For me, Execution was all about the journey!

CANYONING – NORTHERN WOLLEMI – JANUARY 2015
Rod S put the word out that he was planning a weekend to do some Northern Wollemi Canyons.  I had often heard stories about how spectacular Midwinter Canyon was and it was in the same area, I figured this may be my last chance to do something like Midwinter, so I jumped at the chance to go.  Then he told me who was going and I felt seriously out of my depth,  I would be canyoning with some people way more experienced than me.  As it turned out, I needn’t have worried!

We all got there at various times during Friday, Rod, John G and I (all in the one car) were the last to arrive.  The cottage that we stayed at was amazing, mud brick, four bedrooms, two bathrooms, full kitchen, bbq, wood burning fire, all the comforts of home and after a long day canyoning, having a hot shower would be a real luxury.

Apart from Rod, John and me, the party consisted of Jim & Lyn C, Julie B, Lachlan & Annette, Natalie E, and Min.  We sat around on Friday night and debated which canyon we would do and Execution was picked, we all agreed on it (which would become important later on).  Then we went to bed for an early night and were ready to rock and roll early next morning.

We drove out to the start, parked the cars at the top of a hill and then walked down the fire trail.  After a short time, Rod (who was the “leader” for the trip), took us down an easy route to get into our main creek, we walked down this creak for a while and then turned up a side creek which we had to follow right to the headwaters.  It was at this time that Rod started feeling unwell, so much so that he decided that he would turn back and Natalie and Min said they would accompany him back to the cars.  So, now we were down to just 7 of us, and we continued up the creek.

At the headwaters of the creek we had some lunch and then headed cross country with John G navigating (he is truly an awesome navigator). We continued on, and on, and on at which point I think someone said “this better be a really fabulous canyon cause it’s 2pm and we still aren’t even in it!”

Thankfully, shortly after this, we got to the top of the canyon, and abseiled down about 15m into the creek.  It was quite pretty, but not too constricted.  None of us had brought wetsuits, the Northern Wollemi canyons aren’t known for being cold (with the exception of Midwinter), and we started walking downstream, it was only 10 or 15m before we came to another drop, this one over a chockstone and about 10m down into a pool, some of us attempted to stay dry, but it was in the main spectacularly unsuccessful!

We walked a little way further and came to another abseil, this one much more difficult to stay dry.  After that we walked a bit further and, nothing!  The canyon section, was at the most 200m – in the immortal words of Julie … “a long way to walk for 200m of canyon”.

We continued downstream in the side creek.  It seemed to go for ages and by this time, we’re all getting rather tired.  By 5pm we reached our main creek and all sat down for a rest.  Some of the group were looking a little grumpy, and some indeed sounded grumpy!  But, what can you do, with an exploratory trip, you get what you get and be thankful!

Now it was simply a matter of finding a route out.  John G unerringly led us up a spur to the cliff-line and then along and up a few ramps and we were finally up on top.  We were on a bit of a deadline, we wanted to at least be at the fire trail by dusk, around 8pm, so we soldiered on with John leading the way.  To hear him speak it was relatively straight forward, I was just happy that I didn’t have to do the navigating myself, it seemed that the only two that were having fun were John and me, I was having a ball (perhaps a little masochistic).  Eventually we were at the final spur heading up to the road, and popped out onto the fire trail, almost right at the spot that we’d left it earlier in the morning.

Then it was simply a matter of a trudge back to the locked gate.  I was hoping that Rod and Min had driven the cars down to the locked gate (thus avoiding the climb up the bloody hills) but I as thinking that he probably wouldn’t think of doing that.  And then at around 9pm, as we rounded a corner, I could hear voices and there in the distance were Min, Nat and Rod AND the cars!  I’d have to think really hard to remember a time when I was so grateful for seeing some cars.  It had been a 12 hour day, for 200m of canyon, but, what an adventure.  I can’t say I’d do that canyon ever again, but I’m really happy that I had the experience this time.  It was my first experience with canyoning with this group (I had caved with Natalie and Rod before) and it was truly an amazing experience!  Julie said she’d never go back to the Northern Wollemi again, but I think she was just venting!

(NB:  If this were social media, I wouldn’t actually name the canyon that we did, but you’ll note that I wasn’t specific about how we get to where we went, we went to what we call “unpublished” canyons and it is a canyoning ethic that we don’t publish these canyons or how to get to them on social media or the internet.)