A small group of us headed out to a heavily fogged Mt Tomah in the Blue Mountains early last weekend to do Gaping Gill, a canyon listed in Jamieson’s “Canyons Near Sydney” guidebook. We parked at the Claustral Canyon parking area and checked all of our gear was in order before heading out along the beautiful grass covered ridge that takes most people down to Claustral Canyon. Instead of following the track all the way though, we were to continue along the top of the ridge, eventually heading straight south-west into the bush once we reached the end of the ridge.

This sounded easy, but the regularity of patches of lawyer vines in the area made this simple task really painful… After scrambling over a small moss covered boulder field, trying to avoid getting ripped apart by the lawyer vines while also trying to avoid slipping and twisting an ankle on the large boulders, we navigated our way across the top of the cliffline and found our way into Gaping Gill Gully.

Once in the rainforest section of the gully, the going was so very much easier and we quickly walked down the steep hill into the increasingly narrow ravine. The plants around us were beautiful, and the everything was so fresh and clean. We climbed over rocks, down tree roots and all of the usual canyoning sort of stuff, but it was true what we heard about Gaping Gill - “It’s not a really a canyon”.

The two abseils are both beautiful - I mean really beautiful - and not too difficult either, although both are quite high (about 20m and almost 30m on the second one). And the gully can get quite narrow at sections , stuck between two vertical cliffs either side - but these narrow sections are brief, and the ‘canyon’ feel is really not there. Gaping Gill is really just bushwalking down a narrow gully with a couple of good abseils thrown in for entertainment.

Of course once we were at the bottom of Gaping Gill we needed to walk up Thunder Gorge to the exit track. Thunder Gorge is far more canyon-like than Gaping Gill, and involved getting wet in waist/chest deep wades a few times.  Just as Gaping Gill was a truly beautiful gully to walk through, Thunder Gorge is equally beautiful. So just because something may or may not be ‘technically’ a canyon (whatever that even means), don’t doubt for a second that the walk is worth it. (probably only the one time though ;))

See Also:

• Gaping Gill Photo Gallery
• Gaping Gill Guide Article

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 Bell Range ,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!

By Trevor and John

See Also:

• Ranon Canyon Photo Gallery
• Ranon Canyon Guide Article

…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.

See Also:

• Upper Bowens Creek South Branch Guidebook Article
• Upper Bowens Creek South Branch Photo Gallery

On the Sunday of the Australia day long weekend, I tried my best to cram some family friendly canyoning in so that everyone with us could come along. The plan was to head out to do River Caves Canyon in the morning, then come back and do the Glow Worm Tunnel and canyon…it sort of worked out that way.

I organised to meet Penny at Zig Zag at 9am, and so had to leave the camp site at 8am. Well it turns out that after a night spent up drinking around the fire until 4am, most people don’t like to get out of bed! So we lost quite a few of the participants from River caves, and ended up heading out with just Carmen, Ben and myself to meet Penny.

We met up, then drove to the canyon, walked down the ‘Natural Bridge’ saddle into the gully. Walking along the gully (through the billion spiderwebs!) we actually managed to walk a short distance past the canyon before I stopped to check the maps and Jamieson directions, only to look up and notice the incredibly narrow crack in the cliff face covered up with bright green trees. So we walked back the 50m to the bottom end of the River Caves canyon, and upon walking into it, the change was just awesome. A ‘Canyon’ is a hard to define concept when it comes to deciding whether you are bushwalking, canyoning, or maybe you should be paddling - but instances like this make the difference oh so obvious. The difference between the gully we were walking in - a gully with cliffs on both sides of it, and a flowing creek in the middle - and the canyon that we just walked into - also with cliffs either side and a creek in the middle - left no doubt in your mind that one was really a gully, and the other was a canyon.

River Caves Canyon leaves no doubt in your mind where its name comes from either. The high walls are incredible, and the overhanging caves at water level are really quite awesome. We enjoyed the change from the hot open gully to the narrow, cool, dark canyon. Walking up the canyon (against the water flow) was very easy and the scenery was beautiful - if there was any complaint to be laid against this canyon, it is simply that it is over too soon. If you blink, you will miss it.

So after we got back to the car we dropped Penny off back at Zig Zag, then drove all the way around to Newnes again to pick up the masses for the second canyon of the day - the Glow Worm Tunnel Canyon. My plan was to drive a short distance down the road, then walk up the hill to the tunnel, but there was concern that the kids wouldn’t be able to make it (being an 8km round trip), so we decided to drive to the tunnel. Someone knew a shortcut across to the top of the plateau (because I knew the drive out to Lithgow, then back up Glow worm tunnel road took a long time) so we decided to go with that option. We crammed about 8 or 9 people into each of the two 4wd’s we had…we had to, the shortcut apparently was a 4wd track - and off we went. 3 hours later, and 18 very bored, sore people got out of our 4wd’s at the Glow Worm Tunnel parking lot. The short cut wasn’t nearly as short as I expected, and we ended up needing to go all the way along the Glow Worm Tunnel road anyway.

