[SUBW-A] Trip Report, Bungleboori Canyons, 26-28 Jan 2008

[Ashley Burke]

TRIP: Bungleboori Canyoning, 26-28 Jan 2008

PARTY: Ben Kong, Ashley Burke

PHOTOS: http://members.ozemail.com.au/~aburke/BunglebooriCanyons20080126-28/

The weather held out for us, providing 3 days of sunny warm and very humid
conditions for a great weekend of canyoning.

We drove up on Friday night and on Saturday morning headed early down our
first creek and before we knew it, it was narrow canyon followed by an
abseil into a small amphitheatre with tall straight coachwood trees
scattered around a leafy forest floor. The only disappointment about it was
that it ended all too soon, becoming scrubby creek. We crashed and bashed
and crawled and lurched with our 3 day packs down this creek for a while
until finally it became true canyon once more, and with another short abseil
entered deeper canyon and thus became our gateway to the Bungleboori.

We wandered down the Bungleboori for a while and then up a pass and into the
sunshine where we dried out and enjoyed our lunch high above the great
incision that is the Bungleboori gorge. With great pleasure we offloaded all
our food and camping gear because we would camp here tonight. But there was
still an afternoon left and a known canyon only moments away so with much
lighter packs we set off once more into the sandstone realm.

This next canyon cuts deeply into a geological layer known as the banks
layer, and this provided a long stretch of deep canyon. The geology had
nothing to do with the abundance of spider webs that we got caught by
though, nor the inkiness of the several deep pools that we had to swim
through. There were one or two short abseils, followed by some beautiful
canyon formation, followed by two more longer abseils and Bungleboori Creek.

By now the sun was reaching down into the Bungleboori and recent rain meant
there was water everywhere and the light caught sparkling droplets that fell
off glistening walls of this impressive sandstone gorge. Then it was back up
to our packs for a welcome rest and drying out of gear and gathering of
firewood and relaxing camping under the open skies.

Next day we carried our full packs once more and entered another creek which
started with a long swim followed by scrub. After some more crashing and
thrashing the creek abandoned the scrub and disappeared into a deep tunnel,
which we climbed over and then checked out from the bottom. From there the
creek formed into impressive deep canyon which finally made a nose dive into
Bungleboori Creek with an 18m abseil.

This was all done by 11am so we headed further downstream and climbed out
another pass which included an awkward move and by then it was time for
lunch in the sun. Our final canyon began as usual, with scrub, although the
scrub in this creek was less obstructive than the others. We could sense
something big was ahead as the creek gradually evolved as we followed it,
sandstone walls on either side becoming greater, darker, more sustained.
Suddenly "Crikey mother of God!" the creek bed plummeted away and all we
knew of it was the sound of rushing water echoing up from below. It took 5
abseils in rapid succession to get to the bottom of this and a couple of
these had very tricky starts. By the time we were at the bottom of these
several abseils it was very dark, very deep, and very beautiful, with
vertical ripples of sandstone rising far overhead and closing in overtop. It
is on account of this tremendous cavern section that this is for some the
greatest of all canyons.

It ended all too soon with a bum slide into a cold pool and a long swim. Two
more abseils took us to Bungleboori Creek. We wanted a camp site and soon.
Not far downstream we found a perfect spot, comfortable and dry with tall
forest overhead. This would do nicely. A fire was soon lit and all was well.

On the last day we continued downstream and exited via a long coachwood
gorge which was a very interesting way out and included some pleasant
sections of creek that was - almost - canyon, but not really. Then finally
we climbed out onto the ridge and began the very humid muggy walk back to
the car. Lunch was had along the way. Every branch of scrub was networked to
every other branch of scrub by a multiplicity of spider webs and even
leading by waving a stick in front was not enough to prevent frequent
entanglement. But we got back to the car by mid afternoon as predicted and
so ended an excellent long weekend packed with canyons.

My photos are here:
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~aburke/BunglebooriCanyons20080126-28/

Ben has his photos on Farcebook.

Ashley Burke
Mobile: 0414 633 315
Email: aburke at ozemail.com.au
Web page: http://members.ozemail.com.au/~aburke