Friday the 5th December turned out to be a beautiful day, as Shane, Trev and myself (Jon) set out to do the first canyon of a two day canyoning trip – Waterfall of Moss Canyon. We first had to go via Katoomba, as I had to drop off some rental wetsuits at BMAC (Blue Mountains Adventure Company) from a few days earlier, which I was unable to return on the day due to running a bit late and getting there after they closed for the day. They fortunately didn’t charge me for the extra days I had them, so a big thanks to them, and I would definitely recommend these guys if anyone needs to rent some gear or for taking a proper guided trip of the outdoor, adventurous variety.

Once we checked in with the local police bushwalking registry, we were on our way and parked at the Mount Wilson Cathedral Reserve. Fortunately Shane knew the route, so we followed him down along the Wollangambe Two exit track towards the Wollangambe. As we approached a large rock outcropping halfway down the track, Shane started telling us about how he had previously had an encounter with a large brown snake in that area, and then within a minute of this, we stumbled over the very same (presumably) snake in the same position. A warning for other people, these snakes are dangerous, so keep an eye out when you approach this area!

We then continued a little further until we reached and swam across the Wollangambe, before using an existing hand-line to climb up a gully on the other side, as we then ascended the ridge in search of the start of the canyon. We lost the path occasionally, but eventually found our way along the ridge before eventually finding a small stream and an existing anchor point. We put on our harnesses and abseiled the first abseil, which was fairly straightforward. There were heaps of mossy ferns and greenery all around, as well of lots of old dead trees which had fallen in our path and required us to climb and navigate around.

The Canyon then slowly began to get much narrower, as we approached the next abseil, which was done from a tree on the right hand side. It was an approximately 8m, with a small overhang. At this point the canyon became really narrow, with the walls getting higher on both sides, and making for a beautiful, constricted section of canyon. The 3rd abseil we did was a relatively small drop, but it was made just a little trickier due to the fact we anchored off a tree a good 5 or more meters from the drop. We landed in a small pool of water, but it wasn’t deep enough to cause any real concern for us (we had not brought wetsuits along since canyon is primarily dry).

The canyon at this point was remarkably beautiful, very lush and green, whilst still being slightly dark and brooding. We were then funneled along to the next 2 abseils, which occurred in quick succession of each other, both around the 10m mark, down into small pools with ferns and moss all around, and a small trickle of water cascading down. Before we knew it, we walked a little further from the 5th abseil and we were at the Wollangambe, and bumping into another tour group which had did another canyon and were floating along the Gambe. In hindsight, we figured we may not have started the canyon at the ‘traditional’ starting point, as Jamiesons ‘Canyons Near Sydney’ says this canyon has 8 abseils, so we think we may have walked into it a little downstream from the start. Regardless of whether we did this or not though, it was a relatively short but still pretty spectacular little canyon.

All that remained was a 30m swim through the icy `gambe waters, wetsuit-less, back to the point where we originally crossed over the river, and then a walk back along the Wollangambe 2 exit track and back to our cars.

We were going to do Empress Canyon Next, however upon arrival we discovered the track was closed for a few weeks a s some plant rejuvenation projects were in effect, so we retired for the evening and went back to our hostel for the evening where we dined on some of Trevor’s sub-par cooking.

Day 2

We had originally planned to do some canyons in Newnes, but we were all a little tired from the previous day’s shenanigans, so we decided to do a shorter, closer canyon. After doing some research (at least Trev and Shane did – I passed out exhausted after destroying the other 2 in a game of backgammon), we decided on Koombanda Canyon. We drove to the supposed parking area, and left our cars next to some train tracks, as we consulted our maps and plotted out a rough route to the canyon start.

There wasn’t much of a path, so we were effectively bush-bashing, as we made our way over a ridge. Fortunately, this walking was difficult but not very long, and after maybe 30 minutes, Shane navigated us to a small stream andright to the start of the canyon. There we found a sling around a fallen dead tree, from which we anchored and did the first 8m abseil into a small pool. The surrounding canyon was fairly open, but there was still a lot of debris scattered around which made for a somewhat more challenging walk, as we needed to climb down and over obstacles.

