Category: Canyoning

We had some grand plans for the weekend but once we got close enough to rely on the forecast they were quickly downgraded. There was some talk of cancelling altogether but we the forecast didn’t seem too bad, so we figured some dry-ish canyons would work. Unfortunately 0-2mm of rain can come in a different forms and Saturday ended up being drizzle for most of the day, rather than a couple of squally showers. Fortunately it cleared a bit in the late afternoon and evening so our not-so-watertight tarp kept us largely dry as we enjoyed an evening camping out.

I knew it had been some time since I’d been out here – I kept saying it was more than 10 years, but when I checked after I got home – it was 14 and 19 years respectively since I’d done these canyons! It was good to get out, but on Sunday morning when heavier drizzle started up again we wussed out and headed home rather than spend a second day out in the rain.

After a bit of not entirely successful exploring we decide to head to a known canyon that only Tom has done before. It’s amazing what a couple of hours of bushbashing can do for making you appreciate a ‘real’ canyon!

The forecast was one of those 0-6mm meaningless ones which could give you anything. We woke at Cathedral Reserve after a bit of drizzle overnight to being completely fogged in. It felt like it would burn off (eventually) and so it proved. By the time we were at the top of our second or was it third climb of the day the sun was out. It was 17 years since our last visit to this canyon and I was really hoping we’d be a bit faster than the last time (7:40pm finish) – I’d like to think we’d learnt a few tricks in 17 years! (One thing’s for sure we don’t consider a 9:10am start “early” any more)

En route, as were about to cross a creek, I heard “is that Rachel? and is that Tom behind you?” I’m never sure when I bump into people in canyons who recognise me whether I know them – or whether they just recognise me from Tom’s photos. Once I got closer I was pretty sure I didn’t know either of the people who recognised me. But introductions were soon made – Neil and Kirsten a.k.a. Shoes On Your Feet. After much chatting we eventually decided we should get a move on so left them to it.

Tom had been muttering about whether to put on wetsuits early, but since I had carried in my neoprene booties with me, I figured I’d get changed as soon as we were going to get wet feet. It wasn’t too much after that we had a slightly uncontrolled slide into a pool and I was well and truly wet (neck deep).

The canyon was very attractive and the water stunningly clear (until we got into it of course!). Anchors were interesting at times.

On the drop in the picture below 17 years earlier we’d abseiled off a ‘large log which moved disconcertingly’. This time we abseiled off a medium log that moved a little 🙂 Possibly (but unlikely) the same log just with a different perspective!?

In the lower section we eschewed the obvious route, which other parties had taken, so that we didn’t miss any canyon. This left us with what we’d done as an ‘awkward climb down’ on our previous trip – but that was in drought times, and things were a bit more slick now. In the end Tom abseiled and I lowered our packs, before I squeezed down through a narrow, dark boulder-jam. Way more interesting than the ‘standard’ route.

We had lunch before we joined the main creek and then marvelled at the magnificent sections we swam through.

Arriving at our exit we found a large group – one of whom recognised me from giving him a stash of frisbees to take to Namibia in 2009 and Tom from doing some shared uni courses together 30 years earlier. We were very impressed with his memory until he then also admitted to using Tom’s website for track notes as well.

Fortunately it seemed we had learnt something in 17 years – making it back to the car by 4:30pm (only 3 hours earlier than our previous time).

We decided to have another night at Mt Wilson with the hope of doing some exploring the next day. But despite the forecast being much the same as the previous day, it poured down overnight and was still raining in the morning. With the floor of our tent being more puddle than groundsheet we decided to just chuck everything in the car and head home. The ‘scattered’ showers lasted the entire trip home!

The remnants of Cyclone Alfred were forecast to make their way south bringing large amounts of rain. Tom ended up cancelling the club trip we were meant to do in Wollemi. That left us on Friday trying to work out a new plan. The rain wasn’t supposed to get to south of Sydney until Sunday so we decided on a day trip to Bungonia and then a home day while it poured on Sunday. By the time we went to bed on Friday night Alfred had stalled and at least the Saturday of the original trip probably could have gone ahead… but what can you do.

