The island photographed by Peter Dombrovskis that became the image for the campaign to save the Franklin river from being flooded by a dam

The only way to see the Franklin River close up is by raft or kayak.  You can fly over it, but to see it in all of its moods, to dwell along its shores, to see the platypus at play, you have but one choice and that is hop into a raft.

Alongside 11 other people led by three licensed guides, I rafted its rapids for seven days and camped in the wilderness under open skies or tarpaulins when it rained.

Constant noise from the start of cascading river water and waterfalls down the ravine walls. Wetness and trees everywhere, always, and my flesh wet always, too.  By day three I smelt doggish.

About six or so rapids were un-navigable – too dangerous, usually where the ravines narrow.  To avoid them, and to get the rafts and gear over or around is difficult. Ropes are sometimes the only way to climb these, where I pulled myself up by hand, standing out from the cliff face and suddenly trusting the rope and iron picks fixing the rope I’ve only just met, all the while with a 20kg pack on my back to share the moment with: I found this focused my mind.

Without mobile phones, no reception, no watches or jewellery it’s unavoidable to lose track of time.  Yesterdays became lifetimes ago.  The time of the day became marked by sun and shade. Without seeking it, the only time became now.

Me, a few days into the river

There’s nothing like rafting the Franklin to focus a man’s mind.

Life alternately shrinks down to, “Am I wet or cold, or, about to drown?”, and opens out to, “This is endless beauty, magic.”

We saw a quoll (well two of us did) and a platypus (I would write the plural of that but the unfinished debate among fellow rafters about the correct plural compels me to only say we saw two of them – it may be some time before I return to my previous proclivities for grammar, spelling and such).

Hard times were there from a growing tedious certainty that each morning I’d have to put on a wet cold wetsuit and undergarments.  Rotten stuff. After ‘wetting up’ (formerly known as getting dressed) and climbing on the raft so the body that was mine in it floated off for the first time of the day it was the risks and new world of the next bend and rapid which dispelled my cold wetness to somewhere  in what was becoming an expanding animal me.

Waterfalls, every 100 or so metres

Seven days and two good sleeps, the best on the last night.

Then what a note some of us ended on. Six of us took off in a seaplane in calm, generous sunlight.

The Franklin from our seaplane after we cleared it’s cliffs

The seaplane was only able to escape the river and scale the cliffs by banking through river bends ‘til, about three bends later, enough height had been gained for us, embraced in a new roaring noise this time from the one engine (that can’t be enough, I thought) to rise high enough to see the river that had been our home and heart for the last week.

But imagine this.

About 40 minutes later we had a two minute descent from 5500 feet down past a mountain dominating Hobart (Mt Wellington), and made a long curving half circle to land on the Derwent river, there to taxi to a wharf just 200 metres from our hotel, The Henry Jones Art Hotel.

Flying down to ‘land’ on the Derwent river then taxi to Constitution Dock where we walked to the nearby Henry Jones Art Hotel

Sitting under the shower there, washing off a week of sweat, smells and feeling the known – ‘sane’? – world return this much seemed clear; you got to do the hard stuff to know how peace feels.  At least I did.

[The food, Nant Whisky - like a butterscotch bikkie, and the clear light of Hobart can be seen in these photos - we soaked these up before the trip and I held on to memories of them:

Little did my smiling self know what the week ahead on the river held for me

• Kylie’s review of the Water by Nature rafting trip is here.

Some mo

re questions and an answer in my latest Bathurst Burr column, here.

Lots more questions and answers in my books, Sustainable House and Sustainable Food.

Enjoy, M

An option is to change your pool to a pond and, in doing so, cut down the energy and pollution it causes due to the pump running 24/7 and the use of cleaning agents such as chlorine.

How:  

Put some plants in, change to a low power, low energy pump, or simply turn yours off.

Why:  

The water is easier to maintain, the yukky chlorine smell is gone, the plants do the cleaning for you, and if you do it well it becomes an eye-catching thing of beauty that supports birds, insects, flowers and does not send backwashed polluted water down the sewer.

Cost:  

Hmm; tough one; varies with size and design:  should be cheaper in the long run as the plants will do the cleaning and your running costs will reduce – sorry, on this one I can’t give a figure but a guestimate of a couple of thousand dollars should see you home and wet.

Details:

The water is safe for swimming, cleaned by the plants and slowly moving water. This and other data and ideas is on a council website which is leading the way here with a policy called “From pools to ponds“, Kurringai Council.  Their site says:

“ Why not join the more than fifty other Pool to Pond converts and go with an eco-friendly, cost-effective alternative that promotes biodiversity?

We have been assisting local residents to convert their unwanted swimming pools into ponds since 2007 by supplying native fish, aquatic plants and technical advice for the conversion.  ”

And search on the web with “natural pools” where there are useful images.

