Claustral Canyon is always a pleasant day out. This visit was with Bob Sault and Tom Williams. Tom had been on my first visit to Claustral Canyon, sometime in late 1973. It was my second canyon trip and his first. Bob had also been on many early canyon trips in the mid 70’s including the trip where we had found Rocky Creek Canyon in October 1976.
We met at the new carpark on the Bell Rd and were on the track by the early time of 9:30. Too early for Claustral perhaps from a photographic point of view – the sun is too low in the sky at the time you are in the main part of the canyon below the abseils. Soon, we found ourselves in the creek and at the waterjumps. Quickly through these and onwards to the abseils.
We had two short ropes between the three of us – so set up the ropes quickly and moved down the canyon.
The Black Hole of Calcutta was a bit too dark for good photos. There were no sun beams. I left the others to coil up the ropes and continued on. The canyon was well lit with nice soft light but there were no atmospheric sunbeams – at least not during our passage through.
I was taking photos with a camera on a tripod, and Bob and Tom soon passed me. I told them not to wait as I would need to pfaff around bit. So they continued on to the Thunder junction. I did pfaff – and took quite a few photos. Conditions were nice, but not brilliant.
I had kept the others waiting too long already. I reluctantly packed up my camera gear and joined up with them. They were at the junction and looked quite cold. Like the old days – they had no wetsuits.
So we kept moving and continued on through the lower part of Thunder Canyon, passed the short drops and through the Tunnel Swim, down the last short drop and then the final swims before the exit. Then off up Rainbow Ravine, to have lunch on the side of the Camels Hump.
The last part of the trip, was across the Causeway, then down into the upper part of the creek, and the pleasant half hour down the creek to the entrance/exit creek. On the way down – we found a lot of beautiful fungi out.
We soon arrived back at the cars.
More photos can be seen on my webpage here.