Ferry interesting

I'm now tackling the second piece of my intended opus and I'm focusing on my memories as a child of travelling on the trans-Derwent ferries in Hobart. My aunty Francie was living in Bellerive at that time and the ferry trip was the quickest and best way of crossing the Derwent. For some reason I want to make a piece of work celebrating these memories.

But which ferry to portray? The waters still held many of them in my early lifetime. My favourite was the Cartela (mainly because it began with the letter C and I had a preference for the letter C!) But Cartela was an excursion ferry and ranged far and wide up and down the Derwent. It was a special occasion to travel on the excursion ferries. The main timetabled ferries plying the Hobart-Bellerive route were the Derwent and the Rosny, double-ended and fast. When I knew them they'd been converted to diesel, as had the excursion ferries, their towering smoke stacks replaced with streamlined little modern caps. But at peak hour and holidays out would come the old back up ferry, SS Reemere. I'll never forget, on a bitter winter crossing, escaping my mother and finding my way to that big opening in her side were one could gaze down at the steam boiler and the men working her. The sensations of heat, sounds, the smell of burning coal, the flash of polished brass and the grime of grease and coal dust are indelible memories. I stood beside the men and other fascinated children and gave my heart to the steamers in all their grimy glory.

So that is why I'm using the Reemere as my inspiration even though she was less than pretty. You can see from the pictures that she went through three stages of development, from her construction in 1909 to her second phase, probably after purchase by the Reemere Steamship Co in 1926, to her final stage in 1942. Sadly she was later converted to a fishing boat and after an aborted attempt to restore her, she's ended up on a lake in NSW, possibly as a house boat.

Finally, here is a gratuitous shot of the Cartela in her glory days.