Newnes Canyoning (24-27 Jan 2025)

The public road into the Wolgan Valley was was closed in November 2022 due to slope instability. After reading the Lithgow City Council press release in mid-2024 I realised that access was years away (if at all) due to the substantial cost of repairing/replacing the road. We’ve had plenty of great trips out of the Wolgan – canyoning in summer, and bushwalking in winter – and so I started thinking of ways to get back to those places without the road.

My first foray was in August 2024 when I led a trip in from Glen Davis. That trip made me realise that the Newnes canyons from Glen Davis would be a lot of work. One of the other participants on the August trip told me how she’d gone in with a group to stay at the Newnes Hotel – escorted on the residents’ private road. This was the genesis of my next trip. The Australia Day public holiday conveniently fell on a Monday this year, so a 4 day trip, staying at the Newnes Hotel was the plan. Our group of 15, in four 4WDs, headed in with Thomas from The Newnes Hotel on Friday morning. That gave us the best part of 4 days to canyon, bushwalk or relax as we saw fit. The weather came to the party, after a stressful lead up with lots of storms and instability in the prior fortnight.

We had three rough groups over the weekend – two canyoning teams, and a bushwalking team. Though the bushwalking team could be split again into the reading team and several walking teams! It became apparent within an hour of arriving that having a pre-arranged plan for your team helped :). The two canyoning groups set off with their objectives (Nightmare and Pipeline) relatively quickly after arrival, while the bushwalkers debated where to go.

Day 1: Nightmare Canyon

I’d only done Nightmare once before – and unusually it wasn’t with Tom! I hadn’t appreciated how much further the walk in to Nightmare was compared to Pipeline until we did it. Fortunately we were able to follow the pad easily enough from the Starlight sign out until the route splits to go to the various canyons. The fire regrowth was quite delightful – knee-high, soft vegetation. We had lunch on the pagodas above the start of the canyon before heading in. My memory of Nightmare was a very dry canyon (which it may have been in 2006 – mid drought) so I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of moss and the trickle of water down most of the drops. Having only set-out at 10am we were conscious of the time but having 3 ropes allowed us to move efficiently through the many abseils.

Jo abseiling

Tom bridging

We laughed as we got to the lower section of canyon after passing the ‘scrubby middle section’ from Tom’s (private) notes. The scrubby middle section was not very long – in fact, almost didn’t seem worthy of mention.

Jo abseiling while the rest of the team sort out the next anchor

Jo abseiling

Tom abseiling on the dramatic final drop

Tom at the bottom of the final drop

Jo abseiling

We opted to head down to the Wolgan rather than traverse under the cliffline. We managed to find a pretty good route down the slopes after we traversed left. We were somewhat surprised to get back at 4:40pm and find no one else about. We happily settled into happy hour but after an hour did eventually start wondering what had happened to the others.

First night’s happy hour

The Pipeline team stumbled in looking surprisingly wrecked about 6pm. They had gone in from the top, encountering much fallen timber between the upper and lower sections, plus had stuck a rope. The bushwalkers eventually arrived back at 7:30pm – it had been a very difficult descent down Cathedral Pass (3 hours for 1km?).

Day 2: Newnes (Starlight) Canyon

Saturday had the canyon teams heading to Starlight and Nightmare. The other team opting to follow the our itinerary as then they would know the anchors/conditions had been checked the day before.

We were a bit surprised to find a water bottle on the Starlight pad which hadn’t been there the day before. Then as we were walked further out we heard whistles and yelling. It wasn’t long before we located the group and wandered down to them. They’d lost two of their group and had thought we were them. We didn’t find their missing members but I could return the water bottle. They didn’t seem too concerned so we left them to it and continued on. Our groups merged again as we headed down the ridge towards the entry to Starlight. We opted to have morning tea to try and put some separation between the groups.

Morning tea above Starlight

That didn’t work though! As we dropped onto the cliffline which you normally abseil from to get into the creek we bumped into them again. They were yet to find a spot to abseil in – but in good news, they had reunited with their missing people.

Jo abseiling into the creek

We ended up abseiling into the creek within 50m of each other. Our group was down first and so sent a couple of us down into Starlight to check out the passage through the tunnel. While we knew it has been traversable in December there had been a lot of wild storms since then so conditions could be anything. As it turns out it was completely dry and pretty easy walking for the most part. I marched through and back, and we soon had all of our group in the canyon.

