Twelve minutes, if the current is ordinary.
You stand. There aren’t seats worth the name, just a bench that is wet until the sun finds it. The far bank is gum trees and a gravel scrape where the cars turn. Dogs stay on a lead. Prams fit if you fold the rain cover back; the last person who didn’t lost a wheel cover in the river and we did not go back for it.
The tin is a biscuit tin with the picture worn off. Four dollars, coins or a note, and if you haven’t got it the skipper will remember your face and collect it on the way back. He is worse at remembering faces than he thinks, so have the money.
In a north wind the crossing is lumpy and still twelve minutes. In fog he goes slower and doesn’t apologise. If the river is over the ramp, there is no ferry. That is the whole notice.