Night Canyoning, Serendipity Canyon, 17th February.

The remaining members of the canyoning bunch (Bob Groneman, Lou Pastro, Scott Morrison) set off (at fairly short notice – apologies if the trip never made it to the trips list!) mid Thursday afternoon, with quite ambitious plans to tackle some canyons overnight in the Wollongambe region. The original conception was to try Whungee-Wheengee, which one of us had done previously. Whungee-Wheengee lies on the northern side of the Wollongambe, so the usual plan from Mt Wilson is to walk down to the entry point of a popular liloing section on the Wollongambe, cross the river, walk up along a ridge then down into the canyon. Once Whungee-Wheengee comes out into the Wollongambe, you swim down the relatively warmer river to the exit point of the liloing section. In a fit of madness, we were persuaded to try a double canyon extravaganza, taking in Serendipity (a new canyon for all of us), on the way down to the Wollongambe, followed by swimming up the Wollongambe and continuing on the Whungee-Wheengee trip. With such dramatic plans, we needed a good start, and so, feasting on take-away Indian and Turkish from Coogee Bay Road at the Cathedral Reserve campground, we were ready to leave by nightfall. (Night canyoning is night canyoning – no matter how big a task ahead, starting before dusk is simply not cricket!) We trundled on down to the start of Serendipity, donned several layers of thermals, woollen jumpers, and wetsuits, then re-donned them adding a few more layers in between. As usual, Lou easily won the best dressed category, with at least 5 or 6 layers! (Including, I believe, that grey thing.) A short abseil brought us into Serendipity, followed by a long and beautiful valley. Interestingly, Serendipity is also known as Why-Don’t-We-Do-It-In-The-Road canyon – a much better name in my opinion. That most original of Beatles’ songs has unfortunately found a place in our collective repertoire since then. By luck, we had chosen a night with an almost full moon, and the ethereal moonlight filtered through tree tops onto the rippling water of Serendipity, surrounded by glow worms, was something else again. Serendipity continued for some time, with several abseils (and a nasty cut on my finger!), becoming slightly trickier before arriving at the majestic Wollongambe. A slow and cold swim was ahead of us, fortunately well lit by moonlight! Arriving at the point where the track to Whungee-Wheengee departed, at around 1am, we stopped for some time to warm up and consider our choices. After several hours of conversation (some unrepeatable, some incomprehensible), and concerted efforts to warm up, we decided that Whungee-Wheengee was perhaps a bit much that evening. Bob managed to get very cold, somehow falling asleep and waking up with frost all over! We walked slowly back up to the car, and enjoyed the warmth of the car heater, before a relaxed drive back to Sydney.