Collingwood River to the Irenabyss: Packrafting the Franklin River, Tasmania
This river truly is a whitewater adventurer’s dream. It has everything: raging
water surging over house-sized boulders, dense green forests cloaking rugged
mountains, moody, glassy black stretches broken by frothy, coffee-coloured
rapids, and the occasional waterfall or hidden canyon to explore.
The Franklin river damming protest was probably the biggest and most
successful environmental campaign - in Australia and possibly the world. There
are several documentaries on Youtube and the streaming channels. In 1982 and
1983 the Australian newspapers were dominated by articles about it. It got
down to a fight between State (Tasmania) and the Australian Federal
government, and Bob Hawke won the election at the time with his pledge to
prevent it. It was so fascinating to relive that moment in time ( gosh I am an
oldie !) revisiting those documentaries and media articles.
I am looking forward to paddling on this river, to see for myself its deep
beauty. Many times I have been to Tassie and each moment enjoyable, this one
will perhaps be the most special. I have joined a group that has invited Dan
Hall to assist us with navigating it treacherous waters. He is well known in
the packrafting and paddling world and has several instructional videos on
paddling on Youtube along with Mark Oates. I have attended several courses in
Tasmania and Victoria with him providing instruction. (see my blog
Learning the art of Packrafting on the Mersey River
)
We left Dan's place at 6:30am and bussed it to the Collingwood river put in. A
stopover at the Hungry Wombat cafe was mandatory for a 2nd breakfast and
coffee on the way at 9:00am. We were on the water by 11:30am
The paddling started off easy, and was a great way to begin our trip. The sun
was out, when the Collingwood river intercepted the Franklin river we start to
see the real beauty of the Franklin.
As we progressed along it the river was getting more exciting and enticing,
especially with the slabs of rock to portage in Descension gorge - a prelude
to the upcoming Irenabyss.
On rivers, wood is particularly dangerous as it can cause entrapment and be quite difficult to get out of especially if the water is flowing. We too particular care when navigating through it.
We ended on a high, exhilarated with the excitement to come over the next few
days.
This river is an exceptional example of raw wilderness beauty , I find it hard
to believe that anyone could think that it would be OK to drown it with a dam.
It would have been an unforgivable crime.
Blog Indexes:
- Contents
- Navigate:
For an interactive map see:
Comments
Post a Comment