The River Runs Wild
1,000 Million Years
in the Making?
For 1000 million years, since the aboriginal spirit Moihernee cut the ground and made the rivers, or for all one knows a millennia of earthquakes and molten lava formed the landscape, the Franklin has run free, indifferent to and unmolested by human kind.
25000 years ago a mysterious and ancient people lived in harmony on its banks in a way that is unimaginable to us today. Artifacts 25000 years old still lie untouched in the lower Franklin’s caves and rainforest. We still know very little about these people except that they possessed the wisdom to leave us this magical place untouched. A wisdom we were destined to lose sight of in the years to come.
Saving the
Franklin River
For the last 50 years it has captured our imagination, awed us, inspired us, we have gone to gaol for it, it has moved us to violence and it has shaped our political landscape.
In 1982 the Tasmanian government at the time had approved a extensive hydro electric scheme that would flood the entire valley with 3 different dams. The bulldozers were rolling in and the catastrophic possibility that the river could be lost forever seemed inevitable.
The campaign that followed was fought with unprecedented passion on both sides from the mud in front of the bulldozers in the rainforest to Australia’s high court. No matter where you stood it became undeniably clear that this river was of profound importance. The culmination of the campaign saw the fall of a federal government and the birth of a global political movement. When you journey down the Franklin the knowledge that it came so close to destruction makes an already awe-inspiring place seem somehow even more precious.
Today you have the chance to be one of the select few who bear witness to this titan of landscapes. To experience a phantasmagoria of inexpressible natural beauty, adventure, ancient history and exhilaration.
