Boxing Day Canyoning Trip – 26 – 28 December 2015

I went with Wendy on a very nice canyoning trip in the Northern Blue Mountains. Since the weather forecast was for cool weather we chose to visit some of the drier canyons on the western side of the plateau.

Wendy in The Dry Canyon

It was looking very stormy as we headed out onto the Newnes Plateau, so we decided to camp at the head of the valley at the Dry Canyon. At the second campsite, there is a small cave – a good place to sit if it is raining.

We headed there, and after setting up our camp, we walked down to the Dry Canyon. On the way, we could not help noticing a lot of Hyacinth Orchids in flower.

At the upper constriction, it started raining and the overhanging canyon walls provided good shelter. When the rain eased we continued on to the longer and darker lower constriction. The rain and associated mist provided some nice soft lighting for the canyon for a change so we took a lot of photos.

We had lunch at the cave at the end of the canyon while it rained outside. Then it was time for a lot more photography in the canyon.

We slowly continued up the constriction and then climbed out onto the tops on the western side land made our way towards the Wolgan Valley escarpment. On the way there are amazing views of the lower constriction of The Dry Canyon.

Then back to our camp for a very pleasant evening at the campfire.

Next morning it was quite cold and again looked like rain. So we headed off to visit a few dry canyons in the pagoda country nearby. The first one we visited was very nice with two abseils.

After that we visited the Glow Worm Tunnel. The glow worms were quite good. To see them you need to be in the tunnel for a while to let your eyes adjust for the low light and then make sure you turn off your torch. We saw a lot of visitors just walk through the tunnel – down and back with their torches blazing and complaining that they could not see any glow worms.

We then head lunch and headed off for another set of canyons. These were ones I had visited a few times before. One canyon I remember being an easy scramble to get down and then you could walk up another canyon nearby. That canyon ended with a deep pool which we were keen to avoid. That was why we wanted to walk in from below rather than abseil down and have to swim the pool. However, our plans were put on hold when we found the last drop in the first canyon was no longer an easy climb down. Something had changed – either a log was missing or the base of the drop was now a lot deeper. So we had no choice but to return to the start and head back to camp.

At the campsite, we could not help noticing a huge number of beetles – Soldier Plague Beetles, on many of the plants. It is common for these beetles to swarm together in huge numbers like this for procreation purposes.

The last day of our trip was the coldest day. We were both keen on more canyons, so we visited Crooked Crevice and then Tigersnake Canyons. Both were ideal canyons to visit on a cold day.

Crooked Crevice

Tigersnake Canyon

More photos are online on my website following these links – Day 1, Day 2 and Day 3