Who goes where?: Rafting the Franklin Part 3

Day five was the biggie, lots of porterage, big rapids and a long way to go. We started with the huge Propsting Gorge and through the exciting Trojans rapids, a lively start to the morning. The majority of the day was spent running small rapids with plenty of spray and steep drop offs into lively swell. By now our boat and crew had a name, Team Barnacle, and were pulling together like a well oiled machine, although our captain might have thought otherwise! There were no more capsizes, very little marooning and almost no mutinies during the whole day. It was another day of laughter, songs, games and the occasional blind panic, but on the outside we were now hardened watermen (and women) and barely flinched at the sight or sound of turbulent waters!

 That evening we camped under a huge limestone overhang. The lower sections were small caves and the upper large sheltered platforms where you could spread out your equipment to dry well out of the weather. The rain stopped, the sun came out and we all knew we had just one more day of paddling to reach journey's end.

We slept well in our cozy hole, oblivious to the snakes and spiders and had to be roused from our slumbers for our final day of paddling. Though an easy day in regard to white water it was still a trek, flat water is no friend to a light boat on a windy day and we spent most of the 6 hours paddling hard into an unforgiving headwind as we joined the Gordon River and completed the final few kilometres to the landing stage and the end of our paddling leg.

With camp established and dinner cooking a beautiful yacht appeared on the horizon and smoothly moor at the jetty. This was our route back to civilisation. With them they had beer and wine which we generously purchased and toasted our success.

At 5am the next morning we packed up camp, loaded the boat and sailed west along the Gordon heading for the nearest port of Strahan. With breakfast on board and a chance to climb the rigging it was a pleasant 5 hour cruise back to civilisation.

In Hobart that evening we had a farewell dinner and drinks with all the crew, many of whom we were sad to say farewell to and many we promised to see again.

Loading the boats on Day 5