Quick post about an opportunity to get a job in an outdoor/adventure store at Moore Park (Sydney).
I heard about this through the UNSW Outdoor Club, and thought it might be of interest to a few people - I know I was always interested in getting a job in an outdoor store; your boss actually understands your desire to go rock climbing, canyoning, mountain biking, kayaking etc, rather than seeing it as a distrction to work AND you get a staff discount on all of the gear you need to buy So I invited Dave, the manager of the new store to introduce himself here and let everyone know about the job.
He made a post in the forum a couple of days ago (see the post), and so I’m just posting to bring some attention to it.
So if you like outdoor activities - walking, climbing, canyoning, kayaking, travelling etc etc etc, and you need a job, send Dave an email at anaconda.moore.park AT gmail.com
I am very excited to announce that after almost one year since TDMSKP was created, I have hired my good friend Klaus over at Red Skies Design to completely redevelop TDMSKP from the ground up.
The current version of TDMSKP was always going to only be a temporary version of the website which I put together myself (and anyone who knows anything about web design can easily see that I am no pro!). I don’t really have any idea when the new website will be made live, but it would be really nice if we could do it on TDMSKP’s 1 year anniversary (I will need to figure out when that is).
Don’t worry though, everything you post in the guide and in the forums will be kept in the new website. So keep posting and participating like normal.
It has been a very long time since I have made a post here, and I apologise for that. Nothing has changed though, I still have very large goals and expectations for TDMSKP, and will continue driving it towards those goals. For the time being though, I need to continue working on a couple of my other websites which provide the income that enables me to work on a website which doesn’t earn a cent (thats this one…).
The unfortunate fact is, that in order for this site to do anything near what I want it to do, I will probably need a whole team of programmers. That costs money, and so it will take time. Until that time though, I will continue adding bits and pieces to TDMSKP as we know it, and I genuinely appreciate everything all of our current users continue to add to the site - both in terms of guidebook articles, and just general participation in the forums. Thank you all very much.
I always expected this project to take a few years before it took off, and it is right on track!
There was little traffic up to Mt.Tomah that morning coming down the M4. We made it into Katoomba pretty quick, then round and into the BellRange ,where we met Shane and Julie waiting for us.
It was 8:30 on the dot, so this expedition was going to start on time.
After we logged into the Claustral visitors book, one car was left behind while we drove the others down the highway to Ranon’s entrance.
The path in was pretty much expected of the Blue Mountain bush, with no clear or well travelled path to be seen. We raced into the thick at top speed though, eagerly looking forward to the days activities.
After about 30mins, Julie the trail leader noted we had not vied far enough and we found our selves peering over a fairly high drop. Instead of backtracking and looking for the ‘traditional’ canyon entrance, we thought that our current location was as good as any from which to abseil in. In hindsight this was a great decision, as it turned out to be a fantastic abseil. So over we went.The abseil required a 60m rope, then the 35m and 50m tired together to see us down to the bottom. What an abseil – straight through the thick line of ferns buried into a mossy cliff face.We landed in ankle deep water; in some of the most amazing scenery I have ever experience. And that’s how the day started.
After another 45mins of level hiking though sometimes very narrow paths to fairly open paths, the water levels started increasing, so we decided to get into our wetsuits. We found a small waterfall to wet our appetite with, and took a few pics posing under it.
The next step was a 3m jump into a pool, then straight into a series of very narrow corridors.
The first proper abseil of the canyon was straight forward 15m into a pretty deep pool, which led onto another narrow corridor. Though this was the first time doing this canyon for us (Jon and Trev), we were told by the more experienced canyoners in the group, that water levels were much higher than normal, due to recent rainfalls. This meant there was a significant amount or water pumping over all the abseils we did, possibly increasing the difficulty, but definitely increasing the fun!
I have heard many theories why this canyon is named the way it is. I reckon it’s because of the flow of the land - everything just ran-on beautifully from the previous landscape.
The second abseil was brilliant, Julie scaled down and waited in the pool at what we thought was the bottom – but the canyon lived up to its name and the descents just kept on running. This was just a temporary deep pool, which required us to swim across before attempting the second half of the abseil. Immediately after this there was yet another 25 abseil to navigate, all whilst the water whirled around us and roared in our ears as it tumbled down into each successive pool.
