There was a near disaster for the largest Steam Ferry in the world when the ferry South Stayene was saved from a fiery end. Berthed at Balmoral wharf she was saved when an old junk of a houseboat caught fire and was drifting towards her birth, luckily the firemen put out the fire in time. The South Steyne was build in Lieth in 1932 the same year as my birth, and sailed out to Sydney, she could in her hey day carry 1,8oo passengers, and ran between Sydney and Manly, on holiday weekends she carried 1,8oo passengers up the coast for the day.

Des