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)

Finally, the Arethusa mis-adventure trip in video format! Sorry for taking so long, but I’ve been hectic since New Years and been doing a few trips which stop me from being able to do my computer based work! Damn those outdoor experiences getting in the way of me working on my computer!

Anyway, here it is…

See Also:

• Arethusa Canyon Guide Article
• Arethusa Canyon Photo Gallery
• Arethusa Canyon Trip Report

This is one of those trips which will be brought up in campfire discussions for years to come. “Remember that Canyon where we had to walk out in the dark with a couple of headlamps and a couple of crappy torches between 5 people?” Yeah…this canyon didn’t go exactly as planned.

Arethusa is a less well known and less travelled canyon than most around Katoomba. I’m not exactly sure why - my best guess is because the standard guide book ‘Canyons Near Sydney’ mentions it once being polluted, and so maybe that turns a lot of people off it. It could be argued that it is the difficult walk in and walk out that deters people - but that is only the case because so few people do it. If more people do it, then clear walking tracks will appear and the walk in and out will be pretty straight forward. So I’m not sure why more people don’t do it, but thats the way it is, and that is why there is no track leading into the canyon, and why there is no walking track out from the canyon.

That being the case, we found the directions we tried to follow from the Canyons Near Sydney book lead us to a pretty solid cliffline on the way into the canyon. So we decided to ditch those directions, and followed our own navigations from the Katoomba Topographical map. We picked a path down a ridgeline, down into a gully which met up with Katoomba Creek just under the high tension powerlines.

We followed Katoomba Creek for more than two and a half hours
before reaching the start of the main canyon, marked by an obvious abseil. Again the guidebook describes getting through Katoomba creek mostly dry as possible, but our experience was that we had to do several swims. I expect the water level was a little higher than normal, but I have trouble imagining staying dry throughout the 2+ hours spent in the creek.

We climbed up to a ledge on the right hand side above the abseil, and anchored from several slings wrapped around a decent sized tree. The start was a little difficult, but I dropped down first, and boy the bush bashing in and long walk through the creek was worth it just for this abseil. Dropping straight down into traditional blue mountain canyon alongside this awesome pumping waterfall. The waterfall was just awesome (see the photos…) and as I called “Off Rope!” down the bottom and stepped off from the small rock I was standing on, onto the sandy bottom, I got a bit of a fright as I sunk to my waist (seriously) in sand. I’ve sunk to my knees in light packed sand pleny of times, but never to my waist before.

Anyway, continuing on through the canyon was pretty standard fare - there was a lot of climbing down slippery rock surfaces (all of the rocks were very slippery actually. I guess regular traffic through most other canyons helps wear away the slippery mosses and algae etc that normally cover all of the rocks), and quite a few swims. There were very few jump ins because there were always large rocks just under the surface. Some of the climb downs were quite tricky and dangerous - high risk of twisted ankle mostly.

The end of the canyon came quickly enough (took us 1.5-2 hours to complete the main canyon) and we had some lunch atop the waterfalls (I think it was about 3:30pm, or maybe even 4:30pm at this point). We abseiled down Arethusa Falls and started climbing our way down the creek (large boulders, lots of negotiating a way through it all) to the small waterfall which marked our exit from the creek up to the cliffline.

We took our wetsuits off, rinsed the sand out of our shoes, and started the stupidly steep climb straight up to the cliffline. The path was occasionally there, regularly not, then after a short while of traversing along the cliffline, it simply ceased to exist. It was hard going as the ground was steeply falling away to the right constantl, we were walking on loose dirt/rocks/scree with very few plants around to either hold on to or to stabilise the dirt, and where there were plants, they were usually sharp, spiky, thorny plants which just made things unpleasant. (Lawyer Palms? Not sure if they were or not, but there was one particular type of vine with razor sharp thorns on it which liked to trip you over and cut your legs open at the same time)

We kept trudging along this damn cliffline for hours, forever certain that just around the next bed…surely Beauchamp Falls would be just there… but it just kept not happening. Bush bashing, on an uneven unstable ground, with a group of 5, makes the shortest distances take so much longer. This wall section was less than 2.5km, but it took us around 5 hours to get to Greaves Creek. After 3 it was obvious that nightfall was coming, and we started to lose group Morale. There was talk of setting up camp and waiting until morning. Where we could ’set up camp’ exactly was another problem in itself - there was not an inch of flat ground anywhere, and getting down from this cliffline presented its own set of problems - the further down you went, the steeper, rockier, and dodgier it got.

The simple fact was, that getting stuck on this hillside wasn’t an option, and we had to press on. It was obvious though, that the situation had destroyed morale - we had been walking for several hours, it wasn’t fun walking, it was uncomfortable and a few of us had already run out of water. The group was moving slower, fatigue was setting in, and as light was failing, the risk of accident was rapidly increasing.

I wanted to get down to the creek below us, because I knew that the other side of the creek was a walking track. A walking track would resolve all of our morale issues, and simply prove that we could make it out tonight. I picked a line down the hillside, always moving towards Beauchamp Falls, and managed to get incredibly lucky by finding myself at a point above the river which wasn’t too difficult to get down into the ankle deep water. I reached the creek bank just as it got so dark that I had to pull my headlamp out.

Rob had a headlamp, I had a headlamp and a spare mini LED torch, and trev had a small torch too - Ifound the route across the creek, then guided everyone across. Alan climbed up the other side, and immediately found the path - I can’t express in mere words just how incredibly super duper holy crap releived I was. Nightfall was breaking point. If we didn’t reach the creek just as night fell, there was a good chance we wouldn’t have been able to convince the group to keep moving. Reaching the creek was a good start, but if the track wasn’t immediately on the other side - if we had to climb up the ridge for several hundred meters or something stupid like that, it could have been just as bad. But there it was. We had the track, and we had enough light (sort of - 4 light sources, 5 people) to follow it. Only another 2 hours of walking uphill to go! And all of us out fo water…

The trip from there was otherwise uneventful. We filled up a bottle with some running water as a safety, but rationed out the last 500ml water which rob had between us occasionally. And walked our way back up Rodriguez Pass Walking track to the Grand Canyon Walking track, then onto Pilcher Trail, finally walking back to the car along the dirt road. We got out first bit of phone reception on Pilcher trail at 10:30pm, and got messages out to loved ones telling them that we were alive, not injured, and everything was fine - call off the resuce parties! We got back to the cars at about 11:20pm, and have never been happier to be at the end of a days canyoning.

Better yet, we even managed to drive the two hours home (we all live in Sydney) without falling asleep while driving!

See Also:

• Arethusa Canyon Guide Article
• Arethusa Canyon Trip Photo Album