Canyoning in the Blue Mountains

So, it's been a while since I've written, and a lot has happened. I had Easter break, and it was amazing. Here's a recap:

We left Friday morning to drive the super long drive to the Blue Mountains (North of Sydney). In the car, we had Alaster, Claire, G, Chris, Me, and way way too much gear. So, needless to say, it was a friendly drive!

We camped at a very nice campground. The scenery in the Blue Mountains is breathtaking! We started out with a short, relatively easy canyon on the first day since we were very beginner canyoners. Empress Canyon was amazing! Here is a guidebook description: short car drive, easy and short walks in and out, easy navigation, jumps, slides, scrambles, swims, nice constricted sections, and a great 30m waterfall abseil. To stay warm in the canyons, I wore two pairs of thermals underneath my full wetsuit. It is still quite chilly. The 30m abseil at the end was definitely crazy awesome! We got to abseil straight down the waterfall. It's a little disorienting trying to get down safely while water is falling on your head, but it is an exhilarating experience! Here is a link to a page describing this canyon with an amazing photo of the last abseil:
http://www.alternatezone.com/canyoning/empress.htm

Our second day of canyoning on Easter didn't go quite as smoothly. We started a full day canyon called Four Dope at around 1:30pm. That was our first mistake. For some reason, we seemed to think that we were better and quicker than other canyoners and could finish canyons in record time. The hike in was very difficult as the guidebook gave directions something like, "Follow the trail until it disappears. Then go south a ways till you hit a ridge and go eastish for a while until you find a tree. Turn left and find another ridge. Somehow make it down and hopefully find an overgrown creek to follow to the canyon." Luckily, Alaster is a navigation mastermind, so we never got completely lost. Nevertheless, it still took us over three hours of bush-bashing to make it to the canyon. The first abseil was definitely one of the best of the whole trip. We abseiled down a waterfall into an enclosed canyon with a cave behind the waterfall. By the time everyone got down, we realized it was ten past five and already dim in the canyon. We still had three more abseils, so it was very obvious we would be completing this canyon in the dark. We were worried that our emergency contact back home would call search and rescue before we got back to say we were out alive, so we knew we had to hurry. Completing the canyon in the dark was actually very surreal, but you could tell that it would be breathtaking in the light. We even saw glowworms! At one point, G fell down a hole in a huge rock formation and was hanging basically by his elbows and helmet. Chris pulled him out of the hole, but it was a very scary realization that we were going to have to be extra careful in the dark. We finished the canyon, hiked up a river and climbed up a mountain to get out. We made it back to the car at about 11pm, and although search and rescue had been notified of our late return, they hadn't started looking for us, so it was all good. We slept very soundly that night.

The next day, we had a rest day. It rained constantly. Pretty much all our clothes were damp. I learned how to play 500. We napped. We made s'mores. We gave up and let the fire get drenched. Nice Lebanese people gave us delicious Lebanese food. All in all, good day. Wen-Jie arrived on the train late that night, so we were up to 6 canyoners.

The third canyon, North Bowen's Creek Lower Section, was definitely my favorite. Because of all the rain the previous day, the canyon was flowing strong, and there was a good mix of wading through sections of strong current, climbing over boulders, and abseiling down beautiful waterfalls. Because of all the water, it was definitely cold! There were three other canyoners we met at the car who were also doing this canyon. They were relatively inexperienced and seemed rather nervous. We passed them in the canyon, and when we got back to the car (before nightfall. Success!!), the search and rescue team showed up asking us if we had seen the three lost bushwalkers. Apparently, they had turned back at the beginning of the canyon and somehow gotten lost getting back (we still don't know how that was possible). We gave the all the information we knew about their gear, fitness, experience level, and supplies and headed back to camp feeling a little bad about not helping them out in the canyon. However, Alaster had volunteered to hike in to rescue them since he is on the volunteer search and rescue team back in Victoria. The next morning, as we were preparing for our next canyon, the search and rescue chopper landed in front of our tents. They guys had spent the night out in the mountains, wet, freezing cold, and miserable, and they were going to airlift them out with the chopper that morning. Alaster was mad, because seeing as the guys had cell phone reception and the chopper had spotted them camped out on a cliff, they could have told them, "Walk up the hill until you come to the road," and they would have gotten out last night. I was just jealous because getting rescued by a search and rescue chopper is free! Jealous!

The last canyon we did was fun, but not as cool as the others. The abseil at the end was 40m, and beautiful! You could see out from the top of a mountain into the valley below, and it was breathtaking. I had to leave that day as well to catch the train to Sydney to meet Bill and Paul. We took some photos in the canyons with an underwater camera, but most didn't come out that well. The photos just don't show the true extent of what we did. They can't capture the breathtaking sights and extreme sections we made it through. Imagine a beautiful postcard of a giant canyon with a waterfall. That's what we did. Link to pictures (I'm in the blue helmet):
http://www2.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=488783009/a=53093359_53093359/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish