Thunder canyon

Another brilliant canyon and a veerrry long day. There's no easy way to enter Thunder Canyon. You can enter by staying on the top of Lightning Ridge to the end, doing an easy abseil and then entering the creek. Another alternative is dropping off the ridge a little earlier and scrambling down some ledges. We took the third option and went straight into the creek rather than moving along the ridge. We quickly entered thick scrub, the kind where a machete would be handy. Worst of all the scrub included blade grass and a few of us were quick to pick up some significant cuts. It was impossible to walk in the creek, so we bashed our way through, making slow progress until the creek began to open up. 



Photos by Deb



We soon forgave our leader when we entered the canyon proper. Thunder Canyon is stunning, as is the end of Claustral Canyon (Thunder Gorge) where we finished the trip. Picture steep walls, narrow passages, deep water and challenging obstacles. I've never spent so much time sliding down rocks on my bum before. I eased my way down sections without the aid of ropes that I never would have contemplated if I hadn't seen someone do it before me. We also had two sections where we just used hand lines to help us down rather than abseiling. I've never done that before and was surprised at how secure I felt. Doing a canyon backwards to exit Thunder Canyon was challenging at points. A few scrambles and a couple of difficult climbs (for me anyway) and we were out.

I got to see glow worms in a cave that we had to swim into, and I had my best ever abseil. We dropped twenty metres through an opening down into a deep pool of water in a cave. I was thrilled :)