Wollemi Canyon Exploration
26 Dec 2007 - 3 Jan 2008
All content copyright © Ashley Burke 2008. Not to be copied, duplicated or used for any purpose without permission.
Wollemi Canyon Exploration 26 Dec 2007 - 3 Jan 2008
All content copyright © Ashley Burke 2008. Not to be copied, duplicated or used for any purpose without permission. |
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Introduction
For the 9 days following Christmas 2007, Jo Boyd and I explored some of the remote canyons and gorges of the Wollemi National Park in the northern part of the greater Blue Mountains. The Wollemi National Park is home to many pristine and rarely visited sandstone gorges, and some of these gorges contain narrow canyons that require abseiling (rapelling) to access. Wollemi National Park is also home to millions of blowflies at this time of year, and these were in particular profusion on this trip due to recent rain.
Rain during December 2007 meant that all the watercourses we visited this year contained plenty of water, which made for a pleasant change from previous years where drought and heat made water hard to find and creek beds dry. On this trip however, the bush was alive with flowing water, and the gorges contained many beautiful waterfalls and even the smallest watercourses were flowing. We were lucky enough to experience fine weather for almost the whole time, and yet the weather was not as hot as it can be at this time of the year.
Because we were carrying camping gear, ropes, harnesses and food for 8 days our packs were very heavy. So wherever possible we would explore some creeks and canyons without our packs for some of the day and then return to pack up and move our camp to a new location. In this way we were able to thoroughly explore each area and yet move into new areas day by day to cover new ground.
This web page contains photos and notes from the many canyons and gorges that we visited during these 8-9 days of exploration. Because these areas are remote and rarely visited, the specific locations of these canyons are not identified on this web page in the interest of keeping them in the remote and pristine state that we found them.
It was a fantastic trip in a very special area. I hope you enjoy the photos.
On the first day we drove from Sydney to our starting point and then entered our first creek system via an open coachwood gorge which contained some nice cavern formations. This led to a larger stream, beside which we camped on the first night.
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Coachwood trees and sandstone caverns in the gully that we walked down with our full packs on the first day. |
This web page created on 4 Jan 2008. All content copyright © Ashley Burke 2008. Not to be copied, duplicated or used for any purpose without permission. |
