Paddling the Franklin River Helped Me Appreciate Its Struggle For Preservation

Explorer Hilary headed to the Franklin River in lutruwita/Tasmania with a deep reverence for its untamed beauty – a beauty that was once so close to being lost.

I sit quietly, staring at a rock in a river. It’s my first time here, but the scene in front of me is incredibly familiar.

A monolithic rock, made to look small between rugged grey, towering cliffs. Tea trees and eucalyptus grow precariously from any vaguely horizontal surface, stretching upward to see the sun within the towering gorge. Clear, tannin-stained water glides past as the current creates Van Gogh-style swirls, twisting around the base of the rock island.

Today, the mist that hung in the bend over 40 years ago is replaced with the bright light of Tasmanian summer, and the water level is significantly lower. I stare at this rock, willing it to answer a simple question. How? How did a photo of this view inspire a nation to care about a wild river nestled deep in the heart of the impenetrable wilderness of Tasmania?

I’m in my PFD and helmet, with soggy feet and a full heart, staring at Rock Island Bend. This is just one bend on a river approximately 100km long that has become synonymous with environmentalism, wilderness, and direct action in Australia.

A photo taken from this exact spot by renowned photographer Peter Dombrovskis ignited a spark of outrage, and led people from across the continent to care about this wild river, which most would never see firsthand.

This river and the adjoining Gordon River were home to the Franklin River Blockade of 1982-1983. At the time, the Tasmanian Liberal Government planned to dam the Franklin River for a hydro-scheme, essentially flooding the Upper Franklin River and relegating Rock Island Bend to an obsolete, watery grave.

The Journey to Rock Island Bend

Getting to this part of the Franklin River takes considerable logistics, effort, and experience. Not only is it embedded into the impenetrable landscape of Tasmania’s South West Wilderness, but you must travel for several days downriver, sleeping under rocky overhangs, paddling a raft laden with a week’s worth of essentials, and navigating Class 3 and 4 rapids along the way. This river is not for the faint-hearted, the egotistical or the inexperienced.

This landscape demands patience, respect, and experience. This is why I’m with an expert team of river guides leading 12 novices, myself included, down the Franklin River on an eight-day rafting expedition.

Portage at Log Jam, Upper Franklin

But my journey to the Franklin River started long before we set off on day one; it goes back to 2007 when I voted in my first federal election. I was raised to vote in line with your values, and as a lover of the outdoors, nature, and conservation, I chose to vote for the Greens.

As the years went on, I learned more about politics and became more involved with the party, as the decisions made by our leaders seemed short-sighted, irresponsible, and greedy.

I learnt about the history of the Greens and the enigmatic, adventurous, and resilient Bob Brown. Back in 1972, Bob founded the United Tasmania Group, the first Greens party in the world. The self-proclaimed ‘greenies’ of Tasmania inspired other state-based groups, amalgamating in 1992 to become the Australian Greens.

Dr Bob Brown’s own political journey started on the Franklin River. Alongside Paul Smith, Brown rafted down in 1976 in a vessel that resembled an inflatable pool toy by today’s standards.

After 11 days in the wilderness, Brown and Smith were greeted by bulldozers, helicopters, and chainsaws at the confluence of the Franklin and Gordon Rivers. This was to be the site of the Gordon-Below-Franklin Dam, which would see the Franklin River drowned by the Hydro Electric Commission (HEC) to create cheap, renewable energy for Tasmanians.

Bob Brown rafting down the Franklin River for the first time, 1976 | Photo courtesy of Bob Brown

After the loss of Lake Pedder to the HEC, the environmentalists, including Brown, weren’t going to let the Franklin River flood without a fight. Upon his return from the Franklin, the Tasmanian Wilderness Society was formed, and the campaign to save the Franklin River began.

Saving the Franklin

What came next still gives me shivers of excitement today. Over two years, 1,400 people were arrested in a mass non-violent direct action demonstration. Mainlanders flocked to Tasmania to join the locals on the frontlines.

