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 There is light rain through the night but not enough to keep the river
rising.
We have gone to sleep with the constant flood of the Franklin River on the
rise, surging past our cosy cave campsite.
But by morning the river has dropped about 30 centimetres.
This is to be a rest day on our rafting trip down the Franklin.
We have carried our gear past the rapids known as Newlands Cascades but
the rafts remain up-river.
Guide Elias waits on the new day's river level to decide if the rafts are to
be paddled or carried. In the meantime, we are at leisure so books come out and we lounge around on mattresses; talk and admire the magnificence of Shower Cliff Cavern.
Those of us eager to paddle Newlands are put through swimming drills,
donning wetsuits and life jackets and jumping into the icy river to prove we
have the right stuff if the raft turns turtle. Other rafters practise throwing
rescue ropes from the banks.
The five paddlers _ Elias, father-and-son Queensland doctors Michael and
Nick, Hobart anaesthetist Trudi and me _ are ready to go.
Elias and Nick bring down the first raft with the ``groover'' strapped
securely aboard.
The groover is an old metal ammunition box full of toilet waste _ this is
a true carry in, carry out wilderness experience where no pollutants are left
behind.
When Elias and Nick make it through the gnarliest rapid they shout and
clap paddles in celebration.
Perhaps the groover's presence gave added gravity to their safe navigation.
No one wanted to see that particular ammunition box explode.
The second raft is to tackle the same rapid with five of us aboard. We hit
the rapid at a fast forward paddle and emerge with front-men Michael and
Nick in the drink but crucially, the raft upright.
South Australian Clive has photographed the sequence from the bank and
there's an insight into the size of this rapid with a middle frame showing
nothing but white water.
The Franklin's toughest rapids are behind us and we can settle in for a
second night in the limestone caves of Newlands Cascades.
Four of us had joined the trip halfway, rendezvousing at the Mount McCall
track.
The rafters doing the 10-day full-Franklin trip had spent several nights
under a wet tarpaulin so the dry, solid-rock ceiling was a bit like going from
three-star to five-star.
River guides Elias and Franzi start preparing five-star food to match the
accommodation.
If all goes to plan tomorrow, this evening will be our last meal on the
Franklin and it is to be a culinary triumph. An entree of chicken risotto is
followed by rib-eye fillet steak in creamy mushroom and onion sauce, salad, and a dessert of banana and mandarin cheesecake.
All this from pans and pots on two little fuel burners.
You can burn a few calories rafting this river but there's no danger of going
hungry.
We wake early for our super Tuesday, when we hope to use the swollen
river's speed to cover 40 kilometres in a day.
Our two rafts set off and before long we are shooting Little Fall, before
paddling steadily through the broad tranquility of Dianas Basin.
As the river flattens out there's more time to identify the Huon pine that
lured the first Europeans up-river.
The piners would fell a Huon and allow the Franklin and Gordon to flush
it into Macquarie Harbour.
Now the river is flushing two rafts towards that harbour.
We stop at the Aboriginal campsite, Kutikina Cave, where visitors can
reflect on millenniums of Aboriginal culture.
The high water gives other treats. We approach our last sequence of rapids
_ the exciting Double Fall and Big Fall, usually a compulsory portage
because of its record of crunching kayaks and taking lives.
Elias reads the water and judges it passable so we shoot Big Fall for the
first time this season.
Suddenly our white water journey is over and the Franklin becomes broad
and benign.
We stop for lunch and a leaden sky has given way to sunshine so there's
a chance to cool off with a swim.
We say goodbye to the Franklin as the Gordon River appears.
I learn that swimming here is a bracing experience because the Gordon's
waters have been released from the icy depths of a dam bottom.
Finally, Elias straps the rafts together and we paddle the final hours as a
single craft, until the jetty at Sir Johns Falls looms in the distance.
This is our final river camp so our rafting trip is over; a new water
transport, the sailing ship Stormbreaker, is about to take us the length of
Macquarie Harbour.
The writer was a guest of Rafting Tasmania.
Travelways; for all your Tasmania Accommodation |