And here’s a pdf with some design ideas: Natural pools-1

Glug, glug, glug . . . dive in you lot,

M

“Hello Michael,

Cutting leaky drain to size

Each year in Chippendale we save over 4 million litres of water to irrigate our road gardens.  We built the drains for this ourselves at a once-off cost of $300.  The story is here.

‘Hi Michael,

May I suggest two systems:

• Aqua Nova, and
• Fujiclean.

I use a system similar in design to the Aqua Nova.  I built tanks to fit my small back yard – 5 m wide, ten m deep with most space already taken up by the 10,000 l rain tank.

My book, Sustainable House 2 Ed, has details in the sewage chapter.

Basically, it’s: a settling tank; when that fills a pump transfers the primary liquid to three tanks where air is bubbled through the water 24/7 to clean the water; when the toilet or clothes washing machine goes the water is drawn from the final aerated chamber through two sand filters then past an ultra violet lamp for disinfection and voila – sterile water.  Maintenance is limited to replacing the UV lamp every two years and I do that.  About once a year I pump out sludge to fertilize my garden.  My water tests at zero faecal coliform every time and very little energy is used by the 60 watt air pump and the 20 watt UV lamp.

As for the red tape; both are approved by health agencies and you can get the suppliers to train you to maintain it.  You can even get a phone line hooked with a back to base alarm so that if there’s a problem the supplier will either come out or talk you through it and that’s enough to achieve the same health outcomes that  the high cost service arrangements seek.

Let me know if this works and any problems you have.

May the recycled water be with you all,

Michael

I like that.  We all excrete and the more of us who think about what to do with it the better, I hope, for our Earth’s water, soil and energy.

Here’s one:

“Hello Michael ,

A  very good book ………. a lot of information and I will try to do
what you have done
Yesterday  I  went  to  a home show …. they had a sewerage treatment
system but it was only good enough for watering the garden.
He could not make it good enough to be like yours
I wonder if a water filter & UV lamp like yours is all that is needed to be added
to make things work
Do you have any brief comments to point me into the right direction

Best regards,
I”

Mr I, the answer is, “yes’.

Add a water filter and a UV and you’re away; safe water with a system easily serviced by you or a local plumber.  The best filter is about a meter of sand; roughly equal in its capacity to kill viruses and pathogens when combined with UV to a several hundred thousand dollar reverse osmosis filter. Options for the sand filter include the one used for irrigation shown in my book, Sustainable House, or a 1500 litre to 3000 litre tank filled with sand will do the trick.

Ensure you keep the water flow to the UV about half the rate of its design capacity so it’s sterilizing efficiency is kept at its highest. So, for example, if the UV will handle a flow rate of 20 litres a minute keep the water flow down to 10 litres a minute.  If you’re using the water to irrigate, to flush your toilet or to wash your clothes that’s plenty.

May the reused water be with you, Mr I,

M

An ice house in Iran - Image from Gardens of Persia, Penelope Hobhouse, photo by Jerry Harpur, published by Floriligium (yes, the same wonderful gardening bookshop in Glebe)

Four hundred or so years ago Persian engineers made ice without electricity.

Ice houses (yakhchal in Farsi, or icehouse) kept ice in the burning heat of the Iran plateau.  They’re rarely used today.

They’re up to 20 metres high and 6 or so metres below ground.  A single door is insulated with thick, dry grass.  Thick walls, 2 metres at the base, and their shape – an inverted funnel  which allows cooling wind to spiral down the exterior – keep the ice frozen for the summer.  The walls are made of sand, clay, egg white, lime, ash and goat hair. During the winter there are shallow ponds with high walls on the sunny side which are filled with water which becomes ice.  Thus, Persian wealthier classes ate ice cream several centuries ago without electricity.

Thanks to the author of this book for the text: Two wings of a nightingale – Persian soul, Islamic heart by Jill Worrall, on the road in Iran, Exiles Publishing 2011 P 68

www.bing.com…

Wow; how good is that!

Thanks, Emma.

May the little critters be with you,

M

@sustaintheplan
Luke has tweeted that over 100 people from over 19 cities around Earth have signed the petition to make the Plan for a sustainable suburb. That’s in the  first week before we’ve widely publicised the petition and the new web site.

Great to know, for example, that people in Copenhagen love the Plan and want it made – it applies to any city on Earth – if we can get it made here in Sydney anyone anywhere may use that example to more easily get a plan made to sustain their city, too.

Do sign the petition, here: http://theplan.sustainablehouse.com….au/

You can read the Plan, there, too, and stay in touch with us on Twitter: @sustaintheplan

Go us . . .