Apologies for delays on writing this, it will make sense as you read the report.
It started out, as these things tend to, at around sunrise on a Saturday morning. Once we had worked out what gear people needed to borrow and had it in their hot little hands it was time to send up an advance party to do Twister and Rocky Creek. With 5 people out of the way it was time to divvy up everyone else into cars. This proved to be a little more challenging that one would have hoped for, so we had to call in the reserve forces (much thanks to Jiri for taking his car up). Now we had this all under control it was time to head out.
The predictability of the canyoner was displayed when every car that was driving up to Newnes managed to pull into the North Richmond Bakery at about the same time.
Arriving at the Deep Pass car park and sorting out a couple of teething problems, getting all our gear down to the campsite was the next order of the day. From here we sent anyone who had some warm gear off to Twister and Rocky Creek while the rest of us pottered around the campsite for a bit then headed up to have a look at the canyon in Deep Pass. It was at about the end of this canyon that the rain kicked in and a very hurried run back to the campsite to make sure that anything left uncovered was quickly put under fly’s or in tents.
Come dinner time with the rain still pouring down it was time to swap stories from the day just gone. There were some exciting tales of thrills and spills (a couple even caught on video) and a new found awareness that it sometimes helps to ask if people can swim before sending them off to a wet canyon to go with the jaffles that night. With a decent enough fire and a couple of glasses of Chateau le Cardboard under our belts, not even the rain was going to stop people from sitting around for a good time.
Day 2 saw a few people heading back to town for some early commitments and the rest dispersing for a day of excitement and adventure. The people without abseiling experience made their way out towards the Glow Worm Tunnel to get a first hand look at how nature loves to works its way around mans efforts. Everyone else split up into 2 groups, those with a decent bit of abseiling experience and some gear headed off towards Galah Canyon while the rest moved off towards Tiger Snake Canyon.
The team who did Tiger Snake reported back that it lived up to its namesake and had a tiger snake in the canyon for everyone to have a bit of a peek at.
As for those who did Galah, the day went pretty smoothly until it came time for the climb out. Your intrepid report writer was the first to head up the hand line on the cliff only to discover that someone had pulled it up a bit on their way through and left a lot of slack in the top which wasn’t noticed due to a knot being caught in a crack. After a very lucky fall onto a ledge rather than off the main cliff that was cushioned by a skull and hand it was time for us all to head up a now safe hand line. Some Ibuprofen and bandage and a pleasant stroll later and we were back at the cars and ready for a trip off to hospital. There was a well deserved break for food at the Blackheath Fish and Chip shop on the way back.
All in all it was a pretty successful trip and as far as any of the leaders could tell we didn’t manage to scare anyone away from the club (but oh how we tried).
– Craig (Wilmo)