Monday the 26th of November I drove up to the Gloucester Caravan Park where I was to meet three other guys from the UNSW Outdoors Club who arrived on the previous day. I missed the first days paddling, but that wasn’t such a bad thing as most of the day was on flat water or really small short rapids anyway.

The second day we got an early start and headed out along Barrington East Road, onto Westley’s Road and followed that all the way to its end, where a short 4wd track drops down to an old wooden bridge. We dropped the kayaks and gear there, then took a car down river to where Barrington West Road crosses the river at Rocky Crossing. Driving back to the start we got in the boats and headed off downriver. The water level was perfect - enough water to cover everything but not so much water that it was too dangerous for us beginners.

As the only member of the party who could confidently eskimo roll, I found that having the skill was a slight advantage, but not so important. Very rarely was the water depth around the rapids actually greater than 20-30cm - not enough room to actually roll upside down no matter how badly you stuff up, and always easy enough to rescue your boat should you be forced to eject.

This section of the river is graded 1 to 2, which means that you basically face some fast moving water at grade one, and some small drops which may require some manoeuvring around rocks at grade two. Certainly nothing too daunting, and the sort of river anyone with some basic paddling skills could probably have a go on (of course, so long as they have the right gear!). The rapids came often, and made the paddling interesting all day. A couple of the guys had to eject from their boats on some tricky drops, but there were no real problems. We set a really relaxed pace the whole day, never really pushing ourselves, and managed to reach ‘The Steps’ by about 2pm.

The Steps are the most well known part of the Barrington River, with several successive small drops (like steps…duh) which make some really nice rapids. We all managed to make it down the steps without incident, than proceeded downstream for a couple more hours to get to where the car was parked at Rocky Crossing.

The third day he went further upstream, where the rapids are even more common and more frequently larger. We set up a car at ‘The Cove’ (a few hundred meters downstream from the Steps) and then launched the kayaks from up on the Cobark river just before it joins up with the Barrington. The first km or so was a little difficult because we were in quite shallow water, so there was a lot of bottoming out on the river bottom. Not long though and we were back into the real flowing water of the Barrington.

There was one really stand out rapid in this upstream section which would probably classify as a grade 3 drop, although that is really all it was, a single drop. But all of the water focussed into this narrow channel and then went over a drop off of a few feet. It stood out as much larger than all of the rapids encountered on the previous day and was quite exhilarating.

Anyway, the day was quite a long day. We set it up to overlap with the previous days paddling, and we ended just below the Steps, so we had another chance to go over them. Just to demonstrate how accessible the rapids are on Barrington, Ian, the group leader who had done this trip previously, actually went down the Steps backwards. (You’ll see it in the video which will follow this post…)

The two days total paddling all went really well - there were no injuries, things flowed smoothly, and we were lucky enough to have nice hot sunny days the whole time. A great trip for anyone who wants to have an interesting kayaking trip and has some basic skills and the right equipment. If you would like to do it yourself but lack the equipment or someone to take you down the river, then there are a few companies which specialise in kayaking or canoe trips down the river. Canoe Barrington is one of the major companies, while the Barrington Outdoor Adventure Centre takes groups down the river amongst other activities.

See Also

• Barrington River in the TDMSKP Guide
• Photo Gallery of our trip down the Barrington River
• Video footage to follow

Here is the video footage from Juggler Canyon.

Is was a stinking hot day on November the 20th 2007, the day which we had set aside to do Juggler Canyon (sometimes known as Pilcher Canyon). We drove to the Katoomba Airfield, turned off onto the 4wd track and drove to the powerlines - only to quickly realise that we had misread the directions after searching in vain for the path. We drove back up the dodgy 4wd track and parked the car in the obvious car space and walked down the other fork of the road this time, as directed by Rick Jamieson’s guidebook.

The walk in was pretty quick - before you knew it we were scrambling down this wet moss covered rockface, trying not to slip and fall. We managed to make it over the first obstacle without needing to pull out and set up the ropes, and then we proceeded down the canyon, scrambling over rocks and fallen trees for quite as long time before eventually reaching the first abseil.

The first abseil was really nice. Crystal clear water flowing into a beautiful clear pool at the bottom (which we all did our best to avoid stepping in!). Immediately upon hitting the bottom of that abseil the second abseil was within sight up ahead on the ledge to the left. Abseiling down that, we realised that there was a second drop off just beside us which would be a little too difficult to abseil down, so we decided to just continue the one abseil over it rather than setting up a second 3-4m abseil. And once again, immediately upon finishing that abseil, the third abseil was not far off from another ledge on the left hand side of the canyon.

The third abseil is the largest, a little over 20m high and all overhanging (gloves really help I discovered). The exit is indeed quite tricky when you use the bottom anchor point; there are two anchors on the same tree - One around the roots, and one from a branch up at about stomach height. We opted to use the bottom one because that would be the most secure/safest anchor, however it is quite clear why the higher anchor is there, the lower anchor makes the immediate overhang exit very difficult when your anchor is below your center of gravity. You have to be able to commit and just let yourself drop a meter or two to clear the overhang. Anyway, the abseil proceeded fine and brought the abseiling section of the canyon to an end.

