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Source: ONE News -
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Passenger riverboats are set to return to the Whanganui River for the first time in more than 50 years.
The river steamers saw their best times between 1890 and the mid 1900s, when the tourism venture which became one of the biggest in the Southern Hemisphere.
Boats owned by Alexander Hatrick carried up to 400 passengers, thousands of livestock and tonnes of goods on each trip.
And the 230 kilometre journey from Wanganui to Taumaranui took three to four days .
Now Robert Baldwin has launched the Adventurer II, copying its design from one of the original riverboats, the Wai Iti II.
"It was good times. I wish I'd been there," says Baldwin.
The boat took seven months to build at a cost of almost $500,000.
Local MP Chester Borrows has high hopes for the new venture.
"Wanganui was known as the Rhine of the south and we'd love to see it back there again."
Baldwin's boat will initially sail only as far as the river's middle reaches, but he hopes to offer a full service to Taumaranui by October.
