[SUBW-A] Trip Report -Mountain Biking/ Canyoning - 4/5 May 02

[David Noble]

Trip Report -Mountain Biking/ Canyoning - 4/5 May 02

Party (Sat) - Dave Noble, Dave Forbes, Rik Deveridge

On saturday morning we set off early along a rough fireroad in the 
central Blue Mts to the top of the canyon we planned to do. This was 
only 3 kms or so along the road. We hid the bikes in the scrub and set 
off own a ridge into the creek. The creek was quite nice - although dark 
and gloomy. It soon started to drop into a canyon. The first drop - we 
managed to climb down via a convenient log. Then came the best drop - a 
25m abseil down a waterfall into a pool. We were in a classic canyon! 
Below this the canyon was darker, and the next drop appeared soon. This 
abseil brought us into a major creek. We walked and waded upstream for 
about 1km before climbing out to have lunch. Then it was a short walk 
back to the bikes. A fast ride took us back to the car. We returned to 
have a nice counter tea at the Alexandra Hotel at Leura (all meals are 
about $12 and the service was really very good  :-)  )

Dave Forbes headed back to the city and that left only myself and Rik 
for the Sunday trip. We had planned to do a remote canyon in the 
northern Blue Mts, accessible only with a long mountain bike ride. Our 
plans were upset when Rik's ute started to overheat just past the Zig 
Zag turn-off. So "plan B" was decided on - we would ride from the Zig 
Zag to another closer canyon. This proved to be folly! The bike ride was 
very poor - the road was sandy and badly corrugated - not the best 
riding conditions by any means. We did a side trip to a nearby peak - 
and managed to locate an aboriginal cave that I had seen on an earlier 
trip. Unfortunately we did not have maps for the canyon we hoped to 
visit (I was going from memory) - and we approached the canyon from the 
wrong side. This made it very difficult for us to climb into the 
canyon - so we instead were satisfied with an excellent view of it from 
above. Then it was back to the bikes  and another long and tedious ride 
back to the Chifley Highway.

Dave

--------------------------------------------------------
David Noble
dnoble at ozemail.com.au
http://www.ozemail.com.au/~dnoble