Tuesday 3^rd April

Snapshot:  I am having my usual G & T; it is 5.30.  Pete is having one as well, and he is sitting at the opposite end of the table bent over, not his computer, but his Nature Study.  He bought two beautiful glossy field guides at the Visitors Centre in Strahan, one called EucaFlip, the other TreeFlip.  Today on our walk to Sir John Falls he picked a few little (tiny weensy teeny…) leaves from a selection for trees and now he is happily and busily identifying them.  It is all bringing back long distant memories of field trips galloping along behind Prof Jackson, who operated at a fast clip, with his students racing behind him trying to take notes and pick specimens. 

We are tied up alongside Stormbreaker, the lovely, hardy big yacht which operates out of Strahan up the Gordon River.  Outside the sun is sinking and it is so beautiful out there.  The river has turned a deep golden colour and the dense, steep rainforest is still casting glorious reflections.  Our friends from Stormbreaker have gone fishing and will soon return for a friendly beer or two.

We left Strahan yesterday morning at almost exactly the same time as Stormbreaker, heading in the same direction.  I don’t know if you remember, but when we were in Honiara (oh bummer I am sounding like a wenneye…not sure in which book I have read this, but there is a vivid description of the teenage protagonists laughing wickedly about their parents’ friends, the wenneyes… When I was in Zimbabwe last spring… etc etc…) last year, we just happened upon James Butler, who was known to John Miedecke, but not to us.  James works for the Hydro (well, for Endura, an offshoot of the Hydro,) and he and Bruce Taylor were there for a few weeks doing a feasibility project.  They took Pete and John out into the hinterland of Guadalcanal for the day, while I, well…I got my hair cut – there was no room in the helicopter for me.  We spent a bit for time with James and Bruce and enjoyed their company very much.  So imagine our delight when there came a knock on the roof of 2XS – James!  About to go up the Gordon on Stormbreaker, for an Endura project, with his colleague, Ray.

So lucky!  Not only do we get to spend a bit more time with this very nice young bloke, and his equally nice young colleague, but…we get to tie up alongside Stormbreaker!  We are getting all of the inside knowledge about this very splendid part of the world.  This afternoon Pete and I went further up the river in the tender, way past the junction for the Franklin and Gordon rivers.  It was quite awe-inspiring, very steep densely forested river banks, deep brown water dotted with bright yellow rainforest leaves, a few jagged rocks causing the water to ripple in a menacing manner.  There was hardly a sign of life, although we have been assured there are many playtypus on the river banks.  Our only sighting was a very large white-bellied sea eagle, sitting high above us on a branch and not the least interested in our (slow...puttputtputt…) progress up the river.

We talked to James about the lovely time we have had recently, with our Boys on board – Michael, Jabba, James.  I said it was really easy having them for ten days because they weren’t very intrusive – one, two, or three of them would be peacefully asleep in their cabins for large chunks of the day.  James is much the same age (35) and he said, “Yes, ofcourse!  When I go away on my boat with my mates, we all sleep for three hour stretches, all the time!”  Aha! 

I forgot to say we stopped off at Sarah Island, and joined one of the tours when one of the big cruise boats came in.  It was warm and sunny, and all very beautiful and very interesting.  It rains A LOT in this region and it gets very cold and bleak.  So it would not always have been quite as picturesque and balmy as it was for us… Over 500 people lived there, in its heyday, and there was a lot of activity – ship-building, mainly.  Not to mention baking, veggie growing, flogging, hanging and incarceration of convicts…

Trevor Norton, the owner/skipper of Stormbreaker, is a very nice man.  He is talking to Pete at this very moment, about bilge pumps, if you really want to know… He has lots of info about the glory days of the Franklin dam rallies.  The two ferries which run cruises up the Gordon were in opposite camps.  One would ferry the protesters up the river, very happily.  The other would take them back, under police custody…

Stormbreaker takes people up the river on dinner/overnight cruises.  The boat also picks up whitewater rafters, fresh off the Franklin River.  He told us about a dear little old lady who booked for one of these cruises, once she heard they were picking up rafters.  “So where are they?” she asked, expectantly, when they got to Sir John Falls landing.  Trevor pointed to the recumbent bodies on the pontoon.  “No, I mean the RAFTERS!”  Poor old dear had though she was on an illicit wood gathering cruise… (It is forbidden to take timber out of the World Heritage Area now…)

Thursday 5^th April

Not quite G & T time… We are back in Strahan, on Ron Morrison’s mooring in Mill Bay.  We had a wonderful time up the Gordon River.  Two nights in the midst of the wilderness, then a night in Birch’s Bay, closer to Strahan but still very isolated.

Ron has lent us his ute so we are all set to go to Launceston tomorrow.  We are hoping to arrive with our arms full of enormous Atlantic salmon…our little net is out in the bay right now.  Yesterday was its maiden plunge into the sea.  We left it in for a few hours and went to get it, expecting nothing very much, in spite of our local fishing friends’ tales of 600 in one net.  The salmon regularly have mass break-outs from their farm cages.  Their cage life isn’t much fun, I am sure, but neither, really is their life once they have escaped.  A bit like the convicts escaping from Sarah Island into the South West Wilderness…They don’t survive very long in Macquarie Harbour.  So…we might as well catch a few to delight our friends and relations.  Imagine our astonishment when we pulled up our net at dusk and found a fish.  Yes only one but what a whopper!  Pete estimated it was around 8 kilos.  We are hoping for just a few more of this ilk, to pop into the ute tray tomorrow.