Participants: Bojana, Brendan, Cooper, Daniel, David, Elliot, Maddi, Nadav and Sophie. Report by Daniel, Comments by Brendan.
Intro
After a year of the Victorian canyoning guidebook sitting on my coffee table, the summer holidays provided a perfect time to get down south and put the book to use. The call went around and a keen group of canyoners was formed from UNSWOC and NUMC (Newcastle Uni mountaineering club). Mount Buffalo appeared to have the highest density of canyons (and was a closer drive) so our location was set. Dates were picked between Christmas and New year's, with people arriving down in Victoria as soon as Christmas family duties were fulfilled.
As the trip drew nearer, my eyes turned to the forecast. 15-50 mm of rain was forecast on Christmas day, with another 10mm each day after threatening to cancel the trip. All through Christmas lunch and boxing day I was stealing glanced at the BOM radar and river gauge. Fortunately there was only 19mm of rain at Mount Buffalo and the river levels peaked at 1.4m, within the 1.3 to 1.6 m range suggested in the guidebook. The forecast updated and no more rain was predicted for the trip, we were on!
Lake Cattani looked like the nicest campground, but we planned things too last minute and it was booked out. Instead we stayed at Ah Youngs (free, no booking), located in the Buckland River valley, near the bottom of a few of the canyons. The campground could have been nice, but it was packed full of people and we ended up squeezed in between the toilets and the horses. As the wind changed, we got to experience the lovely scents of horse poop and human excrement (the horses smelt much better). We were also serenaded each night by renditions of "Fight for your right to paaaartyyyyy". Drones flighing over at 7am, some bloke drying his clothes with a leaf blower at 8am, 4WDs revving throughout the day, bogans partying at night and screaming children at 11pm. I've never loved my earplugs more. Elliot had never scored a higher sleep score in his life.
Eurobin Falls
The 27th of Dec finally rolled around and after a strong "Alpine" 12pm start, Nadav, Brendan and I headed off from the carpark to do Eurobin falls. This canyon was the shortest and least commiting canyon in the region (save the 20 minute training canyon) so a good pick for gauging water levels and the accuracy of the guidebook. It also let us check the flows in Crystal Brook, which joins Eurobin Creek at the carpark (Crystal Brook canyon doesn't go all this way though). Eurobin falls was a fun ramble down some sloping slabs, with R5 to R8 the highlight. The thread in R1 was blocked up so we ended up using a fiddlesticks for that drop (it was optional anyway). However on the pulldown for R5 I got the rope stuck in the small slot section. It looked like a relatively easy scramble to retrieve the rope so I headed up, with Brendan belaying me as a back up. After slipping down into the pool at the base, I managed to get up and unstuck the rope. A bight of the rope had looped behind a chockstone and was held in place by the force of the water. Wow. I then got to do a fun jump slide down the wall into the pool at the base and continue through the canyon. A bit of rain rolled in as we went down the last open slabs, I really enjoyed watching all the streamlets appear and snake down the face. Then after one last strenuous pull down, we had ticked out first Victorian canyon. It's all about the angle of the pull!
Légère Déscente
Maddi, Cooper, Elliot and Bojana arrived that night and, after much discussion, we set Légère Déscente (v4a3I*) as the next goal. Nadav was out though, spending time with his fiance. We dropped a car at the bottom and headed up top, marveling at the view of Running Jump Creek (v4a4III**) on the way. We then fought our way down a steep spur, dropping into the creek at 970m elevation. We soon found out this was a mistake, as we had a very slow going hour through the creek. We reached the canyon proper at around 800m elevation and commenced our leisurely descent. Not much to say about this one, road in was fine, canyon was straightforward, no sharp edges or tricky bits. Best bit was the last 4 abseils, just after Running Jump came in, building stoke for our planned 1 day push of the 34 pitches in Running Jump. The bush bash in was harder than expected and left us all tired, so we headed to the brewery in Bright for a feed, some beer and early night.
