Bob was back from a few months working in USA and was keen to get out in the bush. He suggested a canyon. The forecast was for cooler weather and perhaps with some showers, so we chose to visit Koombandah Canyon near Bell.
Bob parked at the turn off to the old coal mine at Hartley Vale on the Darling Causeway. We then set off along the railway access road on the eastern side of the line. We soon arrived at the heath covered knoll. There we left the road and climbed up onto the knoll and then descended to our creek on the east. It was mainly easy going.
Once in the creek, we followed it downstream to where the canyon starts. Early on there was a short drop that could be climbed down – into a cave with a pool next to it. Here we followed a ledge and then had to do a jump into chest deep water.
A little further downstream was the paper start to the canyon. With a 3 – 4 m drop into a pool. A belay point was nearby, so we used a handline to climb down to the pool, then had to swim across.
A little further downstream was a short abseil. There were several possible belay points for this, and we chose to use a long, recently placed sling that would allow us to abseil down a black hole to a pool below. Nice.
The pool was only waist deep.
Lower down, just past a few trees was the final difficulty. An awkward short drop (about 2 m) into a pool. We used a fixed rope to climb down then had to swim across the pool. This is the nicest part of the canyon – the slot is at its deepest here.
We then walked a short distance downstream, passion the Kamarah Creek junction, and we we soon arrived at the old Canyon Colliery mine site. It was lightly raining, so we found an overhang to shelter and have lunch.
Then we made our way out the old coal mine access road back to Bob’s car. This road is now getting seriously eroded.
More photos from the day are online here on my website.
I plan to do few easy canyons in the area over hot xmas period. This one can be definitely on my list.
Tom Brennan describes the abseil from the sling high up the tree (photo 4) as “15m long but numerous other anchors are possible” . Do you remember if 15m was indeed the maximum doublerope length needed or was it slightly more? If more, do alternate anchors provide for a shorter abseil, 15m max? I’m asking, because I have one rope 30m precisely and wonder if I can get away using it. Carrying my alternative heavier, 50m rope could be an unnecessary burden as couple of other abseils are very short. Thanks, Chris.
A 30 m rope should be plenty.
I was there yesterday. It turns out the drop from the link hanging on the sling to the water below is only ~11m. You could get away with just 20m rope if you drop to the ledge above the water and not into the water. Certainly a classic “Claustral” rope length of 23m is also ideal for this canyon.
BTW, the swims were very chilly despite very hot day outside, I was barely OK (certainly not comfortable) without wetsuit. I just cannot believe someone has done this canyon half naked as visible in your earlier report few years back.
The walk around the road erosion was in my experience (and I’m an experienced rock climber) by far the most dangerous part of the trip. I’m afraid walking on such dodgy, soft, unstable crap like on hell. They should really do something about it (chop down that crap away so that stable ground is available to walk/scramble on) otherwise someone may get hurt. If they likely do not do anything with it, canyoneers should find an alternative exit avoiding that crappy man-made choss.