Franklin Fiasco: Part 3
Tasmania, Australia
By Charlie Hynes
Day Three: Junction of Franklin and Loddon – Huon Pine Camp
There was no real indication as we emerged from bed, our gear all wet after a damp night under the tarp, that this day would be so massive. The plan we’d discussed had been to run swiftly through to the Irenabyss camp by lunchtime, where we would walk up to Frenchman’s Cap and meet Leigh. Boris would then swap places and we would continue our merry way down the river.
We didn’t need to see the river to know that it had risen, because the noise was evidence enough, though it was still surprising to discover how much nastier it looked. The innocuous little rapid we could see from our camp was now a raging wave train. I sensed that things had just become a whole lot more serious.
I couldn’t put off my first outside poo any longer, so I grabbed the trusty poo tube and headed up the hill to find a suitable spot. Behind the camp the hill rose sharply towards a ridge, so the going was hard for me even though it was becoming a little urgent. It was probably the nicest place I had ever crapped until that point, like stepping into a wilderness photograph just to snap one off.
When we broke camp I was horrified to discover that my bivvy bag and sleeping bag were now quite wet – waterproof my arse!, I thought. The rain began to fall again and we moved quickly to avoid exposing more gear to wetness.
We pushed away from the bank about half an hour after the Army group had gone past in their big boats. There were no marked rapids for the first few kilometres but even then the going was tough in the bigger water. Waves would crash over the side and fill the boat quickly, making it bloody difficult to manoeuvre with three people and all of the gear, something akin to steering a hippopotamus using icy pole sticks. We had a very quick ride down to the first rapid for the day, Nasty Notch.
It swept around a corner with amazing power and speed. We scrambled through thick rainforest and over slippery rocks to get a better view of what was coming, but didn’t need to look for long to know we would be portaging this one. There were a couple of massive holes, or keepers, boiling furiously and just begging for a small raft or lone swimmer to try and get through. The portage began.
Once again I was reminded by Rowen that most injuries on the Franklin happen on portages, though it was unnecessary after I’d slipped over seventy five times before we’d started to human chain the gear around. We worked for an hour, our efforts often interspersed with minor breaks as we became mesmerised by the power of the water and the wildness of the scene. It certainly reminds you that you are an insignificant player in this natural world, here only at Mother Nature’s pleasure.
The water boiled and thundered, rust coloured and angrily exploding into haystacks like grenades had been tossed in. The noise was big and confronting, like standing at the centre of a lion’s roar. Several times I caught myself looking up for a helicopter that seemed to hover above my head, only to realise it was the mechanical sound of the rapid snarling at us.
We soon reached Deception, or Descension Gorge depending on which sign you read, which was the final set of rapids before Irenabyss camp. After pulling the boat into an eddy to scout, we soon realised it looked dodgy – a couple of nice holes and no room for error. As if on cue, the rain became heavier and a slight mist came in to make the scene all that more menacing; we started scouting river left.
In no time we were in thick jungle above the river trying to see what was around the corner. After twenty minutes we all emerged, breathless, on top of a large rock that gave a view of the next section of the rapid. It looked even worse than we’d imagined – we’d have to punch through a large stopper and manoeuvre the boat to miss an undercut rock on river right. The way that the boat had handled earlier in the day gave us no confidence and we decided to portage again. The kayakers, Dave and Simon, had been scouting ahead for us all day and managed to sneak down into the gorge a little without incident, but the raft was a very different proposition indeed.
By now it was three in the afternoon and what had been envisaged as a half day pleasure cruise was becoming something of an epic.
Before we could unload the raft we paddled it down to an eddy on river left, aided by some extra muscle in the form of Dave Matters. After this we could line the raft a short way before emptying it, a move that would save us a good deal of haulage of gear.
To say that it was crucial we hit the eddy is something of an understatement. If we missed it, we would be forced to run the length of the gorge semi-blind in a boat that would be full of water after the first corner. The probable result here would be to capsize near the undercut rock and have four swimmers praying for some luck. Yay! Dave and Rowen adamantly agreed that the eddy was extremely ‘makeable’… but any rafter knows that there are no certainties in this game.
