Messing About On The Nepean In A Paddle Boat
Sydney Morning Herald
Thursday October 1, 1987
WHEN JOHN Wakeling was a young lad living on the south coast he used to perform in shows staged by his local Nowra Musical Society. But one show he never got to take part in was Showboat.
"I always regretted it," he admitted.
Mr Wakeling has more than made up for what he missed. Today, he is the captain of his own riverboat which steams up and down the Nepean River.
The Nepean Belle, built at a cost of $450,000, is by far the biggest vessel on the river. Driven by two paddle wheels, it can carry up to 180 passengers on 30km round trips on what Captain Wakeling says is Sydney's best-kept secret.
While he lived in Nowra the best he could manage was to operate a fleet of small two-man paddle boats at nearby Ulladulla.
"Then my work brought me to Penrith, he said. "I was an insurance representative for AMP."
He bought a home in River Road, Emu Plains. From his front yard he had a commanding view of the Nepean, and was "amazed at the little use that was being made of the river".
He was told of a natural attraction just a few kilometres away - the Nepean Gorge, a 12 million-year-old v-shaped valley that cuts through the lowest foothills of the Blue Mountains.
The valley walls climb 150 metres above the river which is up to 80 metres wide and 14 metres deep.
The Nepean was first sighted by a European in 1789 when Captain Watkin Tench described it as "wide as the Thames at Putney."
"I heard about the gorge so up I went in a borrowed boat," Captain Wakeling said. "It was so beautiful I couldn't wait to get back and tell my wife, Helen."
In 1979 he visited Echuca on the Murray River and was impressed by the river boats: "I really became switched on by them and I came back with a determination to have one of my own."
He drew up a plan for his vessel, then sold his two-storey house and cashed in his life assurance policies to raise some of the money, but quickly sailed into a wave of bureaucracy.
Neither financiers nor governments were keen to help and at one stage it looked as if his boat would be left high and dry on the river bank where it was being built. The land the vessel would have to cross had been resumed by the Department of Environment and Planning.
The cost of the ramp he needed to launch the boat then soared from $13,000 to $70,000.
Finally all the problems were ironed out, and the Nepean Belle now makes regular cruises - from 1 1/2 hours covering just 11km to four-hour floating restaurant expeditions on round trips of 30-km at a leisurely seven knots.
After seeing the Nepean Gorge so many times Captain Wakeling is still awed by its beauty.
"We Australians have this idea that the best of everything is overseas," he said. "In Sydney we think everything north of the city is good and that everything south of the city is nice but we never think of the west."
Captain Wakeling, who has never been overseas, says foreign passengers on his boat tell him the gorge easily compares with the fjords of New Zealand and Scandinavia.
Surprisingly, while most people prefer to enjoy a voyage on the Nepean Belle on bright sunny days, Captain Wakeling says the gorge is at its best when skies are overcast.
"The variety of the greens is breathtaking," he said. "The water becomes like ice and the reflections are just so deep and clear."
The captain already has plans to build a faster boat so people can spend more time enjoying spectacular parts of the Nepean and less time travelling.
But understandably he is not saying much about what he has in mind. Having rediscovered the river after its decades of neglect he wants to remain king of the Nepean.
The Department of Environment and Planning is soon to exhibit a draft regional environmental plan for the Hawkesbury-Nepean River.
The plan is the culmination of the input by the department as well as eleven councils covering the 200 or so kilometres path of the river from Picton to Broken Bay.
Its two main, linked themes deal with water quality and recreation. available from the Parramatta office of the Department of Environment and Planning.
© 1987 Sydney Morning Herald