Mill Creek

March 13, 2026March 15, 2026 | flynny101

04/03/2026

Kristo, Dave, Jason, Kylie, and me

3hrs drive to do a 3hr canyon? Are you mad?

Well, yeah, but there was a method to our madness.

And to be honest this one turned out to be a bit of a surprise highlight, partly because I wasn’t expecting much.

Anyhoo, Jason put it on his must do list for this trip and we all just went along with him. The description sounded cool and after Wilsons it was a bit of a rest day.

The diving would break up the trip a bit and give us a chance to restock supplies and eat out in Wanaka.

The pass up was steep but not too difficult and we make good time.

We are too high calls Kylie, We are a few contours above the trace

There’s marking tape here though, replies Jason

It looks like a rough trail, Says Kristo

we push on, or down. or sumfink

I’ve been down some goat tracks in my time but this was up there in the goat trackiness. And all the while the roar of the water is churning int he back ground.

still there are signs someone at some point has come this way.

It doesn’t feel right. Says Kylie. I’m sure this was run during the festival. the track should be fresh.

There’s a landline here.

The old hand line was possibly more a short abseil but Jason and Kris get down.

I start to hand over hand.

Whatever I’m standing on gives way and suddenly I’m free hanging on a skinny cord and can’t quite get my feet back on the wall.

Below nothing but steep scree, soiled underpants and a sense of dread.

No choice but accept a bit of rope burn and slide down.

I’ll say up front this little episode put the wind up me a bit.

Still we scramble down a bit more before coming to what looks like another small cliffline.

Below us Mill Creek Tumbles through a series of complex boulders.

According to the trace the start is 50m down that way.

Will be get past that pool? It looks horrid,

Maybe if we can cross above it?

Problem is we can’t see what the water is doing directly below us.

Phuk this say I, still shaken from my near fall. Let’s head back up a bit and cut across to where the trace is.

We ascend back up above the dodgy hand line and follow Kylie’s trace down over the next knob and pick up a much clearer trail, and less dodge path down.

Reaching the creek we see that had we have abseiled in before a narrow ledge and bit of scrambling would have gotten us across to the first anchor.

Anyhoo, setting up an anchor and getting us all down would have taken just as long. So alls well that ends well.

We pause for a bite to eat, suit up and take in the surroundings.

What a spot.

We bypass the first anchor and traverse bolts which appear to be high-water options and set up at the first drop.

The guide wasn’t wrong.

Some of the drops are very intimidating from above.

Most end in deep pools.

Most of those pools have wash-over risks

But whoever set the route has done a fabulous job. shout yourselves a beer or two.

The anchors are in the perfect positions to get you into a safe spot to assess the eddie and choose your swim line before committing to the water.

It’s such a diverse canyon too.

The top is open, yet intimidating. And the further you descend the more the walls close in.

And it is just stunningly beautiful ©Dave

With plenty of options to jump and slide ©Kylie

Kristo looking down to where the water disappearing into a deep slot

And we make our way back across the flats, wade the river and meet back at the car.

More photos just because. Feel free to click on them

Mine.

Kylie’s

Daves

Do the thing. A Honnold

Back to the Canyoning page.

Or onto Mathers Creek

Robinsons Creek

March 10, 2026March 11, 2026 | flynny101

01/03/2026

Dave, Jason, Hywaida, Kristo, Kylie and meeeeeeeee

A canyoning trip to New Zealand has been on the wish list for years but just hadn’t popped to the top of the priority list.

Until now.

The lead up was a bit chaotic and at various points it was looking like not all of us would make it but somehow the stars aligned and, thankfully, all 6 of us found ourselves making the acquaintance of every sand fly in Haast.

With the flies in a suitable frenzy over the taste of our blood we started our adventures off with a bang in Robinsons Creek.

a 15min walk up the hill and we are straight into it.

and some abseiling to check the depth first. This one was a bit too shallow to jump

The patterns and colours in the Schist was beautiful. Haast Schist is a metