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 excercise in abseiling and scrambling. The beauty of this area is 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. Earlier trips are documented on my original canyons page. As I have been hap-hazardly adding pictures lately, these pages are best viewed at a screen resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels !

Entering the Canyon

Sometimes it's hard organising a trip. People were in ... and then people were out ... Sadly I watched as the general level of enthusiasm of my flatmates seeped away. Whungee Whengee was the targeted canyon for this trip, and as I had not done it before, I wanted to have a 'look-see' before the weather got too cold. My flatmates read and re-read the description with decreasing interest. "One long day" ... "What does that mean, 'one long day' ?" they asked. "Is it loads of walking like the last one we all did ?" The best I could do was show them the map. As always, Sean was in for it (even though it was his birthday)! The others ? No ...

Crossing the Wollangambe

The 06:15 alarm went off way too early for my liking, but Sean and I had packed the night before so getting ourselves out the door was no real effort. (Thankfully I had some disprins up in the car !)...

So with the sun rising to our left, disprins dissolving to clear the cotton wool from my head and the forecast of 'clearing' weather, we headed off to Mt Wilson.

Two brief stops on the way. One for headtorches and one for breakfast. (the bakery at Richmond of course!).

We arrived at Cathedral Reserve to find one car parked at the bottom end, but no sign of any people. As we geared-up we could hear voices from up the fire trail and getting closer. Eventually a small group of people hove into view and asked if we were going to the "Waterfall of Moss".

"No .. We're doing Whungee Wheengee"..
"Oh.. We're trying to find Waterfall of Moss. We started up the trail, but it brought us back here again!"

Hmmm... I wonder if these people are dangerous ... I fished out the map to show them where to go, but they had already turned and were making their way up the hill again.. I let them go ...

Our walk began with a very pleasant stroll (mostly down) along a fire trail, with excellent views out towards the ridge we needed to get up, on the other side of the Wollangambe, before dropping into Whungee Whengee.

From the fire trail we followed the Wollangambe #1 exit track and crossed the creek on boulders to begin the scramble up. The first part is quite steep and with the sunny humid conditions, we were sucking air and sweating like pigs in no time. As we gained altitude, the gradient of the track eased considerably and we soon found easy walking on relatively level ground. Fairly abruptly, the track swung around and began to drop to the top of a cliff line. From here we searched for a low drop to abseil in from as we only had a 20m rope with us.

The creek was flowing gently at this point, and we followed it for 20 minutes or so before we came to the first drop. At this point, all our 'umming and 'ahhing aside, we put on our wetsuits, and Sean carefully walked along the edge to see where it went. About 4m below us was a deep pool covered with a good thick layer of white foam. This did not look good to us. There was a good belay point from a tree, indicating that we should probably descend here, but the fact that the foam was not moving indicated to us that there probably was no clearance between the surface of the water and the roof. Instead, we opted to clamber around and jump in on the other side.

The water was deep!
The water was cold!
The water was dark!
But above us were Glow-Worms !!! (I love these little guys!)...

The 2nd duck-under

In front of us, in our torch lights, was our first duck-under. Taking a deep breath and tightening his sphincter a couple of degrees, Sean pushed through first. "It's OK... It goes through !". Whew!. I'm glad... It's too early in the day for difficulties. I followed through and, trying to counteract the floatation factor from my wetsuit and pack, dived deep to avoid it snagging on the low roof. Approximately 3 milliseconds later I popped up on Sean's side of the cave like a mini Polaris. Together we swam out into the daylight on the other side and spent a few minutes floating there, exclaiming to each other at how cold the water was, and how unexpectedly early the duck under was. Braving the cold and the dark we swam back in again to get a quick photo.

Dark waterfall

The rest of the canyon was Sensational ! (Sean lost count of how many times I said that word). There were many places where the path took us literally "through" boulder chokes and under chockstones and other debris making for completely enclosed (I think the term is 'overhead') environments. Most of the dark sections had clusters of glow worms lighting the roof.

Amongst the usual variety of canyon dwelling life (yabbies, fish, spiders glow worms, etc), we were delighted to find a large eel swimming warily in one of the crystal clear pools. Poking his way suspiciously upstream beneath an overflowing pool containing a very dead ring-tail possum. Mmmm, Yummy! (poor little fella!).

One pool caught us by surprise though. The creek had dropped down into a sheer sided pool with a very large boulder in the center, creating a tall island. To get into the pool, we skirted around one side and scrambled down some tree roots to gain the water. It seemed as if the water flowed to the left, so that's the way I went and was surprised to see .... another small water fall entering from that side, giving the impression that the water enters this pool from both ends, but doesn't leave ... Swimming further around the boulder quickly dispelled that misconception and a short deep narrow channel was found flowing off to the right.

At about this point, we could see up ahead that the canyon was beginning to open up a little. Not so ... Not yet !

As we rounded another corner the walls suddenly closed in and shot up in height. The whole canyon narrowed to a dark slot not much more than 2m wide. The two main abseils were fairly obvious. The first of these presented us with a view from the top of an 8m drop, with twin waterfalls streaming down from our feet into a pool of milk-white foam. Sean found the slings under the water, around a smallish chockstone, just back from the lip on the right hand side. It looked like a tricky start. Looking up from down below we were rewarded with the view of the twin falls arcing out from their respective channels and bouncing off the opposite walls. After a short swim through the suds we scrambled over the boulders and found the second of the abseils. Again the belay was a sling around a chock, but this was well back from the edge. The abseil itself went directly down the water fall. (Yay!) At one point the creek flowed into yet another large cavernous dark section, requiring a swim to get in. We stopped at the entry point to marvel (yet again) at the crystal clarity of the water. We could easily see at least two meters down the wall below the surface of the water. Once inside and around the corner, I spied a way up and out, but as I started looking for hand holds, Sean called out from the darkness behind me. Looking back I could see him peering under a ledge. Another duck under had been found ! (These are much easier than climbing). The canyon had one more surprise up it's sleeve for us. We reached a largish choke of big boulders, rotting tree's and dirt blocking our way in the partial darkness. Scrambling up the mound towards a daylight hole seemed the way, but this led us high above the water that was visibly and audibly dropping steadily away below us. From my vantage point below the daylight hole I noticed a long narrow crevice that led down into a pool, and then nearly fell down it when the substantial log I was leaning on suddenly disintegrated under my weight. Exploring backwards Sean found a series of squeezes between the boulders that led down to the water and after a few minutes of pushing packs and swimming through twisty squeezes we emerged into the daylight again.

Twin falls after the 1st 8m abseil

As suddenly as we had entered the canyon we now found ourselves at the end of it. The last pool joined directly with the warmer waters of the Wollangambe, and we spent the next hour quietly drifting down stream with the current. The sheer rock walls above us on either side offering no exit from this section. Occasionally small waterfalls would enter from high up and it was surprising how much warmer the water from these felt.

We heard the boulder choke long before we reached it. This is about 200m short of the exit point and is a very substantial pile of slippery boulders blocking the way downstream. We picked our way through these carefully and jumped in a few meters downstream from the large upwelling immediately after the choke, to continue our voyage to the exit.

The exit point is a small gully on the right. (There is another on the left, and that is the way up to the Waterfall of Moss).

We labored our way uphill for the second time gaining altitude with every step. In a very short time we were level with the top of the ridge on the other side of the river and looking upwards and forwards expectantly. The grade of the walk back was similar to that of the walk in. Scrambling turns to steep walking turns to walking uphill turns to just walking. The last section back down the overgrown fire trail was cool lush bliss.

Waterfall from a side tributary

glistening spider-web

Sean enjoys the cool water