One thing about being on the Gordon River is that you get very cold nights and because the river is bordered by large mountains the river doesn’t get a lot of sunshine. At 900 hours we rowed across the river to check out the shack where kayakers/rafters can spend the night. The shack had recently been upgraded and was in excellent condition with rain-water tanks providing fresh water.
We then headed up the river to the Gordon/Franklin River junction and stopped to take a look at Pyramid Island which is situated in the middle of the junction. We then continued up the Franklin until the first set of rapids – passing 4 kayakers who had been paddling for 6 days.
On the way back we went for a walk along the Gould’s camp track through sensational rainforest to an old forestry house site where there was an old hand winch and the remains of a chimney.
Prior to heading back to Escapade we took another walk up a steep hill to view Sir John Falls from the above.
Dion of Tainui was kind enough to give us the coordinates of a historic lime kiln several miles downstream and a bit tricky to find. Around mid-afternoon we cast off and headed back down the river to check out the lime kilns. After anchoring at Dion’s coordinates we jumped in the dinghy and headed ashore to a narrow gap in the cliffs to find the lime kiln just 20 metres up the bank – it was well worth the trouble. The kilns were operated by convicts in the 1820’s.
Continuing downstream we arrived at Kelly Basin at 1700 hours.