David and Matt rope-wrangling in Starlight

Tom just before the tunnel section starts

My second (or third if you count the return trip) passage through the tunnel was at a far more sedate pace with low light. We enjoyed looking at the glowworms, listening to the chittering of the bats and generally taking in the canyon formation.

glowworms in the tunnel section

Jo after the tunnel section

Team photo in the canyon

Once the main constriction opened out we had lunch, before sticking our heads up one of the side canyons. Back in the main creek the walking was delightful – stunning clear pools of water. We encountered two snakes which delighted the photographers, before the final (optional) abseil.

Eastern bandy-bandy (Vermicella annulata)

Diamond python (Morelia spilota spilota)

Tom on the final (optional) abseil

From there we traversed left again and found a reasonable route down the slopes before a intense section of Astrotricha floccosa left us all coughing and sneezing. Fortunately we were at the Wolgan by then so we could plunge in to cool down and wash off the hairs of the plant. We walked up the river for a kilometre then jumped onto the fire trail and marched back to camp.

Everyone else had a much better day and we had a good social happy hour. Unfortunately the only group photo of the weekend was a fail – cutting off Stephane’s head, Tom blocking Jayson’s face with his hand… who knows where Rayson was. Ah well.

Happy hour (sorry Stephane!)

Day 3: Firefly Canyon

By Sunday everyone was in their groove.

Early morning at camp

The canyon teams headed to Firefly and Starlight. I was glad we were not heading up the Pipeline Track for the third day in a row. The Firefly approach is much tougher and an adventure in itself. Fortunately the vegetation was relatively benign. We got up the first scramble in the creek without any issues.

Jo on the first scramble

Then we wasted a bit of time as we were a level below where we needed to be at the next cliffline. Nonetheless I did a climb up a crack so I could packhaul only to find that Tom had remembered a walk around route while I was doing it. Once we were all at the correct level we then saw the actual crack which needed to be climbed. We all made it up and then it was time for a well deserved morning tea.

Tom ascending the crack

Matt taking a wider route

The peanut gallery

Beaut morning tea spot

Lunch was had in Firefly creek before we reached the canyon. It hadn’t been clear if we were going to do Looking Glass or Firefly for several days, or even while we were walking in. But given how long it had taken us to get in I convinced Tom we should do Firefly so that we didn’t get back too late.

Tom abseiling

Lauren log-walking after Jo threw down the gauntlet

Log sliding

Lauren abseiling

We always used to tell people that there aren’t any pothole problems in Australia. I’m probably more aware of them now – but there are a few potholes about – they are just always full of water. If they ever did empty though some of them would prove challenging – including the one in Firefly. As the Yanks would say it was in ‘easy’ mode so all we had to do was swim across it.

Tom about to cross a pothole

Crossing the pothole

Tom abseiling

Lauren

Lauren tapping her feet together under an underwater arch

Lower canyon

Jo abseiling

Lauren abseiling

Matt abseiling

Our easiest descent from the end of a canyon yet had us back at the road 15 minutes after the last abseil. The Starlight team wandered along the road about the same time we got to it, so we all headed back to camp together.

Back at camp we were all pleased to see that the stuck rope from Friday had been retrieved by another group (and not a simple effort – it was a 10.5mm 60m rope!!). It was at that point the others chose to reveal there was a dead wallaby floating in the pool near where they jammed their rope. They didn’t want to tell us until we’d retrieved it for them!

Day 4: Pipeline Canyon

I tried to take an early morning photo of camp and found my camera lens wouldn’t retract. Much fiddling did nothing so the camera didn’t come on the trip unfortunately.

We were a bit worried about arriving at Pipeline at the same time as the group from Starlight. Turns out they caught up with us just as we were starting the abseils in the main section – but they were down to 3 (from 8). We were going to let them play through but once again our multiple ropes meant we moved pretty efficiently and we didn’t see them again until the end of the canyon. The dead wallaby pool wasn’t as gross or smelly as I was expecting – though the wallaby looked ready to burst and so the next few weeks will likely deteriorate. From there it was a reasonably straightforward, if hot (33°C) walk back to camp.

We waved our goodbyes to Thomas at the top of the Donkey Steps before heading home with no holiday traffic anywhere around the mountains. A wonderful weekend with a great group.