of canyoning

So I went canyoning on Saturday (3rd Jan). When I tell people this, they always ask one of two questions: “We have canyons?” and “Canyoning? *puzzled look*” I then tell them that “yes, we do have canyons, mini ones” and rather helpfully say “it’s where you scramble over rocks, wade in streams, and bushwalk for a bit”. Which I thought pretty much sums up what we did.

I woke up to a drab, cold-ish day after a late night (I was processing photos for Joanna’s signing ceremony, fervently hoping that I could get everything done by Sunday) and pondered the possibility of piking. It was an option, but it didn’t seem fair to John and I wasn’t sure when I’d get the opportunity to do something like this again.

We got to Richmond McDonalds a little early, where I took a quick nap and was woken up to meet the rest of the canyon-ers. I was a bit grumpy at being woken up, so unfortunately I wasn’t all that forthcoming with the pleasantries hehe I’m so not a morning person. Anywho, Ram and I carpooled with Ryan and John, which allowed me about an hour to an hour and a half of more nap time. Awesome. That nap really helped me carry through the day, especially when driving home.

When we got there, Ram realised that he needed to drop the kids off. He did this on our last bushwalking trip in November – and we waited for just as long. *sighs* The group of about 16 started a bit ahead of us, but we managed to catch up.

At first, I was thinking “wtf?” as we trampled on a non-existent looking path, pushing past slim branches, stepping over or sometimes clambering over fallen trees (a couple of the logs were massive). It all seemed very standard bushwalking fare – perhaps even easier than what we’ve done last year – until we got to the streams.

It was kind of like a gradual introduction of water. First, we were stepping on stones over a little more than a trickle of water, then we were carefully stepping on stones in a stream, and then we got to the point where we were basically traversing along in the stream.

I was wearing Royals and let me tell you that it absorbs water like no tomorrow and doesn’t drain. By this time, I had started to accumulate quite a nice collection of sand in my shoes.

We got to what I think was the mouth of the canyon and we had two options: jump through a narrow, naturally formed hole in the rocks into water below or kind of slide/climb down a fallen log, where if you’re most agile, able to avoid the water. I naturally chose the harder option because I thought it was the easiest (yeah, the jumping though a narrow hole into water kinda didn’t appeal to me) – hindsight is always 20/20. *Sighs* Scrambling down, I felt rather pleased with myself that I managed to do it, but then I looked down and realised I had scraped my left leg. It didn’t look that bad, so I shrugged it off and kept going.

So there were more tramping around in the stream, then just to mix it up, we had to wade a couple of times. The water was surprisingly not as cold as I thought it would be, but it was still cold to the point where if you stayed in it too long, your feet became numb. John thinks it didn’t seem that bad because we were introduced to it slowly and so got use to the temperature – if we were jump straight into the water, we would have found it positively freezing. Which made a lot of sense.

Ryan, Ram, and I were carrying 600ml water bottles and it was a rather big pain in the butt. We would have to pass/throw (and clumsily from me) our bottles along to other people ahead of us to scramble up or down rocks. In the end, one of the guys kinda got fed up with us passing the bottles around like pass-the-parcel that he grabbed two of them and stuck them into the side pockets of his bag (John took the other one into his bag).

There was a mini waterfall that we had to go down, with the help of a knotted rope (which I later learned was mainly for those going up this bit), and it was a bit scary. Thankfully Neil was there tell us where to put our feet, though some hardy souls simply jumped down (after ensuring that there were no hidden rocks in the murky water). There were some discussion afterwards on how the rope actually hinders one’s progress down rather than help, as with one would overly rely/use it – not letting go – when it’s perfectly safe to do so. I pretty much went to the end of the rope (unnecessarily) before releasing the rope – and that’s how I got drenched.

Because we had to wait so long, I started to get rather chilly. I was glad that we started to get a move on. My gladness was short-lived however, as the water started to get deeper and in some places I had to swim (i.e. doggy paddle) for a bit. Actually, truth to be told, I didn’t mind those bits at all. I kind of like them – it was rather fun.

It was the bit where we had to swim for about 15m that wasn’t that much fun. I know I’m not a strong swimmer (that and I’m not much of one), but I know that I can swim 15m – heck, I’ve done 10 laps in a 25-metre pool (granted I had to rest after 2 laps). I would have been surprised that I didn’t make it across without assistance if I weren’t too busy squelching down my panic (the wussy part of me).

I think it was the coldness of the water and the dead weight of the shoes (which, in water, was as useful as telling a geek what LOL stood for) that sapped my energy. I noticed that my progress across had become a painfully slow crawl and debated whether I should keep this up til I could touch the bottom or call for help. Eyeing the still-too-far shore and the speed of which the rock walls went by, I called for help.

Actually, I gasped for help – I didn’t realise how tired and out of breath I was ’til I tried to speak. Interestingly, when the fact became apparent, my panic increased (though efforts in stomping down on it double as well) and thoughts of how heavy my shoes were, how tired I was, and how far away the shore still seemed to be clamoured for attention – all of which pretty much rendered me to practically treading water and occasionally sinking down to nose-level. I was gratefully arm-dragged by Ram forward for a bit and received a massive push forward by Dale (?) from behind. I was so relieved to feel the sloping incline under my feet.

Coming out of the canyon, we were greeted by a different group of canyon-ers who were swathed in wetsuits and having their lunch. Our last “technical” part of the trip was a climb up a 6-metre rock face and a perhaps equally as high tree with spikes in it.

I was a bit nervous because a couple of the guys were having problems climbing, or something… whatever it was, it took them a long time to do the 2 climbs, at which by this stage, I couldn’t stop my teeth from chattering.

“What did I say before about huddling when you’re cold?” John mildly rebuked me.

“Not to huddle and to move around,” I sighed and began to jump on the spot, flapping my arms (yeah, that didn’t help one jot).

Once I cleared the rock face climb (there was a knotted rope handy), I swapped my cold, soaked cotton tee for John’s dry and kinda warm thermal; more jumping and arm flapping ensued (I think the flapping helped a bit this time because the sleeves were so long hehe).

I noticed that some debris falling down after a while and looking up, I saw that one of the guys who had trouble with the rock face climb was lying precariously on two ledges, one had his legs and the other, his head and shoulders – his back was completely hanging out there with no support whatsoever. He had slipped and rolled a bit before coming to a lucky stop on those two ledges. With hearts in our mouths, we watched as Ram tried to calm him enough to help him get back up and holding onto the rope harnessed to the rock above. Everyone was so relieved when the guy managed to get back on his feet and onto more stable ground.

Such drama!!! I most certainly didn’t expect it on this trip, but it definitely made things more interesting. The walk back to the cars was uneventful and totally forgettable in comparison.

Afterwards, one of the guys in the group jumped off this approximately 9-metre cliff into the water and Neil jumped from right at the top, which I think was about 11m. Crazy guys. Then we all headed to eat at the Great Eastern Pines (I think it was called something else, but I’ve forgotten what and its what’s printed on the business card)… well most of us. One of the 4wd had to go back because they had left their shoes by the lake the guys were jumping into. Oopsy.

The next canyoning trip is set to be more challenging and more technical than this one – it also has a longer swimming part. Eep. I think I’ll stay at home for that one.