Canyoning Around Deep PassCanyoning Around Deep PassThis was the "freshers canyoning trip" to the Newnes Plateau area. Two canyons were originally planned: Twister / Rocky Creek, and Deep Pass canyon, camping at the Deep Pass camp ground overnight. In the end, the group split up, and several parallel canyoning trips occurred…
Saturday was an absolutely freezing day – it felt like it was around 14 degrees or so, with a really chill wind blowing while we waited for everyone to turn up at the Zig Zag railway turn-off. Not the most appetising conditions for getting kitted up in a wetsuit, and jumping into a cold, dark creek. Still, it wasn’t raining… yet… so on we went.
We rolled up to the Rocky Creek carpark at about 10am, to find it quite full, and discover an entire bucks party heading into Twister and Rocky creek just before us… not the best start. This seemed to be enough to scare off Geoff and Alan to the quieter Galah canyon, and to cause Steve Contos to pike altogether (albeit complaining of stomach pains, and looking a pretty convincing shade of green…). Nevertheless, we respectfully gave the bucks party a fifteen minute head start, then wandered off into the bush to find our way into Twister.
Twister is a great canyon. It isn’t particularly long, nor are it’s walls particularly deep, but it does have a lot of really fun jump-ins. None of this long-swim business like other canyons – it’s just jump into this pool, swim across, clamber out, and jump into the next one for much of its distance. It’s a great introduction to canyoning, and lots of fun even if you’ve done it lots of times before. Martin Pfeil tells me that he finds a new jump-in every trip – by climbing up the side of the canyon where possible, and jumping back in.
As we arrived, the last of the bucks party was just going in… Surprisingly, they were pretty fast, and we didn’t see much of them after this, except for the fact that the water was seriously stirred up, and you couldn’t see into the pools at all. In spite of the freezing temperatures, we all had a great time doing the slippery-dips and jump-ins. Daniel surprised us all by managing to go one step higher than Martins’ previously "biggest" (optional) jump-in, by climbing up (and jumping out of) a tree high up the side of the canyon. It was a hell of a jump… even just from the base of the tree - which was the only point I was game to jump from.
Twister is over all too soon, and then a 20 minute bushwalk in wetsuits follows, before Rocky Creek is reached. Rocky Creek is also a great canyon – really deep and spectacular. It’s also a little like Parramatta Road in terms of the number of people going through it… We would have seen probably at least 20 other people in the time it took us to go to the end of the canyon, and then return.
At Newnes now just back from the end of the Galah Mountain Road many of the side roads now are designated "Wollemi Wilderness Walkers ONLY areas" and the road to Galah canyon (also an exit road for Rocky Creek and Coachwood canyon) is now barricaded and a 3km (each way) road walk is needed to where you used to be able to drive to do Galah Canyon. Galah Canyon is the front cover picture on Rick Jamieson’s 4th Edition "Canyons near Sydney" and, like that cover picture after doing it, I would personally rate Galah canyon as a VERY good canyon to do!
So Alan and myself set off down the road @ 11am and from the end of the road, then followed a convenient track through the bush North East right downhill and into the creek near a very ‘dodgy’ looking tree! (our way out!). Alan didn’t like the look of this tree one bit and so we decided to abseil around the 10m drop into the creek from this point. We started then an extremely pleasant stroll downstream in the open canyon among coachwood trees and rather impressive sandstone overhang caves on our left hand side. Soon we were actually in the creek sliding down a few little slippery waterfalls and the walls were starting to close in as it became more and more stimulating and I reckoned an abseil couldn’t be far round the corner. Soon climbing around the creek on the left I spotted a coachwood tree with a sling around it just before a HUGE drop in the height of the canyon, this indeed was the very impressive 23m first drop!. Carefully I set up the abseil with my strong and very heavy 11mm 50m of rope, then went down first to assure Alan it was ok. Indeed looking back at a 20m waterfall beautiful green mossy sides I knew we were in the exciting canyon RIGHT NOW! Once down into the very shallow pool Alan was excited as well as I’d been trying to take photo’s of him descending, rope packed away it was onwards to another short drop of about 6m down a waterfall, then down a log and a nice little 2m slippery dip drop into a shallow pool that we both enjoyed (once we had figured the pool was just full of leaves).
