Flash flooding in a canyon has always been a concern of mine, especially when the rain is torrential and the trees around you are bent over like they're made of playdough!
Rod and I camped in the car park overnight to get an early start but woke to find that Bruce still wasn't there. After a lengthy breakfast I decided to go to the pre arranged alternate meeting spot and sure enough I found him waiting. He managed to forget his directions that I had emailed him and he couldn't find us. At least it gave him some time to sleep which was a good idea since the 4 canyons we decided on doing were going to take more effort than we anticipated.
We headed off toward the Hole in the Wall canyon. One I had definately heard of but hadn't done before. In fact I hadn't done any from the Newnes Plateau before In my haste to get going quickly and make up time I took a wrong turn and it took me about 400m before I realised. We back tracked and found the correct path and made our way into Hole in the Wall canyon.
The plan was to do Hole in the wall, drop the packs, do Banks canyon, and head down stream to camp in the Bungleboori where we would camp. The next day do Crikey and Froth and Bubble canyons and head back to the cars. That was all without knowing what the terrain was like and without knowing any tracks other than what I'd read on line. And assuming good weather all the way...
Hole in the Wall was great. It had deep slot canyon sections with abseils, swims, jumps, climbs, and cave sections. There were trout everywhere. I tried to catch a few in my hands and given a little more time I'd be confident that I'd catch one. A bit small for eating though! Can't say I saw any crayfish though which I found unusual.
We arrived at the cave section and donned the head lamps. Part way through I looked down from a rock ledge and though thought I could see solid ground. The only thing that gave it away as being water was the bubbles popping through the mass of sticks and leaves. There was no water to be seen and it appeared as though this section was like a filter for the creek that retained all the stuff floating on top...including spiders! Rod and I both though it looked like the trash compactor from Star Wars and expected to be eaten by some unseen creature down below.
After some internal monologue I convinced myself to go for it and man'd up and jumped in. My head was instantly under water and I popped up through the top and pushed through the stick and spiders to the other side. There were two ways out that I could see. I tried one and found that I could squeeze through but only when I breathed out. There was no way the packs were getting through there. So I headed to the other side and tried climbing up. There were no footholds as the rock was overhung just below the waterline so climbing up was a challenge. After grunting my way up I found that a small cave section lead to a way out. I set up a sling for the other two and we hauled packs and climbed our way through. We were pretty cold from all our time inside the cave and longed for the sun. The glow worms provided some comfort and were a first for Bruce who was pretty excited.
After heading through that section the sand in the creek became so soft that occassionally we'd sink down to our knees. At one point I had to pull my way out because I couldn't move my legs. I'd never had the quicksand experience in a canyon before. Continued....