Holiday - Part 5

As promised, here are the remainder of the photos from our Paddle-Steamer outing.

The Murray river has a series of Locks along it's path. Originally slated for 30 it contains 15 (The railway system that came through many moons ago killed off river transport!).

The locks allow the water depth levels to remain in place to ensure the Paddle-Steamers can get up and down (without running out of water!). The Lock 11 is the only Australian designed Lock, the rest are US designed.



The Lock works by using gravity to move water from the higher ground to the lower ground. Once both sides have levelled the doors of the lock are opened and the vessel is able to pass through.
It's a simple design but quite ingenious! It fills at around 1 million litres/min so it only takes about 4 minutes to raise some 4 feet. The gates each weigh in at a staggering 18 tonne!

Below is a small animation of the gates opening up.