Canyon Wonderland

Alright, so Australia wins again!

 

This weekend I was given the opportunity to go on a “canyoning” trip with the Charlestown Pathfinders. I had no idea what Canyoning was but whatever the Charlestown Pathfinders do is usually pretty cool. I was told to bring a wet-suit, and some warm clothing. We jumped in a bus and took for for the Blue Mountains, a set of canyons only slightly smaller than the Grand Canyon in Arizona.

I enjoyed the mountains but was eager to find out what this entire Canyoning was all about. I found out we would be doing some repelling (or Abseiling as they call it over here) so I was stoked about that. We started out hiking for a while into the bush and it was pretty cool.

I grabbed a quick picture of the group before we got too far into the trip. From that point on things just started getting cooler and cooler. I  found that Australians don’t like using trails very much, but would rather create their own or use a stream. We ended up using the stream method.

 The group gearing up to hike down the “trail” (stream).

So it all started out in good fun and quickly got a bit more extreme. The water was about 6 degrees Celsius or 42 degrees Fahrenheit so you can imagine it was a bit cold. We continued on anyway pushing our way through the water!

That’s the trail behind Sheldon. She didn’t realize the water
was as deep as it ended up being.

From that point on I became lost in all the wonder. The Canyon got deeper and deeper. Soon the rock walls were on either side with only the stream running through the middle. The picture at the very top was a common sight! There we a couple places were we had to either climb down small waterfalls or just jump them into bigger pools.  

I really felt like I was in some sort of wonderland… it was just all too cool! It was as if Tinkerbelle really could live in that place!

Soon we came to the end of the canyon and we got to repel out. It was right near the opening of a waterfall so it felt pretty darn cool… just kind of jumping off a cliff next to rushing water. WOW!

 

Go ahead and check out all the pictures on my Picasa Collection… There are many that almost seem unreal… really just something that blew me away completely. The Australians would keep asking me what I thought and every time I found myself at a loss for words good enough to describe it. I love this place so much…. if only you guys could all see this with me!!

Take care everyone at home! Love you all!