14-06-21

Gadget, Penny, Chief Quimby, Professor Von Slickstein and Me… I mean, Dr Claw

Whatya doing on the Monday of the long weekend? Asks Gadget

No plans. What do you have in mind? Says I

Options were thrown up before settling on a Go Go Gadget excursion back to Wolgan falls.

We’ve been talking about getting back there to do a wet line after rain. It almost happened after the March deluge but we wimped out fearing the road maybe impassable.

And the stars just haven’t aligned since.

But now we have had a bit of rain through the week, then a good dump of snow on the plateau.

Time to give it a crack

Unfortunately Brain had to bail last minute…. Now I was concerned. How would Penny help Gadget and the others foil Dr Claw without him?

Anyhoo

We meet up at the ZigZag railway on a crispy morning, pile into cars and head in (Yeah we were going the long way, or at least the slow way, but we had our reasons)

The road was boggy but some awesomely excellent driving by Von Slickstein saw him follow us through in his 2WD ute.

Packed up, nervous whizs and off we go

The trip is pretty basic, some easy nav along the ridge, and a couple of dry abseils land you on a large flat shelf above the falls.

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Its a pretty spot

And it’s from this point we plan to mix things up. The usual line is in 2 stages a few meters to river left of the falls. Despite ice in puddles and a few patches of snow up top we are hoping to rig things to go straight down the guts.

We discuss options, a tree would have us in the perfect spot, but it’s a looooooong way back.

We have everything we need to build a long anchor but ideally we’d set it as a retrievable so we don’t leave anything behind.

Options were discussed before deciding to use a shorter rope around the tree set on the fiddlestick near the edge then tie jthe main line below the stick…

Go Go Gadget retrievable anchor and Roberts your Aunty’s husband or sumfink

Stirlo’s down and so far nobody has died. Wootwoot

And we are all down, now to see if we can retrieve things

Kylie pops the fiddle stick. Success.

Stirlo and Ed pull the rope. Success

‘Cept the fiddlestick then wedges itself in the only crack on the halfway ledge and the tail of the rope wraps itself around the only stick in the only crack on the halfway ledge…

Luckily the way out goes up to the halfway ledge and a delicate bit of rope work with the spare rope gets me in a position to release both

We high 5 and begin to pack up for the haul out

Voices…. Up above smiling faces pear over the cliff. I recognise Dick. He is with Laurie, Mick, Peter and crew. This is 2 trips in a row we’ve run into them. We head up and say g’day

Then we are back in the cars for a bite to eat and then back through the mudbath for a little add on that took longer to get there than to do.

Worth it but

Anchor trees in this one can be a bit hard to get and ghosting (Fiddlestick/smooth operator..) is definitely the way to go. Would hate to see slings or chains in this one

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And 10min later we’re back up at the cars

Another awesomely excellent adventure with awesomely excellent mates.

“Find a group of people who challenge and inspire you; spend a lot of time with them, and it will change your life.” — Amy Poehler

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