Our target this weekend was Devil's Pinch in the Wolgan Valley. Ellen and I left Sydney on Friday afternoon, stopping at Leura for dinner and to pick up Justin. We made it to the camp site at Newnes late on Friday night, set up camp and called it a night.
The temperature plummeted over night, it was a shock to awake early on Saturday morning with the temperatures in single digits, especially as the day was predicted to reach the high 30s.
After coffee and breakfast we geared up and started the hike before the heat set in. We crossed the Wolgan River and continued along the Pipeline track, reaching the start of the steep hike up the gully before long. The view from the top was spectacular, after a quick stop at the lookout we continued along the faint track that would take us to the start of the canyon.
We made pretty good time, only losing the faint track where bush-fires had obliterated an obvious path. It was getting warm even under the shade of the trees, we found the dry upper creek beds and made our way downstream hoping for cooler times.
We scrambled / bridged down past stagnant pools of dirty water, disturbing swarms of flies and insects as we went. Eventually we found what we came for, an abseil point leading down into a cool, dark crevasse.
Down we went. The first section ended on a small ledge, from there we had to squeeze through a narrow gap, deeper still. With my head-torch on I was able to squeeze through the gap and find a dry footing, the others followed as I scrambled through a narrow opening down to the next section.
The upper section was only short, and before long we were once again under the sun, heading further downstream. From this point on the water was gently flowing, but the occasional pools of water were still not that inviting. We tried to stay dry as much as possible but every now and then we had no option but to get wet.
One such section looked impassable (and remain dry) until we realised that a tree root had grown along the rock wall, creating a natural stairway over the water. It has a handrail and everything!
Down the creek we followed until we came to another abseil. Sensing it could be a little tricky I went down first, but found it straightforward and fun.
Unclipping from the rope I went to check the extent of the constriction, but turning around I was stopped in my tracks.
A few metres onwards, blocking the narrow pass where we had to navigate through, was a small snake, as still as the rock it was laying on. Telling my partners to wait above ground (but not the reason why) I went for a closer look.
Picking up a nearby stick I began to tap the rock, but even inches away it didn't move. I gave it a prod and it sluggishly responded. It was cold in the depths of the canyon, slowly the snake became animated. There wasn't room to go around it, and I didn't want to herd it back towards the base of the rappel where the others would land, so I made the decision to flick it into the water cold water ahead.
Water that we would have to swim through to exit...
I called out to the others to come down, not explaining my reason for delay. Once we had pulled the rope to continue, I picked up some sticks, started banging the ground ahead, and readied myself to plunge into the water, eyes peeled looking for the snake.
The next section was dark, narrow and full of water, we would have to swim. The constriction opened slightly as it progressed before curving around to the left. I spotted the snake swimming against the wall off to the right, I told the others (who had now realised what was happening) to quickly follow me.
Into the water we plunged, keeping as far from the snake as we could, and tried to calmly swim the last remaining section before our imaginations got the better of us. It was only a small snake, but I didn't want to unexpectedly meet the rest of its family! It was most likely a Diamond Python, but I didn't want to take any chances with it.
With daylight not far ahead we swam quickly through the water, dragged ourselves onto dry land and put a few metres between us and the wildlife! We had exited the last of the canyon section, following the river downstream would take us back to the Wolgan River.
We were still quite high up, after a little bit of scrambling we came to a nice step abseil down a slippery light waterfall.
Immediately after this was our final descent, we had already dried out in the heat and were ready to start back home towards camp. There was still a bit of scrambling to be done, but this went by quickly and soon we were back in the Wolgan River.
It was a simple matter of following the water upstream until we joined back up to the Pipeline track. It was slow going walking up the sandy river bed, and the heat had drained us of much spring in our step, but we trudge along, disturbing the occasional Kangaroo, many birds, and a decent size Red-Bellied Black snake.
Joining the track, it wasn't long before we were once again back at home where we changed into clean dry clothes, and settled in for the night. It wasn't long after dark that I retired to my hammock for the night, only to be woken an hour later by a gang of possums trying to get to the bin bag hanging off my guy line.
They calmly started at me as I pin pointed them in my head torch, moving the trash bag into my car so as to not to deal with a garbage spread all over camp the next morning.
It was slightly warmer the next morning and shaping up to be another hot day. I rekindled the fire while I had several coffees with breakfast, before striking camping and heading back to Sydney.
More photos here
