Apparently Arethusa was the first roped canyoning descent in Australia way back in 1940- pretty impressive! Michael, a friend of a friend, knows the canyon almost as well as anyone else and invited me along for a trip. We drove to the town of Wentworth Falls, then turned on to a bumpy dirt road to a nondescript carpark on the side of the road. We followed a faint trail down the hillside through spiky and scratchy plants, before too long reaching some slickrock at the top of a cliff lining the side of Arethusa Creek. A 30 m abseil then another 20 m abseil dropped us into the creek. We started downstream, almost immediately encountering our first swim, followed by the typical boulder hopping and the occasional small jump.
Shortly we reached a black void that signals the start of the good stuff. I carefully scooted to the edge of a large wedged chockstone and looked down. Below was a perfectly round and deep looking pool. I had the other two do the abseil and check the water depth. It was all good so I did a beautiful 14m cliff jump into the pool below. The outlet to this large pool was a sump so we had to climb out of the water and jump back in below.
Arethusa has some of the best potholes I've seen in the Blue Mountains so far. I found one that was about 2m-deep and drained through the bottom which gave a weird illusion as from above the water drained into it and seemed to disappear.
The canyon then turned cathedral-like with overhanging walls towering above. Rays of light entered diagonally and then bounced golden canyon light up on to the sides of the walls. A few tress reached tens of meters upward to make the most of the daily sunrays. The walls continued to grow in height and the canyon widen, as we continued downstream. The cross-bedded sandstone had an uncanny appearance to the Navajo Sandstone in places. I found a few more fun jumps along the way. At the last pool I found a running side wall jump that was a lot of fun.
Then the canyon opens up and ends at an abrupt horizon line, the 40m-high Arethusa Falls. The old route (which takes a long day to complete) carried on down the falls and then climbed up much further down. Instead we did a bolt-aided rock climb up several cliff bands and into Alpheus Canyon, a tributary. This intricate route eventually deposited us onto a fantastic slickrock vantage between the two canyons. After a moment's rest, we carried on up the hill and back to the car. Although the canyon section was not particularly long, the long abseil entry, rock climbing exit and light and features in the canyon made for a very enjoyable trip. Thanks to Michael and Viki for a great trip.
1 comment:
Just had a look at your report again... What a great day we had!
Michael
Post a Comment