Old Man Canyon

I headed up to North Richmond bakery to meet Caoimhin, and we drove to Mt Wilson in his van. Wandering down to the Wollangambe we passed a couple of brown snakes curled up on a rock platform, until I scared them by moving my shadow. At the 'Gambe, we had the option of the early morning swim across to the Waterfall of Moss climb, but Caoimhin showed me a short detour that only involved a wade. We followed the track until it petered out around the start of Waterfall of Moss, and headed up to the top of the hill. Navigation from there was a bit out as we ended up on the ridge across from where we were aiming. However, we headed down to the creek and found a convenient pass in with only a short jump at the bottom. In addition the creek started to look canyon-like at this point, so it turned out to be a reasonable spot to drop in.

However, the canyon-like conditions continued for some time, including a few deep pools and a couple of swims. I was wondering if we would get any real canyon. Just when I had almost given up, the creek dropped into a narrow twisting chamber, and it all looked good ahead. There were a couple of tricky climbs early on, and then some dark twisting sections. The canyon was good, but I didn't manage to take any photos, and it all too soon came to an end.

We headed down to a junction and up another tributary for lunch. Exploring upstream, we were hopeful of finding something more, but it was just a nice creek. We headed down to the Wollangambe and explored a bit more, Caoimhin pointing out an interesting cave. As it was getting on, we headed upstream and up a fast and easy pass to the tops, where we got excellent views due to being above a large bend in the river. There were other promising creeks, which we decided we would have to come back and have a look at some other time.

Then it was a climb to the top of a scrubby hill, and along a track to a fire trail, and from there back to the road and the van. An excellent day of canyoning and looking around in the lower Wollangambe.