Crystal Brook
David and Sophie arrived next and the party split into 2, with Brendan, Cooper, Maddi, Nadav and I headed out to do Crystal Brook (v5a5V***). After a slow start to the morning, we headed up top and had our wetsuits on in the Chalet car park at 11am. While wetsuiting up, we had a brief chat with a couple of guys headed to do Running Jump over the next 2 days, we wondered if we'd meet them in the canyon the next day. Hitting the tourist track, we first went down into the creek to look for bolts, before realising the notes were referring to a massive boulder above the creek. We got up top and had a chat with a crew of highliners who were walking a 60m line across the gorge, and another crew of climbers rapping in to a climb at The Waterfall South Side. Both anchors were in use so we waited and I rigged off the captive rings further back (the climbers used this anchor).
Maddi went down first, heading down and towards the creek. She looked up, down and around but could not find the anchor mentioned in the notes. After lowering her much past the expected 38m, she found a single bolt and a good block to sling, rigging the next anchor. We then started to send everyone down, as I cooked in my 5mm wetsuit up top in the sun. It was pretty awesome watching the highliners walked as we all rapped in. I went down last, tying an extra 20m handlines to the pull strand. Unfortunately this was not enough so I pulled all the tat out of my bag and got most of the way down to the next anchor, getting some more rope passed up to make the anchor. We realised we were off route, but Brendan and Cooper had found the next 2 anchors below.
Nadav, Maddi and I then tried to pull the rope but it would not budge. We tried full body weight with ascenders but there was no movement. Nadav eventually ascended the rope to find the issue, but realised that our off route abseil just had an awful pull down. During this we hear Nadav scream "ROCK" and I hear something crack onto Maddi's helmet. Fortunately it was just a branch, but Maddi was a bit rattled. At 12:30pm we decided to leave the rope and get it later, as we each had a 60+ m rope. Unfortunately this left Cooper standing on a small ledge for a total of 50 minutes, getting soaked by the spray of the waterfall.
I zipped down to Cooper's anchor to check on him and help get him off the small, wet, belay stance. Nadav came right after and went down first, as he had the next rope. We were expecting another anchor on the way down but Nadav soon realised we could just go all the way to the false floor so Cooper and I lowered him down to the bottom. Cooper then zipped down as I took over his soggy anchor, enjoying the clumps of moss raining down on me as Maddi then Brendan abseiled down. When Maddi got to me, she told me that she didn't feel too good and had a headache + nausea, especially after the hit to the head. We took a moment, Maddi had a drink and I performed a quick memory check, fearing concussion. Maddi had been feeling average all day but felt a bit better after a drink, so we decided she should continue on down rather than continue getting sprayed on the tiny ledge.
I took Maddi's rope for the pull down and she set off. I was next and super stoked for what looked like the best pitch, straight in the flow!! As I stepped out into the main flow, my foot slid down into a constriction and the chunky bestard boot got stuck - leaving me getting waterboarded. I locked off my device, found a good stance and had to use all my weight to get the bugger out! We had all then made it to the false floor and carefully navigated around the pools of water which were likely hiding siphons. The last 2 abseils were straight forward and we enjoyed the stunning views of the massive falls and highlighters traversing above us. I enjoyed the novelty of having reception in a canyon and responded to a missed call from mum, making sure to turn video on.
Maddi and I then found a good lunch spot, having finished the canyon at 2:15pm. Nadav and Cooper followed, before turning back to check on Brendan who got left behind dealing with the last abseil. Brendan was fine, but we should have left a buddy with him for his abseil/pull. This is for safety, but also to speed up the pulling and flaking of the rope. We then enjoyed some of the most stunning views, looking longingly at Ozymandias and some of the other mega climbing lines. A brief interlude of the famous Groove Train song at 900m on the climb out broke up the journey. Even I (Brendan) was stoked to climb after seeing those walls.
We got back to the cars at [around 6] and went to retrieve the stuck rope. Unfortunately this also got stuck halfway through retrieval, so Brendan abseiled down to fix it as Nadav and Cooper cleaned up a broken camera and tripod from the creek. All in all this was an absolutely amazing day, with awesome waterfall abseiling and stunning views. Three stars for the power of the water and the interesting and stunning climb out!
