The longest wooden inland wharf in Australia, stretching nearly 100 metres along the Murray riverbank and standing up to three storeys high — because the Murray's floods could rise or fall by up to nine metres, the wharf was built to accommodate any water level. At its peak in the 1870s, up to a hundred paddlesteamers a week tied up here, unloading wool and timber from across the Riverina. The wharf timbers are original red gum, almost indestructible, still solid after a century and a half of sun and flood.
Walk out along the wharf decks to get a sense of the scale of the river trade that once made Echuca the commercial heart of inland Australia. Interpretive signs explain the wool-bale stacking, the goods sheds, and the hierarchy of the port — river skippers were serious figures, not far below a ship's captain in social standing. The wharf is part of the Port of Echuca Historic Reserve, and your admission ticket covers the wharf, the port buildings, and the working steam pump.