Once we were Rafters
It was the tranquillity that most surprised me. A meditative stillness. Ironic, really, given the river’s rock’n’roll lifestyle, harum-scarum attitude and capacity for inducing whiteknuckled thrills and heart-out-the-mouth panic attacks.
It’s not that the Franklin River doesn’t live up to its adrenalinised hype, nor that its repose is never ruptured. No. The thunder-rushing tumult is real alright.
Entering Descension Gorge is akin to having the dawn of sound break over you; a tsunami of aural shrapnel shredding serenity’s whispers. Audio compressed into an overwhelming percussive roar. Anticipation, apprehension and tension—all ratchet up in any approaching paddler’s chest. The running of the rapids—Spanish bulls in the bush—was about to begin.
Riding between haphazard reefs of jagged uber-boulders, avoiding boiling churns at body-trapping ‘sieves’, the Franklin carries wilderness worshippers through otherwise impenetrable World Heritage-listed rainforest, on one of the world’s iconic edge-of-the-world adventures.
But it was in tranquillity where the Franklin most beguiled.
A GUIDING HAND
This serenity doubtless had