After landing in Hobart, they’d travel the six hours across the state to the west coast, undergo NVDA (non-violent direct action) training at ‘Greenie Acres’ in Strahan, before travelling six hours upriver to Warners Landing, only to be then arrested within hours and transported via paddy wagon back to Ridson Prison near Hobart. How’s that for a Tasmanian getaway?!

Protesting at the blockade, 1983 | Photo by Colin Totterdell

Proud greenies pooled their resources, experience, and passion to negotiate the logistics of a campaign in one of the most remote parts of the world before mobile phones and GPS. They set up radio towers to send 50+ press releases from the front line to Hobart each day, inspiring artists, photographers, and international celebrities to join the cause.

Their unrelenting pressure ensured that Australia and the world knew about the brutality at which the HEC pursued the dam’s construction. Maritime laws were flouted, telephone lines were cut, and undercover police did their best to disguise themselves to infiltrate camps. From the township of Strahan, across Macquarie Harbour, up the Gordon, and to the lower Franklin River, a war against the exploitation of nature was being waged.

That’s me at the spot where the dam wall would be if HEC pursued

From December 1982 until March 1983, the campaign was fought on all fronts, from Warners Landing to Canberra. Thousands took to the streets across the country, holding aloft signs saying ‘NO DAMS’, as Dombrovskis’s Rock Island Bend photo was printed in full-page colour in newspapers.

The campaign to save Franklin utilised the modern technology of colour television to take the wilderness to people’s loungerooms to elicit an emotional response to a political decision.

As all of us have experienced, capturing a sunset, a waterfall or an incredible vista through the small aperture of a camera does not come close to the experience and emotion of seeing it with your own two eyes. On this trip, I was a self-appointed documentarian, switching between my GoPro on the water, my digital SLR when safe, and my iPhone whenever convenient.

I wanted to capture memories of the river to share so others could experience the incredible beauty of a landscape carved by glaciers, water, and time. But after showing my family some snaps from the trip, my Dad (in his unflinchingly honest farmer way) commented, ‘You didn’t get many good photos, did you?’.

Despite my best efforts, a 2D image cannot capture the masses of rock, torrents of water, warmth of sunshine or soft moss on a myrtle; the beauty and biodiversity of the wilderness are best seen by the eye of the beholder.

This once again has me wondering: how and why did people turn out in droves to save a place that is inhospitable to your average human, incredibly inconvenient to access by today’s standards, and by night, is haunted by the eerie sounds of owls, devils, and opportunistic possums the size of cats?

From Kutikina to the Southwest Shore

After several days on the Franklin, we left the Great Ravine, with its towering cliffs giving way to jagged limestone rock as our rafts glided closer to the southwest coast.

The hour-long portages around hectic rapids with names like The Churn, Thunderush, and The Cauldron were replaced with long, mellow stretches of flat water. Paddling was punctuated with side trips to explore the labyrinths of caves that line the river in yet another mind-boggling demonstration of the immense power of water and time.

The Irenabyss’ (named by Bob Brown, meaning ‘peaceful chasm’ in Greek)

The existence of these caves was denied by the HEC, which was promptly declared a farce by cavers like Kevin Kiernan, who rediscovered what would become known as Kutikina Cave in 1977.

Upon returning to look for convict bones in 1981, Kiernan, accompanied by then TWS Director Bob Brown, found much more than they bargained for – a sea of stone artefacts. Archeologists and national park staff returned weeks later and discovered the densest deposit of Indigenous artefacts ever found in Australia – the test pit alone held 75,000 artefacts and 250,000 animal bone fragments.

The limestone cliffs surrounding Kutikina Cave on the lower Franklin

This extraordinary find would become the saving grace in the campaign to protect the Franklin. At the height of the last Ice Age, Kutikina was home to the southernmost humans on Earth. Just take a moment to let that sink in.

