MS Wanganella was an Australian-registered ocean liner built by Harland and Wolff that entered service on the trans-Tasman route in 1933.

Eventually the Melbourne-based Australian shipping company Huddart Parker bought Achimota in September 1932 and renamed her Wanganella,[3] beginning regular service on 12 January 1933.

She primarily sailed between the cities of Auckland and Wellington in New Zealand, and Sydney and Melbourne in Australia, crossing the Tasman Sea in three and a half days.

[6] On 11 September 1935, a message in a bottle was put in the ocean, reading:Thrown overboard by Mr & Mrs Robert Hare and son Billy 11/9/35 en route Syd/Auck.

The menu, dated Tuesday, 10 September 1935 was one day old when it was adorned with a handwritten note, placed into the cork-topped bottle, and thrown into the ocean.

[7] Of note, Mr Robert Hare was Manager of the Huddart Parker Line of which Wanganella was a part, and his son William (Billy) became a leading radiologist and Professor of Radiology at the University of Melbourne.

[9] A recently-liberated soldier from Batu Lintang camp, Kuching, Sarawak wrote of her: My first real sight of the hospital ship occurred at a range of well over a mile ... Distances and sizes of things at sea can be very deceptive ... [and] I realised she was far bigger in all respects than I had imagined.

Wanganella, for such was her magic name, rode quietly at anchor unperturbed by wind or tide, unreal, dazzling white, clinically neat, a heavenly ship waiting patiently as a lover to receive us.

It seemed a contradiction in terms to call Wanganella 'a hell of a ship'; to me she appeared as a vessel from another world, but I understood his concern to reassure me that indeed there was now hope of a future for us all.

"On her maiden voyage after the war, Wanganella had a narrow escape when she ran aground on Barrett Reef (later to claim TEV Wahine with 53 lives lost) at the entrance to Wellington Harbour in New Zealand.

In 1963, shortly before the ship was due to be scrapped, engineers working on the construction of the Manapouri Power Station in New Zealand acquired Wanganella.

Between 1963 and 1970, Wanganella was moored in Doubtful Sound to be used as a hostel for workers building the tailrace tunnel, and the Wilmot Pass access road.

A popular legend is when the vessel was to be towed away, tugs apparently struggled to dislodge the ship from a bed of empty beer cans that had been tossed overboard.