EchucaBlues

THE FORKED PENIS DAY

       " A blues and roots festival,eh?" said the Brickie. "In my experience the roots come first, and the blues follow afterwards." This, from someone about to be hitched, was wisdom indeed.
     After a bizarre series of emails it was all organised that The Ferals were to camp at the Echuca Camping Grounds, join Bluey and his Missus on the Paddle Steamer, "The Henry Charles", for a bit of a tour, and enjoy the Winter Blues Festival in this charming town on the Murray River.
     We, (and by this I mean) Yandoit Andy in the Snail, and the Lupino in the Huddo Ladies' Lounge, were to meet at Robbo's farm, where Robbo was to join the Huddo.
     We were standing there, when we heard what appeared to be a high revving bike going down the gears. "AH! Must be Quilly come to join us after all, we thought." But no, it was indeed, Deaf John valve bouncing his Austin 7. "You know, I've had it up to 90 mph!" We didn't doubt him, just wondered in what gear he had done this, and for how long.
     And so the trio, (Pappa Huddo, Mumma Crossley, and Baby Austin), wound our way up to Echuca, by the back roads to join Goldilocks Mauler in the Dodge. Along the way we stopped for a medicinal restorative ale at a creek, and to just make sure nothing had fallen off.
     Then we stopped at Newbridge for lunch, and noticed a very unusual ex-garage, with a concave corrie-iron roof, and cast iron window frames. It was apparently brought out from England as a bolt together project in the 19thC. Would like to have had a look at how they did the rafters and battens on this complicated structure.
     After that it was a beer at the Raywood Pub, before the final push up to Echuca, (and a very nice pub it was, indeed).
     Bluey's boat, or to be more precise, Lorraine, Bluey's Missus's boat, was moored at the bottom of a cliff that could only be approached via a goat track so narrow and cut by so many tree roots, that sober and in daylight hours it was dangerous.
     When we got there, it was locked, and no-one had Bluey's mobile......so we went to the pub... as you do.

     At the pub, Deaf John greeted some woman whom he surmised to be someone else, but despite this, she knew someone, who knew someone, who had Bluey's mobile, and so it was all sorted. We stayed at the pub till the Mauler and Nursie, and Bluey turned up, which was some several hours, and even more bottles later.
     How we got to the boat is still a mystery, but I think Yandoit's selfless action in going to find a torch at the camp probably helped.
     On the boat a fire was lit in the minuscule wood heater, followed by an evacuation due to smoke because no-one had removed the brick from the top of the flue.
     It got better after that, and we settled in. The conversation, and wine flowed till interrupted by an almighty racket in the corner, which turned out to be Bluey cutting up a bit of fire-wood with an electric carving knife.

I offered to donate an electric chainsaw, gratis, but he would have none of it. Passing strange, I thought.
     During the evening, Deaf John, who was well into his third bottle of red, was musing philosophically on the tell-tale signs of inebriation, and what constituted the definative sign. His theory was that if you saw a forked penis, ie, two when there should be one, then that was it. Everyone thought this an interesting theory, and applicable to both sexes.
     Then, well after midnight, when the whole assembly was in full flight, Deaf John charged into the saloon, demanded silence from the room, and, in a voice of great solemnity, indeed gravitas, intoned, "The forked penis has arrived!", and sat down.
      And who could doubt him? He was forked then, and continued to be forked for the next day, even declaring in a dry and rasping tone, "I think I'll have a grog-free day today." Which he did, and we hardly saw him move all day. Beware the forked penis!