There was then a small 5m abseil with an overhanging section which was short but still fun. We approached some climb downs and some areas where we needed to bridge to keep dry, but eventually we had to get wet in a 10m swim which was cold to say the least (once again we had no wetsuits) but at least it was very refreshing and it seemed to get rid of the flies pestering us. The Canyon then came into its own, as it narrowed up and cut into the rocks, often leading us into hollowed out ‘halls’ of rock, with some very beautiful sections which reminded me of Grand Canyon in several sections. The sun pierced through narrow overhead slots, and made for a wonderful atmosphere.

We next approached a drop, where we found 2 potential anchor points from which to abseil. We chose to go down the first one, as it went down through a small narrow slot in the rock and into a deep pool probably 7 or 8 meters down. Shane went first and then Trev followed. The start of this abseil is a bit tricky due to the relative location of the anchor, but they both made it without major problems. Once down, they both checked the depth of the pool, and neither could touch the bottom, so I then jumped instead of abseiling, and I still couldn’t touch the bottom, so this is definitely jumpable, and a hell of a lot of fun too! Definitely one of the better canyon jumps I’ve done. The water was nippy to say the least, but the swim back to land was only a few meters, and it was well worth it, regardless of whether you abseil or jump (if you abseil from the 2nd anchor point, you may not get so wet).

After this, the constricted canyon continues for a bit before opening up into more of a stream, with masses of trees all around. We followed the creak downstream until eventually we hit an old abandoned coal mine, and the natural stream banks are suddenly replaced with artificial concrete banks. Its quite strange to witness this sudden change. We climbed out here, and started our walk back up an existing old dirt road back towards some railway lines and then back to our cars. This walk out was much longer than the one in, but significantly easier and with the spectacular views, it was rather pleasant. All up, Koombanda was a shortish but nice little canyon, which only got better and delivered more as we kept going further into it.

It was a great 2 days of canyoning, and a good time was had by all!

-Jon (Video by Trevor)

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

Nick, Cate, Chris, Levi and I met at Richmond and shot up to the Mount Wilson turn off so we could get our weekend of canyon started with Yileen canyon. We followed the 4wd track in off Bells line of road, followed the narrow track which turned off it all the way down the ridgeline, then down into the canyon - only losing it a few times, but backtracking and finding it again. A short walk and we picked a place to get into our wetsuits, and then a little further and we started to get into the canyon sections.

Yileen Canyon was pretty short I guess, but it made up for with quality. The canyon had plenty of spectacular moments and enough interesting section to make the trip more than worth while. I really recommend it. Actually, thinking about it, to be fair, I may have enjoyed it as much as I did simply because the water level was definitely higher than usual. This was my first time in it, so I have no previous experience to compare it against, but looking at the photos on Dave Nobles site, the contrast between water levels is huge. Previous trip reports talk about avoiding pool and staying dry for the vast majority of the trip. That was certainly not an option on our trip, and I wouldn’t want it any other way.

For instance, one of the highlights of our trip was the ‘power slide’ - which can be seen in the photos and in action in the video - in normal water levels, this would be a basically dry slide and nowhere near as much fun. I would also be unsure of the water depth in lower water. So in normal water levels, Yileen might actually be a lot less interesting than it was for us.

However, for the purpose of *this* trip report - Yileen Canyon was great! The beautiful pools, the slides, the narrow water flow ways, and of course, the abseils… There are really only two main abseils and they are the very last two things you do in the canyon. The second last one, as we did it, was awesome. Coming down a narrow section down under a waterfall which trickles down from a ledge on the side of the canyon, landing down in a waist deep pool which then turns around a corner looking out into the Grose Valley…. The last abseil is what people remember this canyon for - a 50m abseil into the Grose valley. 50m is still the biggest abseil I have ever done, and it is a pretty rare event, so any 50m abseil is always a bit breathtaking. It really does add an element of excitement, danger, and fear to the whole exercise - all things that I personally enjoy

From the bottom of the last abseil it was down to the usual walking back up to the cars. The walk out was really easy because we had a second car parked closer to the exit point, and we were out of there pretty early in the afternoon so we had heaps of time to head back to Cathedral Reserve at Mount Wilson and set up camp for the night….

See Also:

• Yileen Canyon Guidebook Article
• Yileen Canyon Photo Gallery