Why Don't We Do It In The Road? Canyon

I had vague plans to do some short but likely scrubby canyons the next day with Rik, but he was still recovering from the red wine the night before and decided to head home. I joined up with James' group that was doing Why-don't-we-do-it-in-the-road? Canyon (erroneously but commonly known as Serendipity Canyon) instead. It didn't take far down the fire trail to realise that I had left half my lunch behind, and the others had reached the top of the first drop by the time I caught up.

Cat and Emile hadn't done too much abseiling before so we did the extra little abseils at the top of the canyon. Soon we were into the canyon and walking down the pleasant creek. It wasn't long until we reached the main canyon section, although Jiri had left his camera when he packed the rope, and had to go back to get it. The canyon section was pleasant, with a reasonable amount of water from the rain from Friday night making the abseils interesting. It was a bit of a challenge to stay out of the waterfall on the second of these. There was a final short abseil and a short section of canyon before we hit the 'Gambe.

Lunch was had at a small beach a little way downstream. James made a small fire for jaffles, and we sat around in the sun for a while - defrosting in my case - before setting off down the Wollangambe. Neither Kate nor I had lilos, so there was one particularly long swim just after lunch which took us to the junction with Whungee Wheengee. At the junction we bumped into Martin Pfeil's group that was just finishing. Towards the end James' lilo suffered a fatal puncture and deflated, so he joined the swimming crew too. A few more swims and some boulder-hopping and we were at the exit. Martin's group indulged in some jump-ins from one of the ledges, and then we all headed back up the ridge to the campground.

A good day of canyoning with a bit of variety.