The canyon log is my chronological account of the various canyon trips that I have been fortunate enough to partake, and in some cases, lead.
Sydney is blessed with an abundance of rugged bush land less than two
hours drive away, and in this bush land lie some of the most pristine and
delicate environments that can be found.
Visiting these places may require no more than a simple walk along
a creek, or demand bush craft and navigation skills just to get there.
These trips are 'canyon' trips which involves starting high in the range and following a creek or stream as it carves it's way down to the river valley. The Kanangra canyons are generally fairly open and following these is an excersise in abseiling and scrambling. The beauty of this area are the panoramic views along the Kanangra Walls and valleys. The incredible ruggedness of the area.
Blue Mountains canyons like Claustral, cut deep into the sandstone below them and over time have worn channels and gutters, deep enough that direct sunlight never reaches the bottom. Walking and swimming through these is a magical tour through a ferny green wonderland. A visit to the lost planet.
I have kept these notes as a reminder to myself of the individual trips,
as well as to provide 'some' useful information for following excursions,
or to supply to others planning similar outings.
As I have been hap-hazardly adding pictures lately, these pages
are best viewed at 1024 x 768 !
Trip 12 Date : 27 Nov 1999
Location : Hole-in-the-Wall Canyon
Cast :
[scream] ....... AAAaaaarrrrrggggghhhh !!!
Getting There:
OK OK OK .... So it not your normal start to one of my trip reports
....
The plan was to be at Tove's place in Balmain at 6 am sharp.
It's 5:05 and already I'm running late ... "Bugger !"
Hastily I grabbed my stuff, raced upstairs to the car and headed off
in the early pre dawn gloom. Today has dawned nowhere near as brightly
or as sunlit as I would have preferred for an attempt on a canyon none
of us had been to before.
As I drove along Mona Vale Rd towards Terry Hills, I couldn't help thinking
how much the road was already like a canyon trip.
"Cold."
"Dark."
"and wet."
Not 'too' much after 6:00am I arrived at Tove's and find the others had also only just arrived themselves. Due to the number in our group we chose to take two cars. Geoff and myself in mine, Tove, Britt, Shane and Nigel in Tove's Wagon.
The drive to breakfast at the Wattle Cafe in Blackheath (where else?)
was uneventful, and wet and miserable looking. Gray sky, drizzle and light
rain dogged us the whole way. I started to feel a little 'under dressed'
in my shorts and singlet. At Blackheath I opted to put on a fleece as well
!! Jason was in a fine grump this morning and our orders for coffee, tea,
hot cakes, cinnamon toast seem to make him grimace as he searched within
for self control. (bloody tourists!). Food and cheery conversation quickly
dispelled *some* of the doubts about the weather and the days target. We
decide we will at the very least go and have-a-look at the Hole-in-the-Wall
canyon.
As the wagon crew headed off to the deli and bakery for supplies and
treats, Geoff and I milled about outside, joking about the dismal weather
and pretended not to be cold.
On the road once again and heading to the turn off for the Zig-Zag, we noted optimistically that the weather seemed to be lifting a little. Earlier at the 'Wattle, Jason said that they had had a little rain overnight, and some in the morning, but nothing serious.
One of my concerns for the day is that we would make it in to the end of the road OK, but if the heavens decided to burst open, we would be stuck there in our 2 WD cars. (That was just the start of my concerns...)
Once on the forestry roads Geoff and I quickly realised that the map
we were missing was actually important. We were about to find out just
how important! Despite not having it, we quickly found the turn off to
Warratah Ridge and proceeded to drive past the turn of we were looking
for ... (no initial point of reference "Bugger!").
To cut a long story short.. we drove around for about an hour trying
numerous tricks to pinpoint where we were on the map. With Tove running
low on fuel we eventually got it together, and confirmed not only where
we were, but also where we'd gone wrong, and were now bouncing and splashing
our way towards the car park at start of the Hole-in-the-Wall track.
Gearing up in the drizzle took little time, and in high spirits we headed
off, on foot, down the well worn 4 WD track towards the canyon start. Once
again, we made an error that cost us about another hour in realising we'd
gone wrong, and back tracking enough to fix it.
Lesson Learned .... check maps and compasses carefully at *each* track
junction even the obvious ones !
Once on the right trail, the walking became easy and the everything on the map made sense. The rocky outcrop we were looking for was so obvious it made us all laugh.
The canyon :
This Canyon starts as a very pretty stream flowing along through the
lush green scrub. Big ferns, tall gums, moist leafy undergrowth abound
in all directions. A faint path was visible as it meandered back and forth
across the creek but walking in the creek itself at this point was actually
easier. We reached the first wade only a few minutes along the route.
After some neat narrow sections and darkish climb downs, our creek became
a proper canyon. As suddenly as it started, the canyon opened up again
and the water disappeared underground for 100m or so until we encountered
a short drop which allowed us back into it again.
From the dry appearance of our surrounding's, Britt was amazed at the
size of the tree trunks and other debris that have been washed in here
in times of flood. It's awe inspiring to realize just how much water actually
flows through here at times. We found three abseils in all. The first was
anchored by a sling to a chock stone near the lip of the drop. We chose
to remove the old sling and replace it with a new one. Although not a particularly
tricky start there was a large log taking up valuable real estate, but
no other obstacles.
Likewise the second abseil presented no problem and we used a trio of jammed logs perched just before the lip. We were halted briefly by a small cave with a low crawl (in the stream) and a high window. Scrambling up into the window I peered into the other side and low and behold... Tove's was already in there ... Squealing with laughter and delight at the astronomic light show inside, courtesy of the glow worms of course.
It was simply amazing!
I'd never seen glow worms in Australia before, and we all stopped inside
and turned off our head lamps to gasp in amazement at the thousands of
little green spots glowing before our eyes in the inky blackness. The second
chamber was even better !
Outside again, we followed the creek for a short while and soon found
it led into another small low cave. Two options here were
the tight hole on the left...
or the tighter hole on the right.
"I choose to start the right-hand-side now...."
Squirming up into the hole and with a bit of pushing from behind I
plopped out into the final dark chamber of the canyon.
A little more walking along the creek kept us amused until we reached the third pitch, which was the final and the longest. Anchoring from the big tree trunk over the top, it's an easy matter to just drop into the hole and lower down. We had caught up with the rear guard of a sizable commercial group here, and chatted a while with their 'tail-end-Charlie'. (Apparently it costs $115 per/head for this trip !!). It amused us no-end to learn that they regulate the size of their clientele for this trip, my monitoring the size of wet suit ordered when booking on !
We gave them a few minutes head start before setting our own 30m rope and then continued on behind them.
One last squeeze and we found ourselves out, and at the junction of
the Bugleboori ...
The guide book makes mention of a big left hand bend .... it's right.
It's obvious when you get to it. It also helped that there was about 20
people already there, getting their warm dry gear on, and having their
lunch.
After exchanging greetings we moved on and upward and took advantage of the first level piece of ground to re-adjusted ourselves, and have some food and drink. The walk back to the car was easy to follow and not very hard.
We finished the day with a visit to Hanging Rock at Blackheath, The
site of the now infamous "Swingers Far Out in Space, Baby!" video, and
then Echo Point in Katoomba and finally the Poachers Inn for a civilised
dinner and coffee. (These guys know how to live!)
Hole in the Wall Canyon
Start 12:30 finnish 15:30
27/11/1999
