Bob and myself headed up the mountains with the intention to visit a canyon in the Wollangambe Wilderness. It was a canyon that surprisingly enough Bob had not visited before. Bob, after all, had been on many exploratory trips into the Wollangambe Wilderness, and been on many first descents of what are now well known canyons, back in the early 1980’s.
Looking down the first abseil in the canyon
I had visited this canyon before, several times and was keen on another visit. We had planned to go a week or two earlier, but had been put off by wet cool weather. On this day the weather was fine and a lot warmer. But not too warm given that there was a fairly involved walk to the start of the canyon.
Things went well, and we arrived at the start of the canyon after some scrub bashing, careful navigation and route finding. It started with a short abseil into a dark pool. We negotiated this and then made our way to the next drop.
Bob, just above the second abseil
It looked OK. The rope was set up and I abseiled down and then I then completed a wade to check out the next drop. While I was doing this I heard a noise back upstream. It indicted things were perhaps not OK. I headed back up and found Bob in some distress. He had slipped on the abseil and swung into the canyon wall.
Bob needed some time to rest and check himself. While I was doing this I considered options. It looked like I could climb back up the second abseil using a log. But the one above may present more of a problem. Meanwhile Bob had recovered somewhat and he thought he would be able to continue. He seemed to have some bruising on his back and was in a fair bit of pain.
I had packed up my camera gear and we had a look at the next abseil. Bob got down it OK and also down the next two abseils. This took us down to a large creek which was a major canyon with a lot of swimming and scrambling. We continued on. Despite the difficulties, this was the quickest way to go for us to get out. Bob stoically made his way down the canyon, taking his time on the awkward bits.
After this, there was a climb up a hill to get to a fire road and then a walk along that to get back to the car. These were a lot easier for Bob to manage. Bob also managed to drive home OK. The diagnosis the next day – cracked ribs.