The rest of the canyon was just more scrambling over rocks and fallen trees - sometimes the rock scrambles were quite difficult with large slippery areas where it was difficult to stop yourself from sliding down a small drop onto rocks. We managed to make it through without any broken ankles though, and when we reached the tourist trail on the other side of the main creek, we walked downstream to Beauchamp Falls and had lunch there.

Walking back upstream from the falls we managed to get lost a couple of times, following the wrong branch of the track - once it turned back and followed the cliffline, which led us to a large rockslide to the left side of Beauchamp Falls. We walked back to the creek and followed it upstream onto realise that we were meant to cross to the otherside at some point, but we missed it. Nonetheless we managed to get back on the tourist track easy enough in the end and walked up to near the end of Grand Canyon where we easily found the trail which took us back to our car.

• Juggler Canyon Guide
• Juggler Canyon Photos 

It was a bright shiny day up at Wentworth Falls on the 14th of November as we headed towards the upper section of Empress Canyon. We walked to Edinburgh Castle Rock, then a short walk around to the bottom of it and we dropped into the gulley through the hanging swamp (which we later learnt shouldn’t be done any more because of the ecological impact on it from the erosion).

Happy to be in the creek finally, somewhat out of the direct sunlight and heat, the water was beautiful and refreshing on the feet. After walking in the small stream for maybe 30 minutes we eventually reached the first obstacle - a waterfall over a chock stone which needs a hand over hand rope down into the shallow water below. I personally find hand over hand ropes to be about the most difficult thing to master in canyoning - The problem with them is that you have to be able to hold your entire weight on one hand, on a small rope (while lowering your second rope down to the next knot) while usually in awkward positions jammed up against large boulders. To make it worse, you usually have to do this over large jagged rocks under an indeterminate depth of water, so if you slip or let go, you are probably going to twist, sprain or break an ankle. Luckily none of that has happened on any of my canyoning trips so far though, and hopefully it never will!

After climbing down this waterfall, I attempted to get another photo under a waterfall (like the classic photo we got from Serendipity canyon the week before). None of the photos we took really turned out, but looking back on the series of photos clearly marked where it was that I lost my camera… You see, I bought this you-beaut little head mounted video camera to wear when canyoning so that I could hopefully capture some spontaneous footage to put into the video logs from each canyon. It wasn’t overly expensive, but it wasn’t free either. Anyway, I forgot that I was wearing it (un-secured more importantly) and while I was trying to stick myself underneath this waterfall, apparently the camera came off my head. I didn’t realise this until right near the end of Empress… So by now either someone has found it, or there is still a video camera sitting at the bottom of this waterfall waiting for someone to fish it out. Not sure whether its waterproofness can stand up to several weeks or months of being submerged (pretty sure it can’t) but maybe it still works….

Anyway, on with the canyon. Shortly after the hand over hand there was a nice 4m or so jump in onto a sandy bottomed pool which ends the upper section of the canyon. Immediately after that jump in you cross the walking trail which brings people down into Lillians Glen. The track crosses the stream again and that is where the main canyon starts.

A beautiful waterfall and pool are just off to the side of the start of the canyon, so we took a group photo there before heading into the canyon. As we entered we crossed paths with a large tour group. We didn’t want to get stuck behind them on the abseils at the end, so we pushed through the rest of the canyon pretty quickly. We also met Owain there, who is an old member of the University of New South Wales Outdoors club (or the Bushwalking and Mountaineering Club (BMC) as it was known back in the day). He is now leading tour groups through canyons around the mountains (and probably rock climbing and anything else you could want to do), so if you are inexperienced at canyoning and want to hire someone to guide you through it, be sure to ask for Owain!

All of Empress was quite fun. There was nothing particularly difficult about any section of it, but there were several small jump ins, several short swims and all of the usual fun stuff you get in canyons. Then when you reach the end and look out over the final abseil, it takes your breath away. After walking through such a narrow canyon for so long the open exposure you encounter as you look out over this huge drop is quite startling. The abseil actually isn’t very difficult at all (be careful of your fingers as you go over the lip) because you get a couple of ledges to stand on an a sloping wall to walk down most of the way, but before you get a chance to look down the actual drop, and when you see it for the first time, it can be quite frightening to consider going over the edge…

While we were setting up our abseil rope, I climbed back up and jumped into the pool a few meters back from the abseil. Its a nice 5m or so jump, and I have no idea how deep it is in the pool (I didn’t touch), but that is something you can do while awaiting your turn to abseil over the waterfall.

Once we were down the bottom of the falls it was the usual change of clothes out of the wetsuits, repacking our packs, and the slugging it out straight up a zillion steps up the cliff face taking us back to the top of the ridge where we walked back to our car.

A great canyon for an easy day’s trip. Very accessible, but also quite crowded for that same reason. Obviously some experience abseiling is a must before attempting the abseil at the end of the canyon, although it should be noted that it is possible to walk back up the canyon and walk back out the way you came down.

• Empress Canyon Guide
• Complete Empress Canyon Photo Gallery