Oh well, we made it, and most of us decided that we would simply walk back down the hill this time, rather than go back via the 4wd track. So we walked through the tunnel - I don’t want to ruin anything here for people planning to do the tunnel, but there’s something pretty cool in the tunnel, and it rhymes with Flow Terms. Actually, to be honest, they aren’t the most impressive display of Glow worms that you can find - but to be fair, it was in the middle of the day with many many many people walking through the tunnel constantly. So the poor creatures were probably trying to hide for the most part.

Once on the other end of the tunnel, the plan was to then go back up via the canyon beside the tunnel - thus completing the Glow Worm Tunnel Canyon. But because we were walking back down into the valley below, we didn’t head back up to the cars via the canyon - so we missed out on the canyon

We did however, not miss out on the walk down into the valley, which was pretty spectacular. The walk was a very easy gradient the whole way back down to the Wolgan River, and the views from the beginning were really very nice, looking down over the valley.

We all eventually made it back to our camp site, and had a much more relaxed night than the previous one.

See also:

• River Caves Canyon Guide Article
• Glow Worm Tunnel Guide Article
• River Caves Canyon Photo Album
• Glow Worm Tunnel Photo Album

Australia Day 2008, No better time to be camping and canyoning out in Newnes. Weather was impeccable, and company even better.

Shane had decided to take Nick, Marc and me, Carmen out to Twister Canyon, the ‘Amusement Park’ Canyon. Nick and Marc were newbies, their first canyon. I had done this canyon, and only this canyon, once, a year before. I’d say it’s the greatest starter canyon, because anyone can do it, from littlies to oldies, the unfit, the infirm, and it gives you an idea of your competence. Even though, I was actually shitting myself on the way, thinking i’d become to sick to do it. But Shane could calm a tiger, and i’d run out of butterflies before we even parked.

It’s a simple short walk down to the canyon, about 15 minutes worth, taking a your first right off the fire trail. It doesn’t take long to descend from the eucalyptus to the ferns and lush walls of the canyon, enjoying some pagoda formation rock walls on the way.

We gear up in our wetsuits and let the fun begin.

The first few pools are slippery slides, so fun and simple. slide down, climb out, slide down, swim through to the next bit, walk through some lovely tree ferns and palms and then there it is!

The first jump, and truly, the shakes came back, given the boys do this all the time, i had to toughen up. So i did, and wow, that feeling, as you swallow your tummy the wrong way, you just know its good for you. I watch Shane and Nick (who are obviously capable of much greater grades than this easy 3) climb back up and then further up, along the wall, to do the big jumps into the pool. i don’t want to look, I think it’s impossible someone can cover so much distance with just a single step and no run up, so i close my eyes and let the video watch, but yes, they are OK.
Marc thinks as i do, and backs down from the high jump, to just do the normal jump again, I’m proud of him, he’s my partner and i don’t want to be carrying him out, i bags being the one carried out! Half Way through, Nick amazes us by finding the smallest little hole and pulling himself up through it and popping out the other side! this guy is definitely in need of harder canyons!

From there on in the jumps get a little lower, but sometimes tougher, of the 3 jumps or the one slide or jump, the last is the most technical (not that it’s technical at all for canyoners, but us newbies think first,and hesitate, before do) because you have such a small pool to land in. And I guess because on our first trip there, when there were eight of us, it was the place where a friend slipped off, and nearly wasn’t OK.
It is beautiful this canyon too, especially the last descent, straight from the little pool, you pull out and do a rope climb down the last bit. Which is always hilarious for me. Because i can’t use my broken arthritic arms, so i get all the attention of these lovely fit fellas, helping me down! such a lucky girl!

They ease me off the top backward, and i just fall into one of them and do the last bit myself, it’s not very high, or very slippery, and it’s quite easy for (almost) anyone, so no excuses, you should be out there!

We contemplated at the bottom, doing it again as it hadn’t taken as long this time, with less people, just over half an hour, but we didn’t have time for Rocky Creek canyon which follows on from it. But by the time we’d scrambled around the rocks and did the walk across the tree and then the straight up bit at the end, we were all so tired and still in ecstasy of our canyon adventure that we completely forgot!

Ah the smiles on the faces of those new to canyoning, it just makes you glow at the end.

So much fun, and any demand on your health or body is stripped by the satisfaction. highly recommended. EASY. FUN.

See also:

• Twister Canyon Guidebook Article
• Twister Canyon Photo Gallery