Running Jump
The finale for the trip was Running Jump Creek, a mega canyon with over 900m of abseiling in 34 pitches - and 0 m of ascent!! I think this canyon may have the most contiguous abseils in Australia??The whole group was keen for this one. We discussed ropes and start times, settling on n - 1 ropes and a 5am leave time (much to Nadav's chagrin). We somehow managed to make the 5am start, dropping 2 cars at the bottom and piling into another 2 for the hour drive to the top.
After some more faffing about at the top, we hit the tourist track between 6:30 and 6:45 am (David, Sophie and I went ahead to set the first abseil). After taking in the stunning views of the high country above the clouds, we walked into the creek and found the first 2 drops. Shortly after this we were to encounter the crux of the trip - a 600m creek walk with steep slopes, crumbly rock and dense subalpine scrub. Brendan felt right at home after all his time on the AAWT. Just after 8am, the view started to open up and Cooper said the magic words over the radio "abseil, abseil abseil!"
Now it was go time. Over the next 7 hours we blasted through the 34 pitches, leapfrogging past each other down the open granite falls. We ended up skipping around 5 abseils by scrambling down, aiming to move as efficiently as possible. Ther person at the front would rig their pitch and wait for everyone else to go through, working with the second last person to pull and coil the rope at the bottom. They then got to shoot forward, enjoying up to 8 back-to-back abseils with stunning views into the Buckland Valley. The anchor manager also relayed hazards/beta back to the group, I managed R6 which had a small siphon at the base (could be bad in higher flow) and R22 which had a giant python by the pool at the bottom. Rope length was set after the first person went down on most drops, although we didn't bother on some of the super straightforward drops. Whistles and hand signals were super useful for communicating. The granite edges were quite sharp, so I ended up bleeding the rope on most abseils.
The leapfrog method meant we each got a nice break at our anchors, giving plenty of time for snacks and photo phaffing. A highlight for me was lying in the sun and eating a leftover burrito with amazing views of the valley ahead, and our efficient team descending behind. Definitely gonna do canyon burritos again (double wrapped in tinfoil and tucked in the keg, no leaking water in or bean juice out)! At my next anchor (R22) I enjoyed Elliot finding a creative way to hand sign snake - a wiggly dance and stabbing fangs. However when Brendan came down later he signed something that looked like water going over an edge. I nodded this and put my fist on my head to confirm, yes there was an abseil here. However Brendan was trying to ask if it was a jump and took a hard landing into a shallow pool, hurting his left shin. This was particularly ironic given that the two of us had spent an hour or two of the drive down discussing and confirming signals, we had missed jump. Fortunately Brendan was OK but was in a fair bit of pain. We ended up carrying his rope to lighten his pack. Jumps can very easily lead to injury in canyons and it's super important to be very careful and clear about jumping. Brendan and I are putting together a canyon communication cheat sheet (will link here when done). Note that there aren't any internationally agreed upon conventions for canyoning, so it's important to go over these each time you go out with a group.
At R29 we looked down to see a party ahead of us, the 2 guys from the Carpark yesterday. They had spent the night bivvying in the bush near R13 and I was pretty chuffed to have caught up to them. Since we were 9 and near the end of the canyon, we waited back behind them for the rest of the canyon. I was pretty stoked to have caught up to the other party, we were all moving pretty efficiently!
Cooper, Elliot and I headed down the last section of canyon first, planning to zip ahead and get the cars back. By this point it was around 3pm and hopes of making the pub for dinner were high. Cooper took an extra rope off the rest of the group to help Brendan out, battling through the last section of creek walk with 100+ m of rope. We passed the overnight group and powered down the walk out, happy to have already done it after Légère Déscente. We hit the cars at around 4:45pm, clocking in at 10 hours according to Elliot's watch. The others came out an hour later and a couple keen beans headed down to check out training canyon while waiting for us to get back with the cars. All in all this was an amazing day, two stars for the back-to-back abseils, fun in the sun, and great views. Why did we get up so early @Elliot??? We made the pub with time to spare!!
