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Thursday night and FridayWe finished our walk to the ridge behind the start of the Wollangambe One lilo trip about 5:30 and drove to th Mt Wilson Cathedral Camping area, to pitch tents. A big bus load of young people were already set up on the hill behind the shelter shed and they were having a wonderful time. We presume a school group based on the apparent age differences. The wet gear laid out to dry suggested they had done Wollangambe One. A similar bas was parked at the fire station when we arrived there about noon today.
We soon pitched tents and had dinner cooking in one bay of the shelter shed. I had brought snags at the Aldi Store in Richmond, assuming the Germans knew how to make snags. Surprise, surprise there was no fat in them so they were dry fried and tended to burn. Still my vegies cooked well in the billy, so overall a satisfying meal. Mental note don't by Aldi mystery bags. I had a couple of spares for Ken. I rather think he came to a similar conclusion. Another surprise was that the noise from the school party quietened early, tired out from the day's activity I expect. We retired to our tents at a respectable hour for a pleasant night's sleep. The usual dawn bird chorus eased us awake to a pleasant looking sunny day. We breakfasted and were up to the fire station car parking area by 8:00 am, ready to start walking. We started down the same track as yesterday. A rough track following the broad ridge down through tall rain forest with lots of tree ferns at first, gradually changing to the more stunted dry Sclerophyll forest of the sandstone soil. At the rocky outcrop, we found the track south east following the foot of the rocks along the valley, back to the saddle and across to the other broad ridge. A shady easy grade along this ridge, then down to the Wollangambe River, near the exit for Du Faur and Bell Creek Canyons. A lovely spot just on a big bend in the river. Wide sandy beaches, crystal clear flowing water, high sandstone cliffs form the bend, tall mostly sydney blue gum trees, lots of other typical creek vegetation. Our way ahead here is to cross the river and find our way up the spur to the ridge on the other side. This rout leads to Geronimo Canyon, the creek on the west side of the ridge, and there is a well formed foot pad to follow. I have been told that this is also the best way to Whirlpool Canyon, the creek system to the west of Geronimo. At a rocky out-crop on the ridge I judge we have come far enough and the gps confirms this, so we head east and down. We came to a low cliff line, so we haven't picked the exact entry spot, as I was told that other party just walked into the creek. Still a very old sling round a nearby tree shows that others have used this way in, maybe in the distant past. The sling is so old we elect not to use it and find another anchor. Only about 10m down, but it is another abseil. A scrub/creek bash of 300m or so tells us we came up too far up at the start. Still we both like bushwalking, don't we? The start of the canyon section is where the creek ducks down through a jumble of chock-stone rocks. Similar in some ways to the start of Contradiction Canyon, I visited in late December. The cliff faces each side become taller as we rock-hop/walk along. The first canyon abseil is 10m or so down an overhung waterfall into a waist deep pool. The way ahead is easy enough with a few pools to wade and a few rocks to hop between. Very pretty with smooth water worn sand stone rock, tree ferns and bracken and corral fern.
We have a choice of abseil anchors:-
We opted for the first mentioned choice from the handy log. This block-up has a walk through gap on the left hand side. Past the blockup the canyon form changes to a smooth bare walled chute with a rounded base. Ahead is a smooth walled right angle bend. Around the bare smooth corner, the base of the chute becomes, a narrow pool with a lip at the end, above a 20m waterfall. The narrow waterfall chute typical of some canyons, ends in a pool. We cannot tell how big or deep from here. The reason I have been stressing the smooth nature of this sandstone rock chute, just here, is that I cannot see any way to make an anchor! The abseil is about 20m, too long to jump safely, and the waterfall path is too narrow to slide down comfortably, the pool at the bottom an unknown quantity. It doesn't look all that deep. YyIiiiii!!! I suppose that I can wedge myself in somehow, as a meat anchor and send Ken down to find a log, to pass back up, to make an anchor, somehow. Mmmmm. I have one piton but no obvious holes to belt it into, nothing around to belt it with anyway. Perhaps at the bottom of the pool? Then I move a little further along towards the edge and see a white sling wrapped around a bolt in the wall, on the right, above the waterfall. A second smaller diameter bolt has been rigged to tension the sling in a way I haven't seen before. Not much choice really, I don't like abseiling off a single bolt, but this seems solid enough. A very pretty abseil in a wonderful deep narrow chamber. Not enough light for a good photo, darn it.
Past the narrow tall long chamber the canyon opens out a little to a passage down to the sunlit Wollangambe river. A short but very pretty canyon well worth the trip. I have been told others combine it with Geronimo, which would make a good day of canyoning. The walk in the Wollangambe around the horseshoe bend back to our exit path is very spectacular. Beautiful green vegetation, especially the hanging gardens of ferns that line the ledges along the cliff faces. Magnificent high sandstone cliffs in wonderful varied colours, reds, creams, pinks, greys, black, gold, highlighted by the bright sunshine. The water is clear and the sandy stream bed glistens through. Every now and then a typical orange yabby amongst the occasional black leaf litter on the stream bed. A small round bird, grey back magnificent yellow breast, hops from twig to twig eyeing us of, before flitting away to another small tree. Back at the beach by the exit track, we get out of wetsuits and abseil harnesses. Then try and dry this wet gear a little while eating lunch and lazing in the sun. All good things do end and we need to walk the 3km back up the track to the car park. Most of the grade is easy walking and we take our time on the steeper places. On the way our progress alarms a black cockatoo, which lumbers ungainly into the air and flaps awkwardly between the threes. These black cockies are big birds, black over most of their body but with yellow flashes on the tail. The ancient Australian lore is that, you get a wet day for each one you see, and we saw two! Back at the cars by 2pm, we head back to break camp and head for the Long Paddock on th Newnes Plateau. At Lithgow I ring in to Trevor to let him know we are out safe. It seemed a good idea to eat in Lithgow rather than cook later at camp. We both chose a noodle combination sweet and sour, very filling it was too. Our aim for tomorrow is Bull Ant Canyon (the upper reaches of Rocky Creek), with an early finish, so we can get to Chris's Party at Duns Swamp camping area, at a reasonable time. The Glow-worm Tunnel road is still in poor condition, after poor quality road base was used on the last road repair job. So much so that we eventually we cross over to the twin road, which while still rough is much better condition. At the Long Paddock we are alone and soon set up camp. Where have all the Canyoners gone, Long Time Ago? Normally this place is a bustling thriving canyoning camp site. A pleasant relaxed evening to make cups of tea before retiring early after a pleasing day. A sunset chorus of Laughing Jack Asses, amuse us to sleep. Are they laughing at us? Do they know something we don't? Thank you, Ken, a great Walk/Canyon It is a pleasure to share this experience with you. Till next time Dug Floyd Copyright February 2011. |