PADDLE STEAMER AND FAT YAK DAY

    The next day was Paddle Steamer Day! We all arrived early, at around the crack of noon, for breakfast, and it was all go!
    Several of Bluey's relatives, friends and associates, plus the Ferals were all on board, and while the boiler was gently getting a head of steam (2.5 hours) the rest of us were also maintaining our fluid levels(except for DJ).
    It soon became clear that this tour was to be interactive. Let me just digress a little.
    The last time we came across the "Henry Charles" was when it was moored in a billabong, cut off from the river by a sandbank. Bluey's Missus had bought it for a song, but neither of them really knew what to do with it. Then, one day when the river was high, they happened to have lent it to a mate to stay on, (like they did with us), he got bored, thought,"How hard can it be?" Fired up the boiler, and headed into the river. No-one had a ticket then, nor do they now.
     The river trip was pure Feral Sports Car Club material.
     Learning to operate a steam driven paddle boat, without any prior knowledge is like diffusing a bomb by trial and error. Add to that, that you have little knowledge of the true condition of any of the equipment, and it becomes curiously interesting. On top of that, add in a crew of enthusiastic, well meaning drunks, and you have something approaching extreme-sport. Like most extreme-sports, it was also great fun.
     The "getting up of steam" took so long that most, including Captain Skallywag (AKA Bluey) decided to adjourn to the pub and blues festival for an hour or two, until summonsed by the plaintive wailing of the "Henry Charles'" steam whistle. Last on board was the Captain.
     Then followed an elaborate ritual of oiling and other maintenance procedures, including the fitting of the exhaust clamp. This little procedure, no doubt mentioned in the naval manual, was to stop the enormous cast flywheel from moving off its dodgy keyway, flying through the air, and finding its home among the yabbies.
     Not to worry, we'll keep an eye on it!
     Getting away from one bank, or the other, was a problem to the crew, because of the slow response time of the Steamer, and we often threatened to ram either the bank, or other steamers moored along it. The Mauler summed it up: "Just like driving the Dodge, but with better brakes."
     When we finally did get into clear water, there was some confusion as to the rules of the road, but in true feral fashion we just went where we wanted to go, and bugger the consequences. Or more acurately, we went where the boat wanted to go, which often meant close to the bank and logs, or the wrong side of the bridge. To say we were in control would be extreme hyperbole.

      But let me not give you the wrong impression, the whole experience was magical. Unless you were in the immediate area of the steam engine, the trip was silent. One of Bluey's mates came along and played some nice blues on the back deck, and sitting there, beer in hand, in the winter sun with the banks sliding past, being occasionally passed by other paddle steamers (cause we were in no hurry), one could not think of a nicer way to pass the time.
     But a Feral trip cannot pass without incident. So engrossed were we all by the voyage that Stoker Bluey had neglected to stoke the fire, and we ran out of steam. This occurred while we were in the delicate process of turning the boat around to go back, and so we lost what miniscule amount of control we had in the first place, and started drifting down the river, backwards. As we drifted towards some logs near the bank that would probably have demolished the rudder, it was decided that Yandoit Andy should be thrown overboard, with a rope, and tether the boat.
   This he did with amazing alacrity, and with only yards to spare.
Safely moored Bluey piled on the logs, and we settled down to what we were doing in the first place, drinking beer and bullshitting.
     A pendulum does not stop at the bottom, and we were soon rewarded with a tad too much steam, and this was when the engine sprang a leak. On every stroke water issued forth from the engine near the whipping drive chain. The Mauler, a tad galled by the heroics of Yandoit, decided to adjust matters with a shifter, while the engine was running. This brought out the nurturing side of Yandoit who issued stern motherly commands to the Mauler, much to the amusement of all.
    The leakage problem analysed, and solved, another one popped up: the bigend of the main piston was knocking badly.
Here we saw a fine team effort from natural adversaries Yandoit and Mauler, who, armed only with a shifter and a claw-hammer attempted some fine adjustment, but to no avail. In true Feral fashion we said "Fuck it!" and continued on despite the racket.
    Back at the Port, parallel parking the boat took an age, but we sorta got it back in the same place, with only minimal threats to other boats. Click HERE to see the video of the trip.
     Then it was on to the Blues Festival.
     This was in full swing. The acts are largely free, but you pay for it by the extortionate prices for grog. Win some, lose some.
     Bluey and Missus Bluey put on a fine display of rock'n roll dancing, as did the Mauler and Nursie. Click HERE to view the pair in action, before we ran out of battery.
     The Mauler, who must have been within cooey of forked penis, declared that he was going to dance with every shiela in the joint. He was disporting himself with a particularly tight late-40's piece, in a Harley jacket, when he thought he might just improve her dancing style. The Mauler is a terpsichorean perfectionist, and the conversation went thus:
        Mauler: "You've just got to remember, you go down on the                  up beat, come up on the down beat. Got that? Go down on the up, come up on the down."
       Harley Girl: "When I'm going down, and you're coming up do I take my teeth out?"
     Well! After that it was all down-hill. Robbo, Yandoit and the Lupino went looking for action, and found a pub that served "Fat Yak Pale Ale". The Mauler had been annoying all and sundry with purile Yak jokes for ages, and here we were with the real thing. We got stuck into it, and it was "a good thing". Not like your fizzy brewery crap, this had a bit of body and taste, like home brew...and with the alcohol content to match.
   Well, we drank a bit, then went to watch Stringybark McDowell, then drank a bit more, then went to watch someone I can't recall, then drank a little bit more, then the rest of the night is a little bit of a blur, but we can recall, Robbo and the Lupino, calling in to the Mauler's trailer, on the way home, to give them cheer, and, marital advice, which, no doubt, they appreciated, at 2.00am in the morning.