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Wollangambe (2) Canyon

09/12/06

Participants: Rachel Grindlay, James Yorston, Naomi Brown, Hindrik & Cathy Buining

This was a momentous canyon - the first I had ever done without Tom! Hindrik & Cathy picked up and we did a tour of Sydney as we picked up lilos from various houses along the way. We did very well to make it to the North Richmond Bakery within 5 minutes of our arranged meeting time. After coffee & bakery purchases and gear rearranging we were soon on the road again.

We parked at Cathedral Reserve. There was a large group of people with very large tyre inners looking set for an adventure. We hoped to get away before them, however they were all ready well before us. The only thing in our favour was that they drove off clearly not destined to adventure in our canyon! After a fair amount of pfaffing we set off. I remembered the entrance from out exit from Wollangambe (1) last year.

We got into our wet suits and blew the lilos up. Hindrik's was particularly special with a lovely floral pattern and the plastic sufficiently thin that I didn't expect it to last the first half hour let along a day! James & Hindrik did the first water jump while us girls were content to let them show off. Then we paddled off down the 'Gambe. It was a very pleasant day. We saw a couple of other groups, mostly having just completed Why-don't-we-do-it-in-the-road. Once we got to Whungee Wheengee James, Hindrik & I headed up it as far as we could. The water was significantly colder than the 'Gambe and we were glad to get back to it! We had lunch outside on the sand bank. A couple of guys popped out while we were lunching but they headed off fairly quickly.

When we got to the exit there was quite a crowd, the two guys we'd seen at Whungee Wheengee and then a group of 8 or 9 from Tamworth. There were doing the water jump when we arrived which was providing everyone with plenty of amusement. We assumed they were joking when the two men in the group loaded up one of the scrawny 13 year old boys with the 60m rope. However, as they set off it was clear they were serious. We let them get well ahead of us as there was quite of debris being kicked down. We then scrambled out and headed back up the cars. A very relaxing day floating down a river.