Participants: Rachel Grindlay, Gill Fowler, Caoimhin Ardren, Helen & Peter
Gill & I arrived at North Richmond Bakery at 7:30am which was a little too early for both us (particularly Gill who had been up considerably later than me the night before). We spotted Tania & Deb in the bakery when we arrived so after a couple of errands we popped in for a chat. They were off on a family trip to the Wollangambe. I was forced to get coffee from NRB as the Gourmet Grill wasn't open, fortunately it was slightly better than usual. Our designated meeting time of 7:45am came and went and there was no sign of Caoimhin and co. Just after 8am they arrived and after a quick rearrangement of gear into Helen & Pete's car we were off. We arrived at the Hole-in-the-Wall carpark just before 10am. There was a large number of cars already parked and we were glad we were unlikely to have to deal with congestion in our chosen canyon.
After passing the HitW turnoff I pulled the map out and started to pay more attention to where we were. I knew Tom & James had ended up on the wrong ridge when they had done this trip so was hoping to avoid doing the same. Gill had already declared she wasn't doing the navigation today but soon after I admitted to not knowing how to use the compass she quickly took over. A few minutes later we decided we weren't where we should be. We had a quick break to study the map, confer with the GPS and eat banana bread (thanks Helen!). After a short back track we were soon on a magnificent flat section of ironstone with great views over the Bungleboori. We easily found our way down into the creek and bashed through the fallen vegetation until we reached the first drop.
The first drop was spectacular into a dark cavern. Helen & Pete had wet suited up but the rest of us had opted for a wetsuit free day. The deep wade across the pool was pretty cold but I warmed up reasonably quickly once out of it. The canyon then opened out but we had some spectacular cliff walls surrounding us to keep things interesting. Soon we reached another drop which Caoimhin, Gill & I scrambled while Pete & Helen abseiled. Almost immediately there was another drop. Caoimhin and Gill scrambled round the top looking for alternative anchor points or ways down but in the end we opted to abseil from the slings. During the scouting they did notice a rather old handline hanging in the creek and we imagined that was the route which Tom & James had taken to avoid the abseil. Helen & I continued on through the canyon having to climb over quite a lot of driftwood until we reached the final drop. It had a reasonably tricky start so took us a bit longer to get down. One final deep wade and then we were at Bungleboori. We had lunch on a great rock in the sun, even though it meant another wade across the river to get to it.
After lunch we walked upstream, mainly in the river itself until we arrived at the Arch exit. We had planned to scramble up the exit and then drop into Arch from the top. However given the time (3:45) we decided to just see how far we could explore from the bottom. Caoimhin, Gill & I scrambled up the logs and tree roots and set off to find the Arch. We were not disappointed as after some scrambling we looked up and saw the amazing sandstone arch stretching across the skyline. After admiring it we continued into the canyon, scrambling up until we meet a slippery drop which couldn't be climbed. We assumed this was the only abseil Tom & James had done on their trip. We felt that we had probably seen enough of the canyon to warrant saying we had done it. We scrambled back down to Pete & Helen where we did the usual wash out of volleys before proceeding up the exit.
The walk back seemed to take a long time but finally we were back at the car at 6:15pm. Many of the other cars having left but a few remained plus two tents.