Here the canyon was getting ‘magnificent’ nice pools of water narrower sides and plenty of abseils so near to each other that you came off of one to see the slings awaiting the next one!. The next abseil was short only another 6m, but part way down Alan spotted another sling but decided to carry on down another 6m down a log into a pool, then after testing that the rope would pull down all this distance I followed down the abseil (separated by one big boulder), pulled down the rope into the pool and swam across to the sand on the other side. More nice walking came next in tight canyon walls before the fantastic final abseil. This starts from a log jammed in the creek and although only 6m is great because you cross a round deep pool and abseil off the edge down beside a waterfall and very slippery rock, then end up standing on the log which you can see as the 4th Edition Canyon books front cover! Alan made sure I descended first so that I could attempt to take a similar picture of Alan standing on the log as that picture in the Canyon book (taken by John Gray) after several shots I retrieved the rope and very soon after a short climb down into a deep wade pool we walked out of the canyon as it had ended!
Well the canyon had ended but we had a ‘very interesting’ exit ahead of us! Martin Pfeil had warned us of an ‘interesting exit’ and indeed Alan pushed on 100m following a path next to the cliff’s to the right before stopping at the base of a 6m vertical cliff with just a handline hanging down from a tree! Alan didn’t like the look of this at all! Great time for lunch I said and so with our stomach’s full Alan decided he’d better try the climb now rather than face a slow 2 hour, 3km walk down Rocky Creek. Once up Alan hauled up my heavy pack full of the wet rope and I soon climbed up this sort of cliff face slot. This climb actually wasn’t too bad, but if you fell you’d be in a lot of trouble. After this getting to the higher cliff line was ‘pretty easy’ going, nothing difficult at all to report - we sort of followed a rough track and soon we were on the canyon edge, retracing our canyon route via this high cliff edge. Very soon Alan spotted the 23m abseil drop and again pretty soon after that we saw the slippery moss waterfall we had crossed just before we had arrive at this first abseil.
Knowing that it was only a short bit of time before we would be retracing our path in the canyon, we arrived at the base of the logs and the 10m drop we had come in by! Again Alan was most distressed at the dodgy climb prospect of walking up an old mossy log to get out of this canyon. So first we explored upstream and indeed found beautiful tree ferns nice canyon like sandstone overhangs, pools and upstream we were stopped by a 5m waterfall. Glad to have seen this upper bit of the canyon, Alan decided to ‘go for it’ and wisely chose the 3rd log option available to exit this canyon. Following him I too found it not too bad really and before we knew it not only were we at the base of the well worn path we had walked in on but soon up this path and at the start of the 3km road back to my car. Leaving at around 4.30pm, we were at my car around 5.15pm (after the ‘boring’ walk along the road). Alan mentioned the possibility of doing ‘Twister Canyon’ but he hadn’t been carrying the very heavy rope I had and with tired shoulders I wanted a rest!.
So it came to be that after a great trip through Galah Canyon we ended up walking down the road from Deep Pass North to join the other SUSSlings, and 70 or so from a Castle Hill Adventists group at the Deep Pass campsite (Annalisa and Steve had gone home by this time). After a pleasant evening hearing all about the others dual trip through ‘Twister’ and ‘Rocky Creek’ return trip in wetsuits it was a QUALITY fire and an amazingly quiet night for sleep. The only apparent ‘disturbance’ coming from Daniel who, whilst fast asleep that night, grabbed hard on Joan Chan’s leg and shouted "don’t move dick-head!" at the top of his voice. He professed to having no memory of his actions, but implied that it was not an uncommon type of event!?! Apart from that it was quiet! Morning had broken and it was time for Martin to rescue Megan and vice-versa from a rope hanging from a nearby tree.
Meanwhile Alan took me via The Slot to the tagged sandstone cave nearby. I must admit I was extremely impressed both by this short ‘slot canyon’ and by a through trip in a reasonable cave with glow-worms and a stream passage and a remarkable exit! Soon Alan, Megan and I were walking up the hill to the cars leaving the others to play in Deep Pass Canyon, while we headed off to Stuntman.