So early Saturday we headed out of Sydney with Jon & Caoimhin – in the rain. The rain sort of cleared but a short shower, as we were getting gear sorted at the car park, didn’t make us feel particularly enthusiastic. Ten minutes later there was sun and blue sky – complete mood swing –  excellent to be out here. Then we were back to dark clouds and wondering whether we’d made the right call. Fortunately those clouds didn’t eventuate to much and we ended up having a lovely day out.

With 3 ropes and 2 large-ish drops left we were trying to work out if we could speed things up. Tom optimistically used our shorter rope on the penultimate drop. We heard a large splash at the bottom and then some yelling. Eventually we worked out he was saying the ropes didn’t reach. Forget single-rope technique, we mastered triple-rope technique – where you use 3 ropes on one drop! We certainly got our rope handling quota for the day.

Despite what had happened on the penultimate abseil, Tom was keen to try and rig the short rope on the final abseil. So off he went… fortunately this time it did reach, so no jumping off ledges or prusiking required.

On the drive home we checked the weather again. Alfred had once again stalled and Sunday was due to be a lovely sunny day – d’oh. But none of us had brought overnight gear so back to Sydney it was.

It’s hard to get inspired to put up posts for ‘trade route’ canyons, particularly when they were just standard days out. And my camera was still out-of-action and the one on loan from Tom producing inferior shots. So a few weeks behind here’s a single page with the best of photos (or something..).

First off, we have my second ever (!) trip through Hat Hill Canyon. Sadly it ended up being a bitterly cold day and we were slightly underdone in our springsuits. I had to tell Tom to stop talking and just eat his lunch so we could get moving again – the breeze at the end of the canyon not helping the warmth situation. It was way more attractive than I remembered – and also a lot more swimming.

A couple of weeks later we did Mt Hay Canyon. Fortunately the weather was far more suitable – in fact we were worried about how hot we were going to be on the climb out. Fortunately a breeze kept things quite pleasant. We didn’t see anyone until we got to the climb – two guys had just topped out when we got to the bottom so that was excellent timing. I lead the climb (my second ever lead?) – though not without some desperate hauling on the ringbolts for the final move!

We’d discovered earlier in the season that Sarah had never done Claustral. So after a couple of attempts we finally lined up a day for her to do it with us. We managed to time things excellently – leaving a commercial group of 7 in the car park, and not seeing anyone else until the exit where we bumped into Richard D’s group of 3. Based on the number of cars when we got out there would be have been quite a few people behind us. We were a bit early for sunbeams but it’s hard not to be awed by Claustral regardless of the time of day.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Day 3: Firefly Canyon

By Sunday everyone was in their groove.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

During our “golden” canyoning years (2011-2015) we did an extended canyoning trip each Christmas, and Easter, generally into the Coorongooba/Numietta areas. For various reasons (La Niña, fires, injuries, life..) we hadn’t done much canyoning around Christmas the last few years. However, this year we were both fit(-ish), the weather looked good and Smiffy & Toni were keen to join us. Multi-day post-Christmas Coorongooba canyoning was back!

Fortunately (for more than one reason) Smiffy & Toni talked us into changing the original plan. Firstly, the change to a base camp the whole time we were out there which made life simple. Secondly, a fire flared up near where we had originally planned to go in – it would have been a very stressful trip if we’d been trying to exit to the Coorongooba campground!

At lunchtime on the way in Tom sprung the idea of a canyon that afternoon. With the 30°C temps and unknown scrub conditions, we all concluded the walk in was more than enough. Our packs were loaded up with 6 days of food + canyoning gear. Though, seeing Smiffy pull out his chair, and then cucumbers, zucchini, cream cheese… when we just had dried everything I wondered whether I could have suffered through carrying in a few more luxury food items.

The next day it was time for some canyoning. Tom had done the lower section of our target creek many years ago, but the upper section was exploratory for us all. It started off with some deep narrow sections, and was quite impressive and even a bit intimidating. We found 2 slings on the first anchor in canyon – 1 of only 2 non-natural anchors we saw in the whole trip.

Unlike some of our previous Coorongooba trips, we had hot weather the whole time – which was great for keeping warm but not so good for canyon photography. I have a lot of blown-out photos which didn’t make the cut – most (but not all) days had a lot more canyon compared to my photos.

