Category Archives: Canyoning

Waterfall of Moss (4 Dec 2022)

I had thought I might make a last minute plan with some of the women at the Summer Slaydies weekend for Sunday, but that didn’t happen (and I didn’t try very hard), so I was left with just Tom as a canyoning partner for Sunday. Tom declined to make a firm plan before we went to bed on Saturday night, which didn’t bode particularly well for actually doing something the next day.

But we were both awake pretty early, and after farewelling Jo who was off to do Yileen (without a whistle – oh my), we agreed we should do something just to get some more fitness in our legs. So off we went to Waterfall of Moss. I’d only done it once before in 2009 so it was almost like a new canyon. Particularly given Tom only had the print out of an old version of his notes – which pre-dated his last visit… and at times it felt like were written for a different canyon! Not trusting the rope lengths from the dodgy notes we ended up rigging a bunch of the drops with our longer rope unnecessarily – which meant I had a dry rope at the end of the canyon.

Tom on the third abseil

Looking back up the arch and the third abseil

Tom abseiling

More of Tom abseiling

Is this abseiling?

The conqueror? (I think it’s supposed to be yoga?!)

Tom abseiling the Waterfall of (once was) Moss

As the water temperatures are still pretty chilly we’d taken wetsuits (in dry bags) through the canyon just for the 200m of Wollangambe. So my dry rope went into the wetsuit dry bag and stayed dry! We ended up having lunch at the Waterfall of Moss/Wollangambe junction while Tom wrote up all the changes to his notes – which of course we found out later had already largely been updated.

Swimming down the Wollangambe to the exit

Tom & friend admiring the views

Seas of flannel flowers are everywhere at the moment

Back at Mt Wilson there were still tents up everywhere – presumably drying out while their owners were off adventuring. We packed up and headed home via scones at Mountain Bells. An excellent three days of canyoning.

Claustral Canyon (3 Dec 2022)

We were glad to wake to clear skies and see blue sky and sun appear as the morning unfolded. Despite already being at Mt Wilson it seemed a bit of a frantic rush to get to the Claustral car park for 9am. James was already there waiting for us. I was pleasantly surprised when there was only 1 car that didn’t belong to our party at the car park.

We marvelled over the track work that had been done since we were last in the canyon – the stairs look like they would have been a lot of work. And then suddenly the manicured track vanishes and you’re on your own!

The canyon really does come upon you very quickly with the new entrance (though it’s not really very new any more).

James enjoying the water temperature

Jo jumping

It felt like we’d barely got going when it was time to set the first abseil in the Black Hole.

Jo on the first abseil in the Black Hole

Jo on the second abseil in the Black Hole

Tom on the second abseil in the Black Hole

Looking up the third abseil in the Black Hole

We got through those fairly efficiently, though my camera not so well. I was at the bottom of the third abseil taking photos when James came down – next minute I was being absolutely drenched from all sides. Not a great time to have the camera out of the dry bag.

Tom in a never previously seen before composition…

When we got to the Thunder Junction Jo, myself and my camera took advantage of the sun to warm-up and dry out, while James & Tom headed up Thunder. They were gone long enough that we declared it lunch time and had finished lunch by the time they came back.

A couple came past while we were eating lunch. The conversation was very short. “Ranon or Claustral?” “What time did you start”. And then they were off again. Maybe our lazing about made us unworthy company!

I enjoyed not having to get wet immediately after lunch, and by the time we’d made our way through the more creeky/bouldery section I was almost ready for a swim. Quite the contrast to how cool I’d been the day before in Bowens South.

James & Tom downclimbing

Tom abseiling

The end of the tunnel swim

I never seem to get any better at the main climb on the exit. This time I managed to get my foot stuck in the crack and required considerable effort from Tom below me to free it. The volley wearers seemed to have better luck with their more flexible soles. I felt slightly better when Tom also got his (non-volleyed) foot stuck – though he managed to unstick himself. Besides that the exit went without incident.

Admiring the views

Tom, Jo & I headed back to Mt Wilson and the hordes, while James headed back to Sydney. A great day out. Mt Wilson was heaving, not surprisingly as there was several organisations with events on that weekend. The spot we’d secured the night before ended up being a winner and we had a relatively peaceful evening – even spotting two Greater Gliders in the trees above us.

Upper Bowens Creek South Canyon (2 Dec 2022)

The forecast wasn’t that nice for Friday, and I had an appointment. But then Tom told me that he’d arranged to do Bowens South – which at one point was my most frequently done canyon (5 times between 2005-2010) but I hadn’t done it for 12 years. Some last minute scrambling with the appointment meant I could join the team on a 16°C cloudy day.

