Canyoning in Wollemi National Park

Posted on September 19, 2011 by Dave Noble

This year we seemed to go from winter to summer without spring. The weather forecast was for hot weather on the weekend – so a group of us headed out along a dirt road in the Northern Blue Mountains in search of some nice canyons.

At the end of the road we shouldered our packs, walked down a valley for a while and then climbed out onto a plateau. This provided us access to our first canyon. None of us had been down it before. A few years earlier some of us had gone down a different branch – and that was a very fine canyon indeed. This time we chose to enter via a different tributary. It turned out to be a good canyon with about 6 abseils.

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Canyoning in the Gardens of Stone – Photo Essay

Posted on September 12, 2011 by Dave Noble

The Gardens of Stone is a superb natural area on the western side of the Blue Mountains. Part of the area is protected by national park but a lot of it is not. Our weekend visit took us to places in the national park and places out of it.

It is a good area for canyoning, and in particular, a good place for canyoning at this time of the year as many of the canyons are dry. This was just as well – for we had a quite cool weekend. Low temperatures and a strong icy wind. In between the canyons, we camped on the rim of the Wolgan Valley. This provided great views and plenty of photo opportunities amongst the delicate rock formations on top of the cliffs. Continue reading →

Posted in Blue Mountains, Canyoning, Gardens of Stone, Wilderness Photography | 6 Comments

The Greenway – Bad News!

Posted on September 8, 2011 by Dave Noble

The funding for the Greenway – the cycleway and walkway connecting the Cooks River with Iron Cove was cut from the recent state budget. This is a very disappointing and short sighted decision.

The light rail project will go ahead and it makes a lot of sense to construct the Greenway at the same time as it uses the same corridor.

The Friends of the Greenway have produced a video with more information –

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Sports Climbing at Thompson’s Point – Nowra

Posted on September 5, 2011 by Dave Noble

Thompson’s Point at Nowra is one of the best sports climbing crags around. It is a very popular winter climbing area. Well winter had just finished, but it wasn’t too warm to still climb there. Four of us (Chuin Nee, John, Su Li and myself) spent the weekend there. On Saturday we were joined by Albert and Col, and on Sunday John’s sister Gab joined us for some climbs.

Here are a few pictures of the climbing –


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MTB Ride at Mt Annan Botanic Gardens

Posted on August 28, 2011 by Dave Noble

This time the trail was open. Rob and myself were on the way back from Berrima and we met Chris, Clare and Andrew at Mt Annan for a few loops of the mountain biking trails.

There were lots of other riders there, but the trails are long enough that there are no traffic jams – as riders are generally well spread out. The only problem was a dive bombing magpie. It swooped down and dive-bombed Chris and Andrew on the first loop and me on the third loop. Another rider told us it dived on him on the first three of his four loops.

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MTB Ride at Welby

Posted on August 28, 2011 by Dave Noble

It was the weekend to go to Ted’s party at Berrima. Rob was going and I suggested to him that it may be worth taking down bikes and doing a ride or two on the way down. At Mittagong we called in to the tourist office and got a pamphlet showing rides at Bundanoon and a free map showing the trails nearby at Welby, a suburb of Mittagong.

Welby was only a few minutes away and it seemed a good choice to start off our riding. The trails start at the Welby Cemetery and have been built and maintained by the Southern Highlands Cycling Club. As well as the free map at the tourist office, they have an online map here. We were able to follow the track without difficulty. At present white arrows and orange tapes mark sections of the trail and we followed them in a direction opposite to that shown on the map (following the white arrows). The trail is good fun and provides some great mountain biking. It is not too technical – perhaps similar to the Appin Circuit. It is mainly single track with short sections of fire trail. The combined section of the trail total about 8.6 km.

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The Greenway – an important cycling link

Posted on August 28, 2011 by Dave Noble

The Greenway is an important project that will improve cycling in the inner west of Sydney. This will be an off-road cycling and walking route in the corridor of the light rail track that is being worked on now between Haberfield and Dulwich Hill. It makes sense to complete the Greenway at the same time as the light rail track is being built.

However, there are rumours that the funding for it will be cut from the state budget in September. Read more about it on the Friends of the Greenway website. They have links where you can take more action as does the blog of Greens MP Cate Faehrmann

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Riding Around The Block

Posted on August 24, 2011 by Dave Noble

Now that the daylight hours are lengthening, its good to go for a late afternoon/early evening ride around the “block”. For me that is a ride out along the Cooks River Cycleway and then to Homebush Bay and a loop around the Bay from Silverwater Bridge to Moorbank. This loop is about 50km and is generally a very pleasant ride.

This evening when I was on the way home, I noticed that the M4 Motorway was converted into a long, thin parking lot. All I could see was stationary cars stretching far into the distance. This often seems to be the situation in the late afternoon. It certainly is a graphic case for more and better public transport and more people on bikes.

M4 - Looking west

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MTB Ride at Kentlyn

Posted on August 21, 2011 by Dave Noble

It was forecast to be a wet weekend – but the weather was not too bad and on Saturday evening Chris called up and suggested a ride at Mt Annan Botanic Gardens for Sunday with him and Clare. It sounded like a good plan. On Sunday morning we set off for Mt Annan, but as we arrived we found the track closed. It was too wet. I didn’t think of checking their Facebook page for track updates – something we should have done. But it is not too far to go from there to Kentlyn to the trails off Boronia Rd.

We set off on the main loop – which was relatively dry, and then did a circuit of Bob’s track, which is a 5km loop near the carpark. It was a good day to be in the bush.


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Grose River Walk

Posted on August 16, 2011 by Dave Noble

Last weekend I did a nice walk from Mt Victoria to Blackheath via the Grose Valley. This is a relatively easy and quite delightful walk that can be done utilising public transport.

View from Victoria Falls Lookout

I caught a train to Mt Victoria and then walked a short distance back down the Great Western Highway to the turnoff to Victoria Falls. Then it was a 5km fire-trail bash to the lookout and then a descent to Victoria Falls. The lookout offers a fine view, and would be a good place to camp. The falls are also impressive but what I found very pleasant were some small cascades not far downstream. The camera came out and I spent some time photo-pfaffing. Continue reading →

Posted in Blue Mountains, Bushwalking, Wilderness Photography | Tagged , , , | 13 Comments