Join me for 4 days of canyoning and related adventures in the Blue Mountains over Easter!
Who can come?
I will choose participants to ensure there is a good ratio of experienced to inexperienced canyoners. I'd love to get some climbing in while we're up there, so bonus points if you're keen to climb as well. There will be some capacity for beginners on this trip, but you will need to, at a minimum:
- come to one of my abseiling sessions at the ANU wall before the trip (this applies to anyone I don't know, I will contact you prior to the trip to do a practice abseil)
- be able to swim
- have good fitness (we will be walking up to 15km per day up steep hills with heavy canyoning packs).
Please be honest when signing up about your past experience and swimming ability. If you aren't the most confident swimmer, we can work around that. Anyone who misrepresents their past experience may be prohibited from future canyoning trips.
What will we do?
Weather permitting, the canyons on I'm considering doing include Hole in the Wall, Water Dragon, Waterfall of Moss, Geronimo, Hat Hill, and Rocky Creek. As for climbing areas, we can make a call on the date about where we go, but I'm not expecting any big multipitch epics, just chill single pitch sport craggin.
Logistics and camping
To maximise the number of full days we get, I'd like to leave after work on Thursday evening (2 April), and return in the afternoon/evening on Monday (6 April), but we can decide this closer to the date. Note I have set the pre-trip meeting for this for Thursday 16 March at the gear store - one week in advance!!!
Because it's Easter AND the start of school holidays, I'm expecting all of the free public campgrounds to be VERY busy, so we're going to stay at a pre-booked caravan park. I have made a tentative group booking at Venice Caravan Park in Little Hartley. The cost per person is $16.50 per night (or $66 for four nights) and for that low low cost we get a guaranteed place to rest our heads and access to showers, flushing toilets, laundry facilities; a fridge and a BBQ. We can save more money by cooking our own dinners on the BBQ, or we can splash out and head to a restaurant in Lithgow (15-min drive away). Petrol is likely to cost around $30-40 each.