If It Doesn't Work, Well Then, What's The Point Of It?

A couple of mates took me and Emergency Contact out for a lovely picnic and some ‘messing about in boats’, up and down the Lane Cove River Park on the weekend.

For those of you unfamiliar with the park, it is in the middle of a pretty busy part of Sydney, but has cliffs and currents and trees and wildlife and a weir and all sorts of exciting stuff. The playground even used to have a retired steam powered tractor you could play on. I remember a birthday party there once where, I think I’m right in saying, there were about four fatalities and 18 serious injuries. It was brilliant.

I really enjoy water skiing too. The wind in your hair, the incredible sensation of speed, Emergency Contact in the boat in front, rowing for her life… anyway, I reminisced that there used to be a paddle-wheeler on the river. I had been told, as a kid, that it wasn’t a traditional type of paddle-wheeler. That it was, in fact, attached to a rail beneath the water line to keep everything under control.

As usual, I said this before thinking about it, and then settled down to think about how likely that would be. A paddle-wheeler steered by a rail. The more I thought about it, the more I considered it unlikely.

So when I got home, I went straight to the net to find out about the paddle-wheeler on Lane Cove River Park, and how it was steered. I felt certain that there would be some club site, owned by anorak-wearing dweebs, who would have scale models and an action plan for the reinstatement of the boat to its former glory and all the rest.

No.

The internet has failed, you can turn it off now.