At the bottom of this series of abseils, Ranon runs into Claustral canyon, just down from the black hole of Calcutta. Shane took Trev and Jon a little bit upstream to the bottom of the hole, since we had not done Claustral before, and it allowed us to get a feel for the eerie enchanting beauty of the darkened natural hallways of Claustral.
At this stage we went a little further before finding a small sand beach, where we stopped for lunch and ate while admiring the contrasting landscape and scenery all around us. After lunch, we again took a quick detour to see something special. Shane led us into some small darkened caves, which required us to slither through some narrow gaps, before looking up in the darkness to see a mass of beautiful blue glow worms all around us!
We headed towards the exit after this, navigating and scrambling over and around rocks for another hour or so.There were a few swims, as well as some challenging hand-over-hand descents and jumps, which kept the adrenalin pumping until the very end.
The hike out took us approximately and hour and a half. We discovered that leeches are attracted to Shane like bees to honey, as several of them decided to hitch a ride up the mountain on his legs.
We returned to our cars at approximately 5pm, exhausted after a long day’s canyoning, but elated after having a fantastic day out, in which a good time was had by all!
…or, as Jamieson puts it in Canyons Near Sydney 4th Edition ‘Upper Bowens Creek South Branch’. I think we need a real name for this canyon, because that is just annoying. Jamiesons guide also has ‘Bowens Creek North Branch, Lower Section’, which I have heard several people call “Gobsmacker Canyon” (not mentioned in Jamiesons guide). I think we need a real ‘name’ for all of the other sections of Bowens creek too…
Anyway, this canyon was number two of the weekend after doing Yileen the day before. The weather was pretty bad. Not heavy rain, but drizzling nearly the whole time. We were soaked through before we even reached the creek thanks to brushing past thoroughly wet shrubs. Cate wasn’t happy about the weather and canyon combination, but the water level wasn’t high at all, and usually drizzle isn’t a problem - it’s the thunderstorms and sudden downpours that are problematic!
Anyway, we managed to do pretty much every potential abseil in this canyon, even though most of them can be walked around in one way or another. We were expecting a pretty long day, but it didn’t take long to get to the main couple of abseils and find ourselves at Corkscrew canyon. We came out into the Sassafras forest and started to wonder if we were near the end already. A quick check of the book told us that we had another rough section through some boulders before another canyon section.
The end of the boulder section was actually really interesting, as you had to pick a route down climbing through a number of large boulders. They were tight squeezes and required some path picking. Of course, you could just abseil over the top if you wanted, but that would be less fun! That brought us into the last canyon section, with more beautiful narrow sections, dropping into pools, and a large log slide.
We were shortly at Hobnail canyon (entering from the right) and looking out for the exit path on the right hand side of the canyon. I saw one section which wasn’t a sheer cliff, but it was still …well…almost a sheer cliff, so I kept walking. However one of the guys called me back and said that he thinks it was the exit path, as described in the guidebook. So we had a closer look, and sure enough there was a tree leading up a few meters, and what could almost be called a path above it. So we followed it. There was definitely a path-like thing there, but the climbing was on slippery dirt…on an almost vertical wall. It isn’t an exit path which I imagine many people could use because each person would wear away on the plants you are basically standing on and climbing up.
I’m still not sure if this is the actual exit described in Jamiesons guide or not (because it is a very accurate match of what he said), however I have since heard that there is an easier (better) one further downstream. Anyway, this one led us up to the first cliff line where we did notice that the path there did go further downstream than where our path met it…. We followed the cliff line, found the narrow ‘caving-like’ climb up a corner tunnel (very slippery clay), then a track to another short easy rock climb up, then around to another higher but easier rock climb (with a hand line there too).
The fire trail wasn’t much further up the hill, and a bit of a walk back along it saw us back at the car just in time for the heavens to really open up and starting dumping an awful lot of water on us. So much so that we found it almost impossible to get changed into dry clothes and get into the cars…
We were planning on camping another night and doing another canyon on the Monday, but the amount of rain we were seeing made the prospects of another canyon on the following day unlikely, so we called it a weekend and headed home.
So I invited Dave, the manager of the new store to introduce himself here and let everyone know about the job.
(thats this one…).