Meanwhile, the rain continued to fall, all the while varying between gentle drizzle and pissing down. Apart from being uncomfortable and cold, it also meant that the river monster was continuously being fed, swelling like the fat man from Monty Python’s Meaning of Life. We boarded the boat and considered our plan.
The trip would be a brief one, albeit through a fairly decent hole. We had to shave a rock on the left and make good pace without getting caught in the stopper to be certain of reaching our destination. We pushed off, all grim faced but determined to make the plan work.
The boat went so close to the rock that I could have kissed it on the way past, but after this it went slightly pear shaped as we were spun around and went through the stopper backwards. We emerged and spun again, paddling like crazed men, but the force of the recirculating water was too much and we were dragged back into the boiling hole.
After more frantic paddling we broke free and looked downriver for the safety of the narrow eddy. Simon threw us a line but Dave threw it straight back out, putting his faith in the power of we humble paddlers. Rowen had so much faith that he launched himself, extreme adrenalin junkie style, out of the boat and onto a rock to save us going further down river. We had made it, though the look on Simon’s face indicated that it hadn’t looked terrifically professional.
We continued to portage the gear for about an hour but the going was so tough that we only made it about 150 metres downriver. It was pissing down by now and everyone was feeling very tired and cold. At 4.30 we had the inkling that time was against us and went back to get the rafts and kayaks. It was the first time we entertained the idea of not making our intended destination of Irenabyss camp.
This was a frustrating proposition, as the campsite and all its comforts lay only about a kilometre downstream. We broke for lunch and decided to consider our options, squeezing into a small cave by the river to escape the rain and laugh at our predicament. Boris, who by now had a massive tear in the arse of his wetsuit, was visibly shaking with the cold – understandable considering his complete lack of thermals and exposed buttocks.
By the time we’d moved the raft and gear to the right area it was 5.30 p.m. and the chances of reaching Irenabyss had become remote. Rowen had scouted a potential campsite in case of emergency, though it was fairly rocky and uneven. We decided to push on until six and see where we were. Dave went further downriver to scout as far as he could while we continued heaving and dragging the raft across the rocks. A little after six Dave returned to report that he wasn’t sure what was around the next corner. With no certainty that there would be no more portaging we pulled up stumps and began hauling gear back to the, ahem, campsite. In the end the risks outweighed the advantages and we thought it best to stay put and be uncomfortable than sacrifice a life to the river.
Camp was set up slowly; we changed into our warm gear in some kind of trance. It all seemed too unreal and disjointed, like it was happening to people other than ourselves. Strangely I wasn’t disheartened though, because when you put yourself in the way of adventure you need to accept that the choice of adventure will ultimately not be yours, instead determined by the elements of nature. At least that is how I looked at it.
Thankfully the place Rowen had chosen was dry, courtesy of an overhanging cliff, but wasn’t very flat. Boris immediately went to work setting up his bed in an extremely precarious position on top of a large sloping rock. Despite our best efforts, he wouldn’t be coaxed away from the dry spot no matter how uncomfortable or downright dangerous. We half expected him to go crashing down in the middle of the night. Meanwhile, Simon and Dave had erected the tarp and used the raft as shelter from the rain, but the sloping and wet ground didn’t look very inviting at all.
We ate a swift dinner and discussed our options. Rowen used the phone to let people know we were okay, but refused to be goaded into ordering pizza. Leigh’s situation was of real concern now, as he would have arrived at Irenabyss with what we suspected as limited gear and no way of contacting us. We could only hope that the Army group would find and look after him for the night if needed.
At 9 p.m. we headed to bed, exhausted. My sleeping bag and bivvy were all very wet and the thought of spending a sodden night under the raft was far from exciting. Simon had set up his bed down near the river in order to stay dry and Rowen had sought out and found a cave that he was convinced would be drier than under the tarp. I moved up to share the cave with him, but on arriving discovered that ‘pretty much dry’ was not what I’d expected. Despite the rhythmic dripping from the rocks above, we all drifted off to sleep quickly; and so ended the epic day with a capital ‘E’.
