Twister and Rocky Creek Canyons

I hadn't heard from Steve before we left mobile coverage, so I didn't know whether Steve and Lou were coming up to meet us. I put the odds at a bit under 50/50. We had a bit of a disaster in the morning. I hadn't turned the gas canister off hard the night before, so when I tried to light it nothing came out. Rachel's face fell when it looked like she wouldn't be getting her coffee. I had to spend half an hour getting a fire going with plenty of wet wood and not much else. By the time we had breakfast and hot drinks, Steve and Lou turned up.

We had seen numerous cars drive past so we were hoping that some would be doing the other canyons, but when we arrived at the Rocky Creek car park they were all there!

Luckily we had Twister pretty much to ourselves. Plenty of fun slides and jumps. Lou almost had a disaster when she slipped on one of the early jumps and pretty much did a belly flop! We caught up to one group at the final drop, and so Steve and I went back for another round of the previous slide, before we could hear a group behind us arriving.

Then we wandered down the creek to where a large crowd was waiting at the start of Rocky Creek. A guided group decided to stop for lunch. We let a large group get ahead and then set off ourselves. Steve and I worked on our bouldering skills, but staying dry seemed an impossibility. We caught the large group at the slide in the middle, and headed off down the awesome main constriction. The light was excellent and I stopped plenty of times for photos. The others were already started on lunch by the time I emerged into the sunlight.

After lunch I suggested we try the rockclimbing exit. I couldn't remember exactly where it went, but from memory it hadn't been too hard to find. After the exposed ledge and climb up we headed left back through a cave and ended up looking at all sorts of things that didn't seem familiar to me at all. I only remembered a large slab. Steve went back the other way and we found the slab, with rope hanging down. I had climbed it last time, but couldn't manage to get started, although once on, it was not too bad. Then we had a hot walk back along the ridge, with the storm clouds beginning to gather.

Rachel and I farewelled Steve and Lou at Barcoo Swamp, and we stopped at the Pines for caramel milkshakes, with plenty of rain on the way home. An excellent weekend of excellent canyons.