The team on the way in on a gloomy day

Jo & Lauren passing the time of day

Tom abseiling

Canyon formation

Lunch was a bit chilly and we were all glad to get moving again, particularly Lauren who was the only one in a spring suit.

Jo making her way through the canyon

Jo still making her way through the canyon 🙂

Tom, Lauren & Jo

The mystery hand

Lauren contemplating a jump

Surprisingly a complete submersion seemed to warm me up and the remainder of the canyon felt comfortable temperature-wise. It’s interesting how I had quite strong memories of the upper section abseils but little memory of the deep lower constriction.

Canyoners

Twins!

The not so robust exit

I don’t remember what this exit used to be like – but Tom assured us it was a bit more robust than what we were confronted with. While we managed to get up easily enough it felt like it wouldn’t be viable after much traffic.

Yellow backpacks

Water Dragon Canyon (25 Nov 2022)

Between the problematic conditions of the last three summers (Bushfires/Covid/La Nina) and a focus on more remote/wilderness canyons in the the preceding seven years, I have averaged about 1 well-known Mt Wilson canyon a year in the last ten years. So to have done two in a month is quite something.

Taking advantage of a beautiful Friday weather forecast we revelled in the quietness of Mt Wilson on a week day. It was a gorgeous day to be out in the mountains.

Tom downclimbing the Wollangambe 2 entry

Fields of wild flowers

Tom on the first abseil (look at that clear water!)

Traumatic down-climbing

Tom on the second abseil

Impressive lower section

Nicely lit chamber

Final corridor before the ‘Gambe

Sunny lunch spot

Why don’t we do it in the road? Canyon (Serendipity) & waratahs! (29 Oct 2022)

I could largely lift the introductory paragraphs from the last time Jon, Tom & I did Serendipity back in 2016. Only a few tweaks would be needed – general gist the same. Short canyon due to injury concerns, last minute decision to go, glad to get out because it had been a dud season…

Some significant differences though – didn’t see anyone else in the canyon which was amazing, and we failed to quiz Jon on any Good Weekend questions (major failing!).

Waratah season

Snazzy new signposts

There’s been a lot of new signposts put up since we were last in the area. Though not far after this one you get to a junction with no sign-posts, so… they’ll only get you so far.

Our third abseil

First abseil into the lower canyon section

Beautiful sunny day

Jon, Tom and the final abseil

Lunch jumps

Lunch jumps

We spent our long, lazy lunch surrounded by waterdragons. It was quite disconcerting, at one stage we were encircled by 6 of them.

(One of many) Bold waterdragon

And then to go back to the circumstances of the previous trip we bumped into some people we weren’t expecting at Cathedral Reserve making for a convivial evening. (Happy birthday Phil! Nice curry!)

On Sunday Tom & I set out for Better Offer Canyon but one of my niggles flared up part way in, so we just had morning tea on a pagoda with expansive views, then contented ourselves with flower photography on the way out. Lots of waratahs around at the moment!

Waratah

More waratahs

Views over Birrabang Creek

Waratahs a-go-go

Waratah

Mount Buffalo & Mount Beauty (6-8 Feb 2022)

After taking a couple of days to get ourselves from Sydney to Mt Buffalo it was time for some bushwalking!

Turns out Sunday morning is not the best time to be driving up the mountain – plenty of cyclists and blind corners to contend with. Despite good intentions of getting to Mt Buffalo by 9am it was after 10am when we left the car.

Our first day loop was about as unprepared as we’d ever been for a walk. Armed with the Parks map and a route I found from someone’s blog off we went. Not having a topo map we didn’t know how much up & down was in the route, or even how long our intended plan was. Our lack of fitness became apparent quickly – though I choose to blame the altitude… I wasn’t complaining about the altitude with respect to the temperature though – a nice change from the steamy humidity we’d had in Sydney for most of summer.

Tom emerges from the bush at Eagle Point

Lunch views from Eagle Point

Caution!

Alpine scenery

Speccy views from Mt Dunn

Emerging back at the car – Cathedral back right

The GPS put our loop for the day at 21km. The most we’ve done in a day in… I’m not sure how long. I was very happy to make use of the hot showers at Lake Catani campground (make sure you book ahead) and get into warm clothes. The evening was fairly chilly.

Camping at Lake Catani campground

The next day we walked from the campground to the Chalwell Galleries – which is just a 50m section of ‘canyon’. Given how little canyoning we’ve been able to do this summer we enjoyed it – even if granite doesn’t given you the same kind of grip that sandstone does.

Granite canyoning 🙂

This seems to have a few modifications

Returning to camp via a circuit of Lake Catani we packed up, drove the car to the day use area and then walked to the Gorge area of the park. Had we hung around there for another hour we would have been able to watch 60+ paragliders launch – as it was we saw them taking to the skies from View Point.

