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So yesterday we did Claustral Canyon, just outside Sydney proper. This is an 8 hour canyon, from start to finish, not counting drive and prep time. Michael, the neighbor guy I’ve been going canyoning with, is leaving for Canada in 2 days, so this is his last canyon for a while, and I’m always up for it. We arose at 6 am and drove around yawning at each other for a while, and then arrived on Mount Tomah, the tallest mountain in the Blue Mountains at just over 1,000 metres.
Our destination was Claustral, as in ‘claustrophobia’, out of respect for the section of canyon referred to as the ‘Black Hole of Calcutta’. The Black Hole is home to the three abseils (Americans read: repels) in Claustral. Claustral Canyon is probably the hotspot canyon for keen canyoners to hit. It is relatively easy to get to and the most beautiful. Do understand, this is also a level 4 canyon, with running water. The threats of hypothermia, drowning, getting lost (we are in the middle of the bush), flash floods, and things of this nature are high. About 2 hours into the canyon, I’ve been terrorized with the tales of the deaths of the previous 5 people to kick it in this desolate place.
Anyway, we’re walking along the ridge on the way to the saddle, where we will dip down into the canyon, and a frigging lyrebird runs across the trail in front of us. These birds are really rare ground dwelling birds that can mimic anything (including a 35 mm automatic camera shutter). In Michael’s 30 years of doing canyons around Sydney, he’s seen two. Good start to the morning. We walk for a while longer before we get to the first pool, which you have to swim through. Out come the wetsuits, and the 15 minutes it takes us to get them on. We arrive at the Black Hole, and I start to get nervous. I’ve done wet canyons before, and I’ve done abseiling before, but this was my first trip doing abseils in a wet canyon, with water pounding down on me as I’m lowering myself down these 10-20 metre cliffs. You take a step over the edge, and your first thought is, ‘oh please let my anchor hold’, but then you can’t even worry about this ancient log that’s supposed to hold you up that has scars from so much use, because you’re trying to not slip down the 80˚ wet incline. And when you slip, which of course you do, you have to think ‘ok, just let yourself hang upside-down over nothing with water rushing up your nose, but don’t you dare let go of your brake hand!’. Quite the adrenaline rush. The three abseils are all right after one another, but because it was only Michael and myself, we only had one rope. As a result, the going was kind of slow in between pitches, but that just gave me more time to appreciate the beauty. By the end of the third pitch, we were well into the heart of the canyon. We were standing in a metre of water, with the roar of the waterfalls behind us. The canyon is only a metre wide, and the only light is filtering down from 60 metres over your head after having made it through a tangled mass of tree ferns growing out of the sides of the sandstone cliffs. And cutting into the sandstone there were these iron deposits, these really thin layers of sedimentation from millions of years ago, that zigged and zagged their way across the walls of the canyon. The place flash floods fairly often (always make sure you go to this canyon when there is zero chance of rainfall), so there are boulder fields and fallen log fields all through the canyon. In several places, the water was too deep to walk, and there were obstructions in the way, so you had to throw your pack into the pool below you and then jump after it, hoping that you weren’t right on top of some hidden menace below the surface of the water. A couple other little waterfall places are right in the middle; they’re not bad enough to necessitate an anchor and an abseil, but they are too far to jump, or too shallow. So a lot of these places have handropes, left there by previous canyoners, and you down climb carefully over the waterfalls. One of these waterfalls claimed a man’s life just recently – he got his foot stuck in the crack between two boulders in the middle of the falls, slipped on his way down, ended up upside-down, with his head below the water level of the pool below. The force of the water prevented him from righting himself, and he drowned before his friends could get to him. (As a side note, Michael told me this story after we made it down the falls, merely advising me prior to the activity to not place my feet directly in the crevice.) Lots of little tricky places, where you have to crawl through small spaces under boulders, and climb through cobwebs and things like this.
I mentioned the lyrebird, right? In 30 years, Michael’s seen 3, now? Also in those 30 years, he has never, not once, seen a leech. He’s done Claustral a huge number of times, and fifty other canyons, besides. In the 8 hours we were in Claustral, Alyssa picked up 4. Two of which were apparently the red-backed or racing-striped or some such leech, which excited Michael to no end, cause they’re supposedly rare. The first one was really big, and was on my shoulder. I only noticed him when he came off, and I put my shirt back on, and Michael observed a rather scarily large quantity of blood smearing all over the back of my shirt. The other three were fairly innocuous, and were pried off my ankles with a pocket knife. These also bled outrageously, though, as all leech wounds do. (Leeches introduce an anti-coagulant into your blood system when they feed, so when they come off, blood goes everywhere.) What other wildlife was there? Michael decided I was good to have on these trips, cause all the animals you rarely see, we saw. There were the leeches, the lyrebird… We saw a dead snake, black with yellow boxes. There was a live thing that I called a snake, but was apparently a legless lizard. There were big crayfish, a random freshwater fish swimming in a pool, and some tadpoles, which I caught, just for fun.
Anyway, after climbing down, through the waterfalls and abseils and stuff, you always have to go back up, right? The last 2-3 hours of this trip is a 1,000 m climb out. And it’s frigging hot. And you have to carry a soggy rope and wetsuit.
But oh, the fun! This was the best canyon I’ve ever done, hands down. Longer, harder, tighter, more water-y, more fern-y. Covered in blood (not just from the leeches) by the time we got back to the car, and so sore I couldn’t bend over to take my shoes off. I loved it. And when anyone ever makes it down to see me, this is where you’re going.
So a cute guy smiled at me today. I was in the car, being driven back from a most wonderful Italian dinner, and we stopped at a light. There was the most attractive middle to late 20-something guy walking along the side of the road. Alyssa’s window is rolled down, naturally, in this 40 degree weather. Guy looks right at me, and smiles. I smile back, one of those close-lipped, crooked smiles, and his smile gets even bigger. I have time to take in his nicely defined biceps, their tawny color, his sandy shaded hair, and his rather tasteful wardrobe, before our light turns green and we zoom off.
Why didn’t I throw myself out of the car?
