Author finds new confidence on eight-day Franklin River rafting trip

An author recounts an eight-day group rafting trip down Tasmania's Franklin River, saying she arrived cold, out of shape and in pain but determined to continue. She booked after a misty image of the river appeared on social media and after an early fascination sparked by a 1982 film about the Franklin shown by Bob Brown.

Helicopter evacuation was not an option because her injuries were "dodgy hips, screaming arm muscles and deeply wounded pride", and on pre-dawn day two she lay in a sleeping bag on a thin foam pad beside a fallen Huon pine. She struggled with an overloaded pack, scaled a cliff while guides manoeuvred rafts over low-water sections, and helped to portage rafts through shallow or dangerous stretches — one team call being "One, two, three, pull!" — even tumbling into a logjammed whirlpool before a guide hauled her back in.

Despite the guides' stories of the river's merciless water, its seething cauldrons and deep holes that can trap a person, she found the drops intoxicating and discovered that strength of mind could be as valuable as strength of body. As the group negotiated rapids such as Nasty Notch, the Great Ravine, the Corkscrew and Deception Gorge, she realised she now has "the strength for almost anything" and began to imagine future expeditions and quieter searches for streams, dawn mist, towering ancient trees, and moss and ferns.

Key Topics

Culture, Franklin River, Tasmania, Bob Brown, Huon Pine, Rafting