‘Fortune favours the brave’. - Virgil
‘Fortune does not favour the stupid.’ - A. S.
Brave or stupid? The difference can be subtle sometimes!
Yours truly, paddling one of the bigger drops in Denison Gorge. Note the lack of bowline and the angle of the boat. Due to an incident earlier that day we managed to rip two of the eyelets off the bow so I had to move the contents of my bowbag into the stern of the boat. This made for a stern heavy set-up! Despite Grant’s warnings of needing some speed to clear the hydraulic at the base of the drop, I hesitated on the approach and the stopper very nearly sucked me back as I landed. Grant captured beautifully the precise moment I thought the hydraulic was going to eat my raft for lunch.
Photo credit: Grant Dixon, 2024.
2024. The Year of the Dragon according to the Chinese zodiac. My year. The year that’s meant to bring big personal growth for all the Dragons out there, possibly through overcoming difficulties. The last Dragon Year was 2012, and that was the year I left Melbourne, and changed the trajectory of my life significantly. It was the year that I committed my life to pursuing outdoor adventure. At the start of this year, I wondered; would my life change trajectory as significantly as it twelve years ago?
An inflatable raft gives access to some remarkable places. Yours truly, on the Denison River, just below the mandatory portage, paddling upstream. Photo Credit: Grant Dixon, 2024.
There is a place I have always dreamt of visiting. This place is in Lutruwita / Tasmania, on the Gordon River. It is called the Gordon Splits. It’s a deep chasm where the Gordon River has cut through the Nicholls Range, over the course of millions of years. I first read about it in a book about Olegas Truchanas, and how he had to portage over the Splits as the water in the chasm was too wild to paddle. There are two Splits, and funnily enough, the First Split is the one further downstream. The First Split is perhaps named so because it is the most spectacular.
The Splits are part of recent history; the Hydro Electric Commission was planning to flood them in the 1980s, alongside the Franklin River. Peter Dombrovskis took a photo of the Splits when they were threatened, and one of these photos ended up on the cover of Dombrovskis’ great book: Wild Rivers. There was a short film made about Peter’s visit to the Splits, in which he said that if the Splits were flooded, he would have to leave Tasmania; it would simply be too painful to stay.
First Split on the Gordon River, Rock Patterns. (Double Exposure.) Hasselblad 500CM, Ektar 100, Nov 2024.
The problem with visiting the Splits is that there is no easy way to do so. The Splits are located in Tasmania’s South-West, about 10km west from the Gordon Dam. While 10km may not sound like a long way to walk from the road, this is country that is rugged and thick, and allows for no easy passage.
Earlier this year I caught up with one of Tasmania’s most experienced outdoor adventurers and photographers, Grant Dixon. He mentioned he was planning a packrafting trip out to the Gordon Splits, via the Denison River and that he was looking for company as it is a committing trip and not particularly safe to do on one’s own. The Denison River is one of the great wilderness river journeys of Tasmania in its own right, as it takes one past the foot of the Prince of Wales Range and the Truchanas Pine Reserve, one of the last strongholds of the Huon Pine.
I was instantly hooked. The fact I did not know anything about packrafting, or paddling white water did not matter. As far as I was concerned, the trip was on.
Yours truly, with the full kit on the approach towards the Denison River. White water kit, bushwalking kit, camera kit and two weeks of food added up to about 43 kgs. Grant packed much better and his pack was only 35kg. Either way, we were both carrying more than half our body weight. Luckily the walk in was only about six hours. Photo Credit: Grant Dixon, 2024.
2024. The year I discovered packrafting. The year I decided to grab the dragon by the tail and dedicate myself to overcoming my fear of white water.
-A.S. 7/12/24