Lake Catani from View Point

A very large caterpillar (or “faterpillar” as we christened it). Unfortunately nothing in the picture really gives the scale

We stopped at Eurobin Falls in our way our and walked up to the Upper Falls. The crowds had departed from Lady Bath Falls by the time we returned so Tom managed to get a couple of photos.

Finally we headed to Mount Beauty for the night. The next day we had an easy day and did the Mount Beauty Gorge Walk – though I suspect we went a bit further up the gorge compared to most people!

Tom in the Mount Beauty Gorge

The next part of our trip was out of Falls Creek – read about it here.

Yileen & Dargans Creek Canyons (18 Dec 2021)

Summer finally arrived in late December – a hot forecast, instead of November’s incessant rain and cool temperatures. Thanks to Kylie’s instigation of “Summer Slaydies”, five women met up for the first time and did a very enjoyable run through Yileen. It was a pleasure to spend the day with this group and share our love of canyoning.

Expansive views on the way in

Expansive views on the way in

The crew (clockwise): Me, Laura, Monika, Jannice, Lorien. (The best photo of a blurry bunch!)

Green corridor

Small scramble into the depths

Jannice on the first abseil

Laura on the first abseil

Loz abseiling, while everyone else looks on

Beautiful section of canyon

Loz in another corridor

Canyoning is such hard work!

Monika at the bottom of the second abseil

Laura on the final drop

The party following us abseiling the wet line

We were so efficient that we were back at the Pierces Pass Lower Carpark for lunch.

I met up with Tom afterwards and we did a run through Dargans Creek Canyon.

An awkward downclimb with the volume of water obscuring views of the holds

Downclimb in the canyon

Classic canyon formation

Tom trying out a new camera carry method

Apparently the method is a winner

Soaring walls

The first part of the exit

Trademark Dargans – the spiked tree exit route

Jerrara Creek (17 Apr 2021)

Stop the press! James was available for a second canyoning weekend less than 3 months after our last trip. However, true to form, the weather was not looking great for the weekend. I looked at the where the rain was going to be, and suggested heading south might be the best bet.

After a series of indecisive conversations through the week we did make enough decisions to end up on our way to Bungonia on Saturday morning. We had a relatively late start as we’d been discussing Long Gully – and we’d been at the Shoalhaven for lunch when we’d done that trip previously. However, Tom was now angling for Jerrara Creek. It was only while we were driving down that I looked at his notes and saw the 8-11 hour time estimate. Well. With our likely start time we were going to have 8 hours of daylight. Better make sure we all pack our torches, or hope that 2009 Tom who wrote the notes had been over-estimating the time needed.

After doing a lap of the campground (no, it’s not like we’re pressed for time), and the disappointment of finding the Bungonia campground did not permit wood fires (no, I didn’t pack a stove), we left the car at 9:45am. It wasn’t long before we were wet-suiting up in Jerrara Creek. We proceeded pretty smoothly through the canyon.

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James abseiling the first drop

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Tom & James “enjoying” a swim – not the warmest day!

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Impressive drop

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Tom on his way down

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James descending the same drop

It’s been a while since I’ve done a canyon with a lot of long drops, and even with only 3 of us, I’d forgotten just how it takes to get people down.

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James on the first pitch of Jerrara Falls

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James at the start of the second pitch of Jerrara Falls

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The third pitch of Jerrara Falls

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View of Jerrara Falls

We enjoyed the brief periods of sun we got and were pleased to find the clouds had largely cleared in time for lunch.

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Lovely lunch spot and time to warm up

We left our lunch spot at 2pm that gave us 3.5 hours till sunset – seemed like we wouldn’t be needing to use the torches – but you never want to be too confident!

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Tom descending into the shade

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Big country (and another swim looms)

After the swim in the photo above we had a longish section of boulder-scrambling which we moved through pretty efficiently. I was sweltering in my wetsuit and when James joined my pleas we stopped at a lovely spot to get changed. It would have been a nice spot to camp but I was not unhappy to only have our day gear with us – lugging a wet 60m rope makes a pack heavy enough.

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This was such a tranquil spot

From there it wasn’t long till we hit the exit. Though I think James was a little dubious about this being an NPWS track given the state of it, particularly at the bottom. My legs haven’t felt so sluggish on a hill in a long time but we made it to the top without really stopping so I can’t be that unfit!

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Slogging our way up the Red Track

I think we were back at the car around 5:15pm, so all up 7.5 hours. Perfectly timed really in the end – what with the sun at lunch, and doing the climb out in the shade with the lovely evening light.

