Whungee Wheengee… 13 years on (14 Dec 2024)
This was my fourth time through Whungee Wheengee, but the first time in 13 years. Tom was incredulous when I told him on the drive up that my last time through had been 2011. That also meant it was my first time through in a steamer since I didn’t own one prior to 2013! So I’ll go out on a limb and say it was probably my warmest trip through Whungee Wheengee too.
Unsurprisingly I remembered very little of the canyon. It certainly has a lot more tricks to it compared to many of the other Mt Wilson canyons. Back in 2011 I thought I wanted to become an official canyon leader with our bushwalking club and WW was my first ‘co-lead’ – in retrospect a poor choice of canyon to lead, and in part a contributing factor to why I didn’t continue down that pathway.
We’d already seen a group of Bankstown Bushwalkers at Cathedral Reserve who were heading to WW – but we left before them and didn’t see them again. When we arrived at the abseil entry into the canyon there was a commercial group of 4 finishing the abseil, and another group of 4 waiting to go in. The group at the top kindly let us play through – though not before a conversation about wetsuits. Tom & I had agreed as we were walking in we’d put wetsuits on in the canyon once we got to the first climb down – so when we just hopped straight on the rope the other group were a little surprised. That was with contrast to them, where half of them had walked in from Cathedral Reserve with their wetsuits on. It was a humid, expected 30°C day! I don’t think they’ll do that in the future 🙂
We caught up with the commercial group at the first drop in the canyon but as we hadn’t yet had morning tea or put wet suits on so we stopped for a bit. They seemed to take a while abseiling, while Tom had assured me wouldn’t need our harnesses for a while so we’d put them away after the initial abseil.
A bit of ledge walking got us to the first ‘climb-down’ which apparently had a steeper log than it used to be. After a bit of faffing I eventually got the rope out and we handlined down. We caught the commercial group at the next ledge walk/squeeze and they also kindly let us past.
The duck-under further down canyon was interesting – there is a lot of sand on the floor of the canyon meaning you need to sit on on the sand to get under. Easier for me than Tom!
This was a great canyon for not worrying about the other groups catching up with us – knowing we were planning on down-climbing everything we could (and that Tom knew where/how to do so), whereas the other groups were likely abseiling. So we could still photo-faff to our hearts content without rushing.
Eventually we got to the two mandatory abseils so the harnesses went back on briefly.
Tom went for an explore up through the boulders under the final obstacle to see what the alternatives were. He was gone so long I began to wonder whether he was ok, but he eventually re-emerged and we continued through the final spectacular section to the ‘Gambe.
Unlike previous trips where we’d had much bigger party numbers and had lunch in the canyon, we agreed to have lunch at the exit. We caught up to a group of 3 lilo-ers not far from Waterfall of Moss. They said we were the only people they’d seen all day – which didn’t surprise me – there had only been half a dozen cars in the Fire Station car park. Such a contrast to last Saturday morning when it has been overflowing – yet the weather this weekend was so much nicer.
Tom and I had lunch on the high ledge at the exit while the other 3 showed off some impressive swimming skills. We headed off just as the commercial group from WW arrived. A breeze kept us from feeling the heat too much until the re-routed track which drops off onto the western side of the ridge. The new track was far more cut-in than I was expecting – a big thanks to those involved in the efforts of establishing it. Since we were back at Cathedral Reserve at 3:30pm we decided to skip our tentative plan for camping, and head to Summit Gear for some pack part replacements before they closed. A great day out.