Almost Midwinter Adventure

CANYONING – NORTHERN WOLLEMI – EASTER 2015
I had had such a great experience canyoning back in January that I put a trip on the BWOC calendar to spend four days at the cabin, canyoning.  Sadly, only Heather R signed on for the trip and so I extended an invitation to Rod S to join us, Jeff eventually decided to come too, so, it was just the four of us.

The first day, Heather, Jeff and I did a day walk, I’d looked at the map and felt that a section of Ovens Creek looked really interesting so I wanted to go down there.  Rod said that he’d been down that way and it was scrubby so opted out for the day!  Probably not a bad decision as the day was overcast and we left in rain and had rain for most of the day.  In any event, we headed off into the wilderness on our adventure.  We parked the car at a high point and traversed around a big hill, looking for a way down, didn’t find one and then ended up back-tracking to find a reasonable route … lots of logs and ferns to walk through, but eventually we were in friendly country.  We followed a small creek down and came to a bit of a drop, say 2m.  Jeff put a handline down and went down to see what it was like beyond that, a large waterfall, and we hadn’t brought our abseil gear, or a rope, so he joined us back at the top and we skirted around to see if we could see down into it.  Not a chance, the cliffs were too high, but we were just above Ovens Creek, and the section that I wanted to explore.  By this time it’s getting close to lunch time so we stopped for something to eat and then decided that we’d just head back up the spur that was closest to us.  This proved to be “interesting”, you wouldn’t have thought it to look at the terrain, but we were climbing up, and up and up, straight up a cliff-face, nice easy climbs, but unexpected.  We got to the top and then traversed along a little way and dropped down onto the road.  We’d probably only travelled about 3 – 4k in distance, but it had taken us all day. It was fun though and we all decided that the country warranted much more exploration than we had time for.  Back to the cabin for dinner and a hot shower, we were soaked!

The next day was raining, Jeff was heading home, and we decided that the three of us (Heather Rod and I) would do a bit of a road trip around Mudgee taking in the sights (and buying cheese, honey and wine).  We were sure the next day would be fine, spent the night snugly in the cabin playing board games!

Sunday dawned with clear skies (yaaa!) and our plan to do Greenup and Midwinter Canyons was a go.  We drove out to the locked gate on the Glen Alice Fire Trail and started walking.  Years ago when friends of mine did this canyon you could drive all the way to the start of it, but now it was a few k (6 or 7) to Greenup and then a 4 or 5k walk out.

Greenup Canyon was named after Geoff Greenup, a member of BWOC who was a keen canyoner and climber (and anything else outdoors). Geoff sadly died of cancer many years ago, but on the day he died, some BWOC friends of his were doing this unnamed canyon in the Northern Wollemi and when they heard of Geoff’s death, they asked Rick Jamieson if he would name the canyon that they did after Geoff, which he did, hence, Greenup Canyon.  So, it had special meaning for me to be doing Greenup on this day, finally after all this time.  The canyon is not bad 4 or 5 abseils, none of them particularly difficult and you end up in the main creek, into which Midwinter flows.  So, you have lunch on the main creek and then exit up Midwinter to get out.

Midwinter is totally different to Greenup, it’s constricted and very dark and cold. There are lots and lots of climbs and deep pools of water, it’s a full body workout getting through the canyon (might be easier going down it rather than up).  There were a couple of climbs that I found particularly hard, being shorter than the rest.  Of all the Northern Wollemi canyons, I’ve been told that it’s one of the best.  The three of us had a ball, definitely a canyon that I’d like to do again (and again).  Finally we were at the end of it, and simply walked up a short rise (a nice grassy bank), and we were back at the fire trail for the walk back to the cars.

Despite there only being 3 (or 4) of us, it was a fabulous weekend, and really it was probably better with the smaller number, we all got on well, played board games the whole weekend and Heather and I drank too much wine!  Life doesn’t get much better than that does it?