December is a good time to go canyoning and in particular a good time to visit Rocky Creek Canyon. Its a long and fairly cold canyon and best visited on a warm or hot day. Last saturday was warm – but not that warm. Its been quite a cool start to summer (the coldest summer start for 50 years).
Thanks to Col Gibson and some of his friends I have now put online a new set of web pages of (mainly) wildflower photographs taken in the Blue Mountains. Col went through some of my bushwalking and canyoning photo sets and pulled out some I had taken of plants, and then went to the trouble of identifying them. The first page of the gallery can be accessed here.
Koombanda Canyon is one of the small upper Grose River tributaries. After doing Whungee Wheengee Canyon the day before with Su Li and Disco, we decided to spend the Sunday doing something shorter. Rain was forecast for the early afternoon.
Whungee Wheengee Canyon is a tributary of Wollangambe Canyon. As canyons go its not too bad at all. It is reasonably long and has many deep dark sections. It is also quite a sporting canyon – with lots of swims, numerous tricky down climbs, and a couple of abseils thrown in.
The day before we had visited Bowens Creek. On the Sunday, another warm day, we went down a section of Wollangambe Canyon. When its a hot day in Sydney, its hard to imagine a better or more delightful place to be in that in the Wollangambe.
On Saturday, last weekend, four of us (Rik, Wendy, Rob and myself) visited the short lower constriction of the North Branch of Bowens Creek near Mt Wilson. It was a beautiful day and plenty of wild flowers were out. The canyon itself is very nice – but way too short compared to the walk in and out.
From my place this is a nice loop ride of about 110km. The M7 has a very nice cycleway right along its length and for the whole 40km or so there are no traffic lights or other places where you have to stop. This was my first ride along the M7 since the cycleway was closed and repaired.
M7 Cycleway
It was pleasant to find on my ride this afternoon that a missing bit of the loop around Homebush Bay has now been completed. This is a section that one used to ride on busy roads in an industrial area. It is on the north side. Now a new section of the cycleway has been completed and opened – and it makes the ride a lot more enjoyable. There is also a side branch where you can ride out to a viewing deck amongst the mangroves.
A lot of the new cycleway is metal – and passes through a section of mangroves. Continue reading
A nice trip organised at last minute after Mitch sent me a SMS. Neither of us had a car – so we took bikes up on the train and rode to the top of Jugglers Canyon. The weather was a bit iffy too. Showers were forecast – and on the ride out from Medlow Bath – it started raining and we both got a bit wet. Not long after the sun came out – and remained out for the rest of the day.
Its time to step up action and have the Greenway built. The light rail project is going ahead and its a no-brainer to build the walking and cycling link as part of the same construction project
At the Greenway Rally
If you haven’t already done so – download and print the petition or email a politician and suggest that it is a very good idea that the Greenway go ahead now. Some links are the Greenway website and the Friends of the Greenway website. Continue reading
