The Ever Varying Flood - Part III
Serendipity is my middle name.
THE EVER VARYING FLOOD
In December of 2017, seven of us ventured Down Under to boat a river only one of us had ever heard of before this trip was planned - the Franklin River. This is our story. It will take several ‘parts’ for me to tell it. I’ll post a ‘part’ - whenever I can - until the story, from my perspective, is complete. This is Part III should you wish to ‘catch up’.
Last week, we reached the Great Ravine on the Franklin River and spent the vast portion of a day humping boats and gear around the initial rapid slash waterfall - The Churn.
Our trip down the Franklin, and a short, but memorable section of the Gordon, was 129 kilometers long. About 80 miles American. It’s a trip that should, under normal conditions, require a week to eight days. An aggressive, skilled kayaker could manage it in four days. We were advised to allow 11 to 12 days in the event the weather and the river decided to have a high water event as we had seen via the graphs before we had launched.
The Great Ravine is one section of that journey, a very short section actually, but it harbors the most serious whitewater and arduous portages. Within the Great Ravine are four rapids of note: The Churn, The Coruscades, Thunderush and the Cauldron. Each need to be approached with an abundance of caution because a mistake with any of them could be fatal.
It’s imperative you reach and portage the third monstrous rapid in the gorge - Thunderush - when the river is not varying high. Because the only portage is along the shore over massive boulders on river left while the water level is on the calmer side. An old high water portage on the right bank, involving humping your gear over land, above the cliffs and through the matted forest had been eliminated by a rock slide.
At the eddy above The Coruscades our party was reunited with a party of ecologists, environmental professors, long-time Franklin River guides and the author of Death of a River Guide and a former guide himself, Richard Flanagan. We had met them at a camp in the Irenabyss - a chasm featuring an abundance of flat water and tranquillity. Like Elves Chasm, a side canyon on the Colorado River with a cheery brook and hanging plants, but, this Elves Chasm, had a river meandering through it.
They were gracious to a fault providing us with essential river data and filling in some gaps in our knowledge, especially since, by reaching the Irenabyss a day earlier, we had effectively aced them out of the only decent camp in the gorge. The camps on the Franklin, up to that point, were proving to be tiny - no, make that microscopic - with flat ground always at a premium.
It was a pleasant reunion at the top of the Coruscades, but our initial meeting kind of got off on the wrong foot.
Two days earlier, five members of our group climbed out of the gorge on a track that would take them toward Frenchman’s Cap, two of us remained behind at the - relatively - spacious though still claustrophobic Irenabyss camp. One of us was sick from too many oysters out of a jar in one sitting and the other claimed a balky knee was a good excuse to while away the layover day beneath a tarp enjoying a good read.
About midday, I was unexpectedly aroused from the depths of my imagination by a guy with a puzzled expression who was the spitting image of Seth Rogen dressed in a river guide Halloween costume. I had been armpit deep into a story line when he walked up and stuck his head under my tarp.
Helmet, lifejacket, knife, whistle, paddle jacket, paddle pants and river sandals. Shocks of hair sticking out from each side of his helmet. Dumbfounded facial expression.
He did not say, “Hello” or even an Aussie “G’Day”, he just stood before me (I was stretched out on my backpacking cot distancing myself from the leeches) with a perplexed look as he surveyed our shantytown of tarps and hammocks.
“Are you guys, like, staying here tonight?”
As a river guide myself, I knew exactly what was going through his mind.
First of all, it was getting too late in the day to continue downstream to the next available camp.
Secondly, the Irenabyss camp, from what we had deduced, was the roomiest and one of the nicest camps along the Franklin and a camp his company counts on to be open.
Third, we were completely outside his realm of rational possibilities. Seven crazy Americans rafting the Franklin in December, which is the southern hemisphere’s spring and a time when the river can fluctuate, was not one of the options on his bingo card.
There was an awkwardly long silence as he contemplated his predicament.
I worried he would ask to share the camp and I would feel compelled to do so. Without having consulted with the majority of my group who were out hiking and would likely return exhausted gauging by the condition of the trail. Steep with slippery root balls.
He was probably trying to size up whether sharing the camp was even an ask that he could make. Under those circumstances, he had Seth Rogen’s looks but lacked the wellspring of wit.
I said, “We are.”
He seemed disheveled when I first sized him up over the top of my book, and he looked more disheveled as his mind ran through his options. I stayed mum because I knew my tendency would be to be too generous. The Irenabyss campsite had considerably more room than our first night’s postage stamp of a camp but it was still limited. Hemmed in and dotted by alder-like trees whose roots spread like neural ganglia close to the surface.
His other utterances seemed to be more to himself than me, and then he turned to go. He never got around to introducing himself. I think he was in a bit of shock.
Relieved, I stuck my nose back in my book. My ill camp mate came out of his hammock cocoon to find out what that was all about. We discussed whether he had been angling for an invite and then walked down to where our boats were tied to see what the party he was in charge of looked like, but, by that time, they were making their way downstream. To our surprise, they pulled over on the opposite bank only a hundred yards downstream. It looked like there were a dozen or more of them.
They proceeded to create a bushwhack camp.
A couple of hours later, our hikers tromped back into camp having been thwarted from reaching Frenchman’s Cap due to the mist and fog and light rain. The day had been more inviting than not upon their departure but the clouds steadily descended as the day went on. A gentle rain had pitter pattered upon my tarp on and off throughout the afternoon.
I told them about my encounter with the diffident Seth Rogen and, after a short discussion, two emissaries decided to paddle across the lengthy lagoon that separated the two parties for a parlay. The current was nearly non-existent in that section of the gorge so, reaching them, presented no trouble whatsoever.
Our liaisons were gone for hours.
In fact, they didn’t return until the evening’s gloaming. It was a triumphal return because, not only had they broken bread and traded stories and wound up making friends, they had made friends with a rafting party with probably a hundred seasons of experience on the Franklin River.
A party that we would be hop-scotching with for the remainder of our journey.
Forty some odd years earlier I learned about the Franklin River while reading a National Geographic article about the protests that had ultimately saved it from the dam-builders.
Over a year earlier, I set out to spark some interest in rafting it.
As the date to our flights to Australia approached in December of 2017, as I said in the beginning, there were gaping holes in what we knew about this daunting river. We watched videos that terrified us, and we watched videos that made it look idyllic.
But with every step we took in the process of getting to Australia, and eventually to the launch site on the rocky tributary called the Collingwood on the far, windswept side of Tasmania, the universe seemed to be grinning down at us. Amused and impressed, all at the same time.
Our group’s kismet was like a lotus blossom springing forth from the muck.
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Since returning from Tasmania, I’ve read almost all of Richard Flanagan’s novels. It may be an acquired taste, and you may have to have an appreciation for the history of Van Diemen’s Land to like his subject matter and style. But I love his stuff. Here is a 6 minute video by the New Yorker so you know it was done well called “Writing Shack” where he talks about his writing and his muse and other stuff.
Also, my most alert reader Nancy Enz Lill, sent along this article about COVID haikus!
Remember COVID? It’s still a thing. Here’s are a couple of examples:
Empty taxi cabs
cruising along avenues
with bankrupt drivers
No opera now
the virus darkened the Met
but birds sing to me
Haikus are easy
but sometimes they don’t make sense
refrigerator