Bob and myself were keen on some more canyoning, and the weather forecast was not too bad, so we set off up the Mountains with the plan on first visiting Dargans Creek Canyon at Clarence, and then, if time permitted we planned to visit the small Cicada Canyon near Lithgow.
Dargans Creek Canyon
This canyon is very good value as the canyon is easy to get into and back out of. So a good ratio of value to effort.
Rather than walk in from the lower dam, we found a relatively easy pass down into the creek not long before the first set of swims. Then it was a short walk to the start of the main canyon section. It begins with a massive pile of logs.
Not long after this is the only drop.
This is short hand over hand using a bit of fixed tat.
The east bit of the canyon is really nice. There is often beautiful reflected light here, so I got out my main camera and tripod.
Back to the phone camera for the next bit –
The canyon ends with this swim –
Now back to the main camera and tripod, after the swim is finished. Here the canyon opens up into a nice chamber. Looking back up the swim –
Then we tackled the exit gully –
And the spiked tree –
Cicada Canyon
This small canyon is near the Zig Zag, and is reached via Bells Road at Lithgow (or Oakley Park – a suburb of Lithgow). We followed the road to just past the Water Treatment Plant, then left the main creek (Farmers Creek) and followed a rough road, then a rough, overgrown track up the creek.
We soon reached Cicada Falls –
We climbed around a boulder to get up to the top of the falls, and then continued through the miniature canyon. It was nice and pretty, but not that spectacular.
On the way up. we had found signs of an old water pipeline – supports and metal staples in places. Here we found a section of pipe –
And then we reached the old dam.
It was a bit tricky, but we managed to climb up. The dam is silted up, but the valley was easy to climb out of, so we scrambled up to an old power line access road, then followed that back to the Water Plant back in the valley. The last bit was extremely steep!
This was a short, but very pleasant excursion.
On the way back to Lithgow, Bob was keen to visit an old culvert under the railway line. This culvert is also the lower access route to Ida Falls.
