Trip Report - Festival of Canyons 22 - 23 November 2008
This weekend is organised by UTS Outdoor Adventure Club each year. This year it was held at Newnes in the Wolgan Valley on the western side of Wollemi National Park.
Bad weather was forecast (including snow and sleet) - so total numbers where down a bit. However more than 30 turned up from clubs at UTS, ANU, UNSW and SUBW.
Photos for the trips I was on are at -
http://www.david-noble.net/canyoning/2008/FOC/FoC08.html
and
http://www.david-noble.net/canyoning/2008/FOC/FoCDay2.html
Saturday
Party - Albert, Kim, Martin, Steffy, Rosa, Helen, Duncan, Rob, Magda, Alejandro, Rik, Mark, Dave, Sharon and 3 others from UTSOAC
We climbed up the Pipeline Track and visited Newnes Canyon. This involved one abseil to get into the creek valley and then one abseil into the canyon. To facilitate this we set up two ropes and had concurrent abseiling. Then followed a walk through the Amazing Wallaby Tunnel. Lots of glow worms were observed and Albert was rained on by a "golden shower" (see photos). After the tunnel - the creek was more of a conventional canyon until it opened up at a nice cave -a good place for lunch (jaffles)
After lunch we continued down the creek and entered the Wolgan Valley. We descended to the river and then walked back to Newnes.
There we enjoyed a great dinner, washed down by suitable (and more then ample....) refreshments.
Sunday - we woke up to a very cold morning with light rain. So our group decided to visit a dry canyon. Many of the other parties asked if they could join us - so we ended up with a very big party. But the canyon was very easy. A short walk up the hill, then along a dry creek bed - and then into the slot of the canyon. Then back down it - till we found a nice dry cave for lunch (more jaffles)
It was a cold weekend for canyoning - but a very enjoyable one.
Dave Noble