Somewhere in the lower section Toni gave us one of the catchphrases of the trip. She was first down one of the drops – which had a likely swim just after it. “3 2 1…  I should really go in”, yet no splashing could be heard. Eventually she did go in, but “3 2 1” became a regularly occurring phrase for the rest of the trip.

There was some talk of a second canyon but it seems we’ve all become soft in our old age and we were quite happy just to get back to camp at 5pm for an on-time happy hour!

Day 3 we were aiming to knock off two canyons we’d done on a previous trip so we had  an earlier start than the previous day. It wasn’t long until we were dropping into the first creek. The abseils came thick and fast, but so did the sunlight in the canyon, so the proliferation of abseils is not evident from the collection below!

Our previous knowledge of the canyons allowed a highly efficient transition across creek systems and by 2pm we were starting the next canyon. The shallow upper section was exposed to the sun and I was baking for the first few abseils. It was with some relief we finally dropped into a narrower slot and had some wades!

It was in this canyon we encountered the only other sling we saw on the trip. Ironically we used it and then got the rope jammed and Smiffy had to prussik back up and deal with the problem.

We only started our climb out after 6pm – which made the temperatures more pleasant (though still warm when the sun was not behind clouds). We were interested to see that there were bulldozer tracks on the road that hadn’t been there that morning. Presumably brought in to make a fire break for the fire that was burning near Glen Davis.

It was a late dinner but a very satisfying day of canyoning.

Day 4 the forecast was a bit iffy – small chance of some rain and storms, so we decided on some less committing canyons. These ones Toni had done before but they were new for the rest of us. That said, on the way in, Tom came up with a new idea – which involved going down a different tributary. It was only after we’d bashed our way down a steep spur with plenty of scrub that we started thinking through that decision. We’d brought limited gear with us and dropping into an unknown creek might not have been the smartest decision. We started thinking ‘reversible drops only thoughts’ and fortunately made it down the creek to where we’d originally intended to enter without incident.

After lunch next to a very pleasant pool we headed up our next canyon. It was very slow to get going and I’d already pegged it as a canyon grade 1 (on the Brennan scale of course) after a long way with not much going on. Thunder was rumbling around as wandered up the canyon and with the cloud cover the canyon was looking more impressive than it actually was.

But then we got to a narrow wet section. Smiffy started going in but once it became clear his camera was going to need to be protected he backed out. I led us off – it was an annoying width – not really wide enough to get a swimming stroke in, so I mainly was trying to bridge along the sides. And it just kept going, and going, round a corner, and still going. Fortunately there were enough underwater ledges to be able to take a rest.

Eventually it got shallow enough to stand but the next section looked somewhat ominous.

After some horizontal contortions I managed to get to somewhere I could scramble up and grab packs. We all managed to scramble up and over and were soon back in flat walking.

The thunder eventually brought us some rain. Conveniently at a point with a large overhang in the creek. It didn’t last long and then we had some more canyon section (of a completely different nature) to walk through. From there Smiffy picked us a great exit spur and we were happily back at camp on New Years Eve by 4:30pm. Perhaps we should have had a later finish so we were more likely to make it to (bushwalkers) midnight!? As it was I went to bed just before New Year in Kiribati 🙂

Toni & Smiffy had to head out so we all packed up and Tom & I walked part of the way back with them. We said our goodbyes and then Tom and I headed off to explore a creek neither of us had done before.

It wasn’t a great canyon but a pleasant enough day and we had a great lunch spot on the Coorongooba. It was a very humid, still afternoon and bashing out way out through the scrub was hard work.

Tom wanted to climb Cyrils Rocks on the way out since he’d not done it before. (Except after we got home I went back and saw we had done it in 2012…) We baked with no tree cover in the 30°C+ temperatures. It didn’t really cool down that evening and we sweltered into the night until eventually a southerly came through.

The next morning conditions were great for the walk back to the car – overcast and cool! Fortunately the bulldozer hadn’t destroyed some of the sketchier bits of road and we made it back to the main road with no issues.

A great few days out in the Wollemi Wilderness.

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.