brother had one on the opposite side of the front of the Enterprise, directly opposite,
01:35and his had the same in it, just a little bed, little stretcher bed, a small cupboard
01:43beside the bed, that was the only furniture I can remember.
01:47And we had shelves along the back and that would be for bedding, extra pillows, clothing.
01:52Do you like the fact that it's part of the National Museum of Australia's collection?
01:56Well, I just feel astonished almost, and I often wonder how my father would have thought
02:02about it all.
02:03What he would be thinking now, I know in my mother's time, she did get to see it here
02:08on Lake Burley Griffin, so that was great for her, but my dad was the one that really
02:16was brought up totally on paddlesteelers, he'd been a fisherman all his life, for him
02:22to come back now and see it as it is, he'd be gobsmacked, I think, and to know that it's
02:28so famous.
02:29Yeah, that his boat is famous.
02:32That's exactly right, yes.
02:34When you walked over the gangway a little while ago, it's a very small and modern gangway
02:38now, but it wasn't always the case, was it?
02:40No, we had a few long flanks to walk over sometimes, quite a long way.
02:45It kind of allowed for the boat's movement up and down, and if it was further away from
02:49the bank, sometimes it had to be further away, so there was three planks in total at one
02:55stage.
02:56And you had to learn to walk the plank, so to speak?
02:58Yes, we certainly did.
03:00Did you ever fall in?
03:01Of course we did.