Well initially I was definitely NOT enjoying it - there was plenty of fighting your way along the creek though thick ferns and the like, before eventually canyon sandstone walls came close and there was what looked like a 6m drop! However here Alan soon became Mr. Stuntman! Whilst I was rigging my 15m rope around a tree Alan soon took his glasses off (thus unable to see any danger ahead of him), slipped down the rope and into a plunge pool. Spurred on by Alan’s confidence Megan slipped down into this pool whilst I did a Chicken Run and abseiled all the ‘jump ins!’. Here this canyon was getting very wet with swims and plenty of ‘excitement’.
Next came another 5m ‘jump in’ followed by more walk through stream and finally a more imposing 7m waterfall that would be much harder to ‘jump in’ because of the angle of rock jutting out from this waterfall. However Alan and Megan soon abseiled the 7m and jumped in off rope-before (last down) I did much the same pulling the rope down just before I swam on. After another bend in the canyon and a couple of pictures at a stunning couple of waterfalls and deep pools, it was a walk out to the open sides and coachwood trees, and bashing a path through as we followed more open stream until we came to the junction (the end bit of River Caves Canyon). Stuntman is just that - if you know the pools are clear of debris, you could indeed jump all the pools without rope!
Indeed it was a very pleasant weekend of canyoning under cloudy but mostly dryish skies, and every body seemed to enjoy whatever trips they did with SUSS. Early on Saturday morning I gathered quite a large bag full of various red/brown capped mushrooms in the Newnes Pine Forest (on the way to Deep Pass), however I’m very glad I didn’t decide to eat any as at work on Monday a mycologist identified them as an Ammonite and of the ‘special’ poisonous type that legend has it "Vikings used to eat before going into Battle!". I asked why? Well apparently this poison won’t kill you but will FIRE YOU UP (briefly) before later overwhelming you with ‘depression’. Presumably had I eaten them, I would have been like a raging bull for my canyon trip , but not too good afterwards, so beware of mushrooms in that pine forest - most are poisonous and shouldn’t be eaten!
Deep Pass is a great fun place… there’s loads to do around the campground there, and usually it is quiet and peaceful… apart from (as Geoff has mentioned) large groups of Adventists, and people sleep-yelling from their tents… I had brought along a Frisbee to play on the big grassy area, but there were literally about 40 tents in the way on this weekend.
The Slot is just that – a deep slot where one of the rock outcrops that surrounds the campsite has become separated from the ground behind it, leaving a spectacular slot, around 50m deep, and 1m wide. It can be entered from the top of the first boulder-pile you encounter as you walk along the track that crosses the creek to the east of the campsite. The Cave is a true sandstone cave – it is even tagged if you look closely at the entrance. It is further along the same track, where a streamway comes out of the rock wall on your left. It can be done as 50m or so long through-trip, complete with crawling, squeezing, and stepping into half-hidden puddles of water. And its’ got glow-worms too…
The canyon is nearby, and can be used to return to the Deep Pass North carpark (when you don’t have overnight packs like we did). Technically it is a dry canyon… although Daniel and Martin chose to get rather wet by stripping down to shorts and jumping in from the big waterfall. Thankfully today was much warmer than Saturday. There are several nice waterfalls in the canyon, a few climbs, and lots of lovely overhanging sandstone canyon walls. Most of the water can be avoided if you have a good grip on the rock… and can manage keep that grip!
There are several points in the canyon where logs have been placed across deep pools that would be very difficult to otherwise avoid. There is one such log right at the end of the canyon, carefully poised above a deep and very wet pool and small waterfall. When we got there this time, this log had been broken in half and replaced as best as possible given it was now half its former size… Someone had obviously taken an unexpected dip at this point… Needless to say, I took a few photos of people crossing it, in case the remaining half was also ready to give way – but unfortunately this didn’t occur.
We returned to the campsite for a late lunch, finished packing up, and were back up at our cars by around 4pm.