[SUBW-A] Trip Report - Canyoning 17/18 Aug 02
David Noble
dnoble at ozemail.com.au
Tue Aug 20 23:47:59 AEST 2002
Trip Report - Canyoning 17/18 Aug 02
Two separate trips:
Saturday - Canyon Exploration
Party - Dave, Rik and Jodie
We went to the end of a fire trail in the Northern Blue Mts then did a
few kms of roadbashing (on the closed off section of the fire trail) and
headed out along a very scrubby ridge. Near the end of this ridge, we
stopped for lunch and then dropped off (via a long abseil) into a
scrubby creek. We then bashed our way upstream looking for a sidecreek
that we thought may be canyon. We located the creek and sure enough it
was a canyon. We wedged a log to allow us to climb up the lower
waterfall and could then scramble upstream - but were blocked by another
waterfall further up.
We left that creek and checked out another creek and found a nice benign
looking section of canyon. We could easily climb up a few waterfalls and
made our way upstream with high hopes. However, we found ourselves faced
with wading through a deep icy looking pool. The weather was quite cold
and the time was getting on so we forced a pass up the side of the
canyon and made our way back along another very scrubby ridge back to
the fire road. Then it was a 7km brisk walk back to the car.
We vowed to return to fully explore these canyon at a later (and warmer)
date.
On the way back down the mountains we stopped for dinner at the
Gardeners Inn at Blackheath (recommended). We farewelled Rik, who is
leaving for three weeks canyoning in Spain.
I stayed up the mountains for a party and there met up with Dave Forbes
and Martin Pfeil.
Sunday
Party - Dave N, Dave F, Martin, Zenek and Alex.
Zenek and Alex met us on the Bell Rd on Sunday morning. We planned to
have a look at Oronga Creek, which none of us had visited before. We
headed into the upper part of the west branch, which was a bit scrubby
at first, but we made fast progress downstream. We were hoping to find
some canyon - but it was not till very close to the junction with the
east branch that we came across a short section of low quality canyon.
The creek then dropped through boulders and another short section of
canyon. It was a bit tricky to climb into this (via a convenient tree
pass) and avoid getting wet. Most of the party continued down to the
Grose Wall where the creek tumbled over a high waterfall. We scrambled
back up the creek to the junction and continued up the east branch a few
hundred metres before scrambling out. We had lunch on a nice ledge and
then had a short walk back to the cars.
We visited the Kurrajong Hotel on the way back to town.
More of a bushwalk than a canyoning trip.
Dave Noble
--------------------------------------------------------
David Noble
dnoble at ozemail.com.au
http://www.ozemail.com.au/~dnoble
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