Galah Canyon

Rachel wasn't too keen on getting out of bed, so we were a bit late by the time we met James at North Richmond Bakery. As we ate our second breakfast, Dave Noble, Martin Pfeil and some others turned up. They were heading up to do Dalpura and perhaps some climbing at the Dam Cliffs.

We headed off up Bell's Line and out along the Galah Mountain Fire Trail to where we left the car and set off.

Not far along the fire trail we came across a group exiting. A bit of a surprise, as it was rather early to be getting out, we thought. On talking to them it turned out they were trying to do Breakfast Creek, but were unable to find it. They seemed generally familiar with the area, so I suggested where they should head off the path. They followed us back to the turnoff, and set off again to give it another go.

We continued along the fire trail until it petered out, and then followed some trails which seemed to come and go for a bit further. Eventually we headed off the side of the ridge, although a little early as it became obvious we weren't quite where we wanted to be. We crossed over a couple of small ridges and scrambled down a gully into the creek. The first section of the canyon was nice but not spectacular. There were a couple of slippery down climbs in this section which proved a little tricky. After passing through an interesting cave, formed by the collapse of a very large slab of rock, we reached a short drop which we abseiled. We left the rope in place, as I wasn't sure about getting back out.

It was a bit of a creek walk to the bottom section of canyon, and we had lunch on a rock at the top. Scrambling down to the top of the main abseil proved a bit interesting, as some of the vegetation that I seemed to recall from last time had gone. Soon we were in the bottom of the canyon. There were some interesting abseils and a few challenging downclimbs to the last slippery abseils. The final amphitheatre was spectacular.

The exit proved a bit challenging. Normally I would have led it but my shoulder was still injured, which left it up to James. The position of the rope meant that both he and Rachel had a nasty slide if they slipped - that was fixed for me! Near where we had left the rope, I scouted out alternatives and found a route over the top. I retrieved the rope and then Rachel led us up a dodgy gully, from where we could easily climb back onto the main ridge! Soon we were back at the car, and heading back to Barcoo Swamp.

Someone had our usual spot occupied, so we moved up the hill a bit and laid in firewood supplies for a relaxing evening.