Twenty thousand years ago in southwest lutruwita/Tasmania, which was still part of mainland Australia, with the central plateau covered in an icecap, and icebergs floating along the coastline, Aboriginal people hunted, slept, lived, and thrived in this cave.

At the time, the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre asked the dam to be stopped, saying the Franklin River Caves ‘form part of us – we are of them and they of us. Their destruction represents a part destruction of us’. The Liberal Government’s response? To seal it off and dam the Franklin so it could be ‘preserved’ in a bubble, forevermore forgotten.

The re-discovery of Kutikina Cave was integral in securing the area as a World Heritage Area, ultimately saving Franklin and Gordon from inundation. Kutikina Cave has now been returned to the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre, and rafters like us paddle past, allowing this incredibly significant cultural site to remain undisturbed and respected for millennia to come.

Further downriver, several signs remain, alluding to the recent history of these rivers. On the Gordon River, opposite the jetty where we would end our rafting journey, sits Warners Landing, a mass of timber pylons where excavators and bulldozers were unloaded from punts 40 years ago.

Along the river are thousands of young tea trees, growing en-mass from the muddy wheel ruts left behind from where the forest was cleared to create roads to the proposed dam wall.

Roughly a kilometre inland gallantly stands the Lea Tree, an ever-present symbol of the Franklin Blockade. Here, underneath this ancient Huon pine, people from various blockade camps would meet to plan, strategize, and ultimately, celebrate.

After the World Heritage decision was made, pro-dam supporters from Strahan vandalised the 2500-year-old Huon, drilling holes into its trunk, dousing it in oil and then setting it on fire. On the tree, they scrawled, ‘FUCK YOU GREEN CUNTS’ before taking a selfie and sending it to the conservation organisations.

No charges were laid against the vandals. Despite their attempts, the Lea Tree survives to this day, still bearing the scars of the blockade. A small plaque on the tree reads, ‘This tree is a living symbol of all trees that now survive because the battle of the Franklin River Wilderness was won on 1st July 1983’.

A Personal Pilgrimage

This trip down the ditch, as the guides (affectionately) call it, was a personal pilgrimage. I’m not a religious person; however, I believe in nature and the importance of protecting it. Many wars of exploitation of natural resources have been fought across this continent, and the Franklin River is a rare example of a successful campaign.

From the Beetaloo Basin to the Pilliga Forest, takayna, and the Southern Ocean, Australia’s natural resources continued to be dug up, burnt, felled, and drowned for profit and power.

As someone dedicated to protecting wild places under threat, I wanted to experience a place that few Australians have seen but that many fought (and voted) to save. I wanted to follow in the paddle strokes of the endeavouring canoeists who sought adventure and sometimes met their end on this turbulent, commanding river.

I wanted to learn more about the campaign and understand how and why thousands flocked to this inconvenient yet beautiful part of Tasmania to protect a wild river.

Enjoying a lunch time swim in the lower Franklin

Like all good pilgrimages, this one created more questions rather than answering them. Whilst I contemplate the future of our wild places, I’m inspired to appreciate the remaining wild places of Australia for their intrinsic value, rather than the value we give them through media attention.

Excuse me while I ponder the question, ‘If a beautiful place isn’t captured on social media, does it really matter?’.

And as always, I take inspiration from Bob Brown, who said in 1982, ‘It seemed nothing could rescue the river’.

As Margaret Mead said around the same time, ‘Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has’.

It’s up to you, it’s up to me – it’s up to all of us who appreciate ‘the intrinsic worth of wild places’ to protect them in whatever way we can, whether it be voting, volunteering, divesting, advocating, and exploring; to ensure that future campaigns can share the same success as the Franklin.

If you’d like to learn more about the Franklin River and the blockade, I recommend watching Franklin the movie, listening to the Saving the Franklin podcast or rafting the Franklin for yourself with Franklin River Rafting.