A day in the life of a Webbs Creek Ferry operator on the spectacular Hawkesbury River

“Seeing the beauty in the river is so powerful,” she told the Gazette.

“You can actually have a complete stress-free day - no matter what is thrown at you, you can get through the day not being as stressed as you would if you were in retail or hospitality. It just gives you that little advantage.”

Ms Dunlop should know - she left her job in retail 18 months ago to work on the ferry, and she hasn’t looked back.

And for locals who use the ferry crossing whether to travel to work, to the shops or just for a weekend by the river, you can tell what a powerful force such beautiful surroundings have on its staff - they smile and wave and are always up for a chat.

“We like to engage in conversation with people - if they have their windows down. We always smile and wave and say hi if we can,” Ms Dunlop said.

It was her love of the river that drew her to the job at ferry, which is run by Tono Operations and managed by Roads and Maritime Services (RMS).

“I grew up around the river from a toddler to my early teens and spent a lot of time on the river - I love everything about life on the river,” she said.

“I’d never thought about becoming a ferry operator until one day somebody approached me and I thought, you know what? It’s the perfect, dream job for me! It ticks all the boxes that I didn’t even know were there to be ticked.”

Ms Dunlop spent her training across across Sackville, Wisemans and Webbs Creek ferries.

“You have to build up a certain amount of hours in both deck hand and in driving,” she said.

“In the job as an operator, we spend a couple of hours doing deckhand duties, and then we swap with our shift partner and do a couple of hours driving or operating the vessel, and we keep switching until the eight-hour shift is over.”

The ferry operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and permanent workers like Ms Dunlop work on a roster system: two days of 6am until 2pm, followed by two afternoons of 2pm until 10pm, then two nights of 10pm until 6am.

“After we do the two night shifts we get to enjoy three wonderful days off, and then the cycle repeats itself,” she said.

In terms of job challenges, Ms Dunlop said being able to adapt to tide and weather changes was important to operate the ferry.

“Different tides mean you have to drive the ferry slightly differently - if it’s going out or in the ferry will get pulled different ways. You really need to know what your tide’s doing to be able to operate the ferry. We check the tides at the start of the every shift,” she said.

Does she still get a kick out of the beautiful scenery? “Absolutely! Every now and then I’ll turn around and look out the window of the ferry cabin and be like ‘Wow - it’s so beautiful’,” she said.

“It’s the only thing you can hold on to. A year and a half has passed and to still look out of the window of the cabin and still be amazed by what you see, it’s just spectacular.”

Being surrounded by natural bushland as they are, Webbs Creek Ferry operators see their fair share of wildlife.

“We see quite a bit of bird life, and sometimes we see fish. A few months ago I was mid-river and all of a sudden hundreds of fish jumped out of the river at once, and I thought, ‘What’s going on? I wonder what’s chasing these guys!’” she said.

“We has a snake wrapped up in the ramp of the ferry once, and we get plenty of lizards every day in the summer.

“We got a few dolphins too, some time ago. You do get to see some wonderful things.”

Ms Dunlop said she sees familiar faces crossing on the ferry most days, especially during the week when locals cross to go to and from work.

“Monday to Friday the majority of people are absolutely locals, but come the weekend it’s a lot of tourism,” she said.

When the Gazette spoke with Ms Dunlop, she was gearing-up for a busy weekend ahead with the annual Return to Rio festival occurring at Del Rio campground and tourist park.

“We will get big ferry queues over the next day or two so there will be delayed times, and one of the challenges is to try to keep people happy,” she said.

“Tono’s got a really good team in the way of ferry operators and we do our best every day.”