05/03/2016
Canyoners: Kylie, Alie, Blair, Ben, Aidan, Alastar, Safrinah, Amanda, Michael, Josh, Sydney, Khalid, Stephen, Charlton, Daniel, Liam.
So, sign ups for this trip kept growing and growing… and as more cars became available more people could come. Eventually we set out with 16 of us, a fairly large canyoning group. After many kilometers along a dusty (and some can vouch verrrry dusty) dirt road we arrived at the car park. It was a perfect canyoning day, not so hot that you overheat walking but not so cold that you only want to avoid the water. we headed off and 10 minutes into the walk in we had our first casualty. Sydney managed to walk into a tree branch and chip her tooth which was followed by lots of banter to break the ice between everyone who had just met each other. After Kylie sussed out that she was alright to continue with the canyon we geared up and got ready to take our first cold plunge.
Twister was full of lots of slides and little jumps and the sun always appeared just as people were starting to get cool. We met a few other friendly groups on our way and they passed us as we were a large and consequently slow group. Twister was a great opportunity for people to find their canyoning legs before we headed off to Rocky Creek. We ended twister with a cool drop into a small pool before descending down a hand line to the end of the canyon.
At the start of Rocky Creek we had lunch no. 1, where we picnicked with a local yabbi. It was a perfectly sunny spot to take a group photo, unfortunately Khalid couldn’t make it into his own photo, we might have to photo shop him in somewhere… Rocky creek started with either an accurate jump into a pool or a small decent down another hand line. Some people took the hand line then came back up for a jump later on.
Rocky creek had some lovely wades and easy walking for the first section, which was darker and enclosed. Eventually we found a large open rock in the sun with a slide and some jumps to have lunch no. 2. We spent a decent portion of time here sliding and jumping off the rock.
From lunch no. 2 we continued onwards, after a few minutes we experienced a traffic jam as the groups ahead of us had found a baby brown snake. Onward, the canyon only got colder with many more swims, until we reached a section where we had to bridge over a slight undercut. Ben, Aidan, Blair and Kylie rigged a safety line for people to use if they needed, and everyone crossed the undercut safely, yay! After the undercut came the loooong and cold swim however we were all pleased to find the end of the canyon had a sunny sandy spot for lunch no. 3. where another local joined us for lunch, this one was a little green frog.
After much chit chat we all headed back through Rocky Creek, remembering to say hi to the brown snake as we passed it again on the way back.
The walkout was short and simple, yet we were all happy to return to the car and our dry clothes. Overall it was an awesome day and a great team of people!
Thanks to Sydney, Khalid, and Stephen for taking the photos 🙂