Fortunately James had a stove so our night wasn’t a complete disaster, particularly after a bottle of red and some fortified shiraz 🙂

What a Canyon! (13 Mar 2021)

It’s the SBW reunion weekend so of course the forecast is for rain. It’s also an La Niña year. So it’s a lot of rain forecast. Hmmph. The forecast was not looking good for our canyoning plans on Saturday with around 50mm of rain predicted for Thursday & Friday. Tom checks on Friday morning and Robertson has recorded 0mm. Excellent. I wasn’t feeling quite so good when later in the day he checks the surrounding weather stations (Fitzroy Falls & Broger Creek) and they’ve had 50mm. Fingers-crossed that there were some very localised storm cells… and not that the Robertson weather station isn’t working!

I had been contemplating not going – with a multitude of injuries (left wrist, right thumb, calf… ) but when Tom said it was a fairly short day, I decided I’d be able to make it through.

After a couple of delays (failing to download the information on Tom’s phone before dropping out of mobile range, for one) we set off with Jon & Alex. Alex & Tom had attempted this trip some years earlier, on another wet reunion weekend, and bailed because of water levels being too high. Tom has no photos from that trip as he’d drowned his camera the day before – so his memory of what the water was like on that trip was sketchy. The water level looks approachable so we wetsuit up (well except for Alex who is wetsuit-less).

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Water looks relatively benign from here

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Alex on an early scramble

I was pretty glad to get into the water as it was a humid day (forecast high around 30°C) and I sweaty after just a few minutes. I can’t imagine how Jon was feeling in his steamer.

Jon & I made each other feel so much better about the day by admitting each of us been having “bad feelings” about the trip. Probably brought on by the canyon’s history – a fall/paramedic fatality a few years ago and then last weekend a tree/rockfall narrowly missing a party.

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Jon looking somewhat unimpressed

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Alex disappearing through a hole in the log jam

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Tom trying to find a way through the hole

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The team and a pretty section of canyon

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Without Tom blocking the view

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Canyon

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Eternity pool?

Before long we were at the edge of one of nature’s eternity pools. Somehow I got to go first and find out just how much power was in the water flow. Emerging unscathed, other than my camera (the dry bag is definitely no longer a ‘dry’ bag), I was glad it wasn’t any stronger.

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Alex emerges from the waterfall

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Jon getting smashed

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Jon near the bottom

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Tom before the worst of it

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A bit of boulder scrambling

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Tom checking where he’s going

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Jon all smiles now

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Alex on his way down

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Jon wondering where to stop

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Tom nearly at the bottom

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Not quite at the bottom yet though!

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Final short abseil

We had lunch at the bottom of the big fall enjoying the views of the beautiful waterfall.

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Lovely cascades

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Pretty

From there it was a straight-forward walk out.

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Jon on the way out

My main complaint at the end was that we were out too soon after lunch! I hadn’t really worked up an appetite for something from the Robertson Pie Shop. Nonetheless that didn’t stop me indulging in a caramel macadamia tart.

An excellent short day, giving us plenty of time to get to the reunion, enjoy a swim in the river before settling in for a convivial, if occasionally wet, night around the campfire.

Claustral (5 Mar 2021)

Well, this was a luxurious day. We didn’t leave home until 9am, leaving the cars at 11am to start our canyon. As it was a Friday ours was the only car in the car park – and so had the canyon to ourselves.

Tom had requested the late start so we had a better chance of getting sunbeams in the canyon – well we got them. It was a beautiful day, we couldn’t really have asked for better weather. It was clear blue skies on our way in, but by the time we exited it was a bit cooler with some cloud cover.

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First abseil into the Black Hole

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Second abseil

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Sunbeams!

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Nice light

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Sunbeams

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Sunbeams

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More sunbeams

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Magnificent

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More sunbeams

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Canyon

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Oh wait, more sunbeams

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Abseiling down to the tunnel swim

I always find on ‘trade’ routes it’s harder to write an interesting trip report. But, some memorable moments so that in ten years when I re-read this I can remember…

Both Tom & I at different points managed to fall over while standing in the water. We both fell to our left – where our camera case and dry bags were held in our left hands, while keeping our right hands high in the air out of the water – because of course that was where the cameras were! Tom was only in ankle deep water so the case didn’t get so wet, whereas I was in knee deep water and the case & dry bag got a full dunking. So, a lot less photos in the later half of the trip from me as the camera had to go into my main dry bag.

We tried the banh mi (as opposed to “not rolls”!) from My Dad’s Bakery as a lunch option for the first time. It was pretty good, even if the paper bags had largely disintegrated by the time we had lunch at the exit gully (“like the old days” said Tom at the lunch spot choice).

Timings: 11am left car, 2:30pm at exit gully where we had lunch for about half an hour, 5:30pm back at cars. 6.5 hour day – 2 people, who had done canyon multiple times previously, but with a lot of photo-faffing.

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