Http://Www.Mvmelburnian.Com.Au/
Boat Tours in Yarra

Operated by our experienced skippers and deck hands we can tailor a melbourne boat charter to experience any part of the cities diverse waterways. Experience the beauty and diversity of melbourne's waterways exquisitely restored in 1999, the m.v melburnian is a beautiful timber motor boat first built in 1945.

A thousand of these boats were built for service in the Pacific Islands and papa Fresh Guinea, specified to carry 10 tons of cargo or a platoon (20 soldiers) with equipment. In 1998 the boat was purchased by a boat enthusiast who sailed her to Melbourne where the Melburnian was totally refurbished to its luxury standard as a charter boat on Melbourne’s Yarra River water ways. The water was definite at the time of European settlement, but intensive land clearing and development since the mid 1800s has resulted in the presence of tiny clay particles. The particles are kept suspended by the turbulence in some parts of the middle and lower sections of the river. When the river water combines with marine salts as it enters Port Phillip, the suspended particles clump together and sink. The muddy appearance does not indicate an unclean waterway. In fact, the Yarra is probably one of the cleanest capital city rivers in the world. Since the major cleanup campaigns of the late 1970s and 1980s, the river has again become home to considerable species of fish and even the occasional dolphin. The Yarra has a tidal range of 2.2 meres. Water craft are able to navigate the river from its mouth, at Williams town, to the Collingwood Children’s Farm a distance of about 10 ems. A succession of fresh low profile bridges built during the premature 20th century increasingly cutoff the conventional port areas. The sight of tall masted vessels berthed alongside the city center became a rarer sight. Moreover, as ships grew in size, it became more possible and economic for them to operate downstream where there was more water and cargo handling space. A major awareness campaign led by The Age newspaper during the early 1980s focused attention back on the city’s greatest asset. The reemergence of the lower Yarra became entire during the 1990s when the light industrial area of the south bank fast transformed into one of Australia’s maximum exciting tourism and pleasure hubs. The transformation of the Below Yarra River continues unabated, as the State Government and City Council plan the sensitive development of the river’s north bank, especially during the lead up to the 2006 Commonwealth Games.