Many years ago, I had been on a walk in the then proposed Gardens of Stone National Park, when we tried to go down a creek we found ourselves in a short canyon. I cannot recall who was on the trip, but I think it did include Andrew Cox and Keith Muir. I will have to hint out the slides. When we got to a waterfall in the canyon, we turned back and climbed out and found a way around. I am not sure if we didn’t have sufficient rope to abseil or could not see an good belay point. But I can remember calling the canyon Alcatraz Canyon because it was near the Newnes Forest Prison Farm.
This trip, with Bob, was the first time I have returned to that creek. The canyon is very short – but well worth doing – especially with a good flow of water.
On the way up, the weather looked a bit ominous –
The walk in was interesting too. We encountered more fields of pink Flannel Flowers. You can never have too many of them!
It was interesting that the Flannel Flowers continued close to the creek.
The creek then entered a low quality canyon.
And we arrived at the waterfall. The canyon ends not far below this.
We abseiled off asking placed around a tread belay. We used a 40 m rope and a 20 m rope tied together. Pulling down the ropes – we could see that the 40 m rope doubled would just make it down. A 45 m rope would be better.
This is a very nice abseil into a chamber. Where we landed was only waist deep – but it looked deeper in places. You exit this chamber – really a natural arch, through a “letterbox” type gap.
We then walked down the gorge. On the way we spotted this nice Mustard-bellied Snake –
We soon found an easy pass back to the tops (on the true left). We were back in the pink Flannel Flowers and great views.
Here we are looking down at the slot of the canyon –
This was a short but very interesting outing. This area is in the proposed Stage 2 Extensions for Gardens of Stone National Park. It certainly has very high scenic value.
One the way home, we investigated another possible canyon near the Darling Causeway. It was too short to bother descending.
Bushfire recovery looking slow and quite saddening 🙁