Whungee Wheengee Canyon is a tributary of Wollangambe Canyon. As canyons go its not too bad at all. It is reasonably long and has many deep dark sections. It is also quite a sporting canyon – with lots of swims, numerous tricky down climbs, and a couple of abseils thrown in.
The canyon can be thought of as being in two sections. The upper part has many obstacles including about 5 “duckunders”. Except in very high water these aren’t really sumps that require submerging – but they can be tricky to negotiate. The buoyancy provided by a daypack whist swimming can make it quite difficult to get through a section with a low roof. This upper part has some very nice canyon formation – but it is never really sustained. A tight bit of canyon is followed by a more open section that after a while drops into another narrow section. This pattern continues for the whole upper constriction.
At a bend, the creek opens up completely, twists again to the south and drops into the lower section of canyon. This is shorter and starts with two abseils. The wilderness quality of the canyon here has been spoiled by some unnecessary retro-bolting. A shame! The last part of the canyon is a classic example of a joint controlled canyon.
When I started canyoning back in the 1970’s, on lilo trips down the Wollangambe, we would often park our lilos and explore up the side canyons. This included going up Whungee Wheengee as far as the boulder blockage not far below the abseils. I think in those days we assumed that there was nothing much upstream worth exploring.
It was in the early 80’s on a SUBW trip that the creek was explored from high up. I was on the trip, but not for the Whungee Wheengee part. It was a weekend trip to Yarramun Creek from Mt Wilson. On the Saturday night we camped in middle Yarramun Creek and then climbed out on the Sunday morning and headed back to Mt Wilson.
Tony Norman, who was on the trip wanted to go back via what is now named Whungee Wheengee Canyon and I remember Brad Phillips, Airdrie Long and I think Ian Wilson went with him. I was reluctant to do a lot more swimming (we didn’t take lilos) in the Wollangambe – so Michael Doherty and myself went back via a more easterly route.
This took us into what is now known as the “Waterfall of Moss Canyon”. We scrambled down a fair bit of the canyon, but only had a short scrambling rope with us, so climbed out on ledges and traversed further east and dropped into the Wollangambe directly opposite the well known exit at the end of the “Greg” section of Wollangame Canyon. We had a long wait at Mt Wilson for the others.
When they eventually turned up, they told us about the nice long canyon they had found. Tony had named it “Whungee Wheengee” so as to be deliberately confusing (Wheengee Whungee Creek is a well known canyon in the Kanangra area). Around the same time, Tony was also responsible for naming the nearby Why Don’t We Do It In The Road Canyon – another of his first descents.
The trip down the canyon last Saturday, with Su Li and Disco, was a pleasant escape from the heat on a very warm day.
On even the hottest days the canyon itself is still very cold. It surely must be one of the coldest of the canyons in the Blue Mountains. With its many swims in very dark and still pools there is not much chance to warm up. When you do reach the Wollangambe, the contrast in water temperatures is amazing. The Wollangambe feels hot in comparison!
Being a hot day we chose to move slowly. We took our time taking photos and we spent a lot of time enjoying the Wollangambe Canyon before climbing out to return to Mt Wilson.
More photos of the trip can be found on my website here.
