I was with a group of friends (Su Li, Brent, Martin and Damon) and we were heading up for the Sydney University Bushwalkers Christmas Walk to the Coxs River. As we often do on these walks, we detoured on the way at Medlow Bath and made a quick trip through the Grand Canyon.
One of the party, Martin, claimed it was much quicker walking to the canyon via the old Point Pilcher Track from the road near the Katoomba Airfield at Medlow Bath rather then the Evans Lookout Road at Blackheath. So we set out from there. It didn’t take us long to descend down to the Grand Canyon Track, and then we climbed back up to where the track traverses along a ledge through the canyon.
At the abseil point, we were surprised to find no other parties, given it was quite a hot day. We soon had our rope set up for the abseil (which is about 18 m from the chain). I went down first, and hen continued down the canyon in order to take some photos without holding up the others.
It was nice in the canyon, but the light was quite poor for photography. It was very harsh and difficult to avoid the canyon walls being lit up by patchy sunlight that would burn out the photos. So I moved downstream hoping for some sections lit by reflected light.
I was near the end of the canyon, in the most spectacular section, when the others caught up. We then only had the swim and walk out left.
Back at the car, we had taken only about 2 hours 15 minutes for the trip. Not too bad considering that I had photopfaffed for a fair while. We then headed into Blackheath for lunch.
More photos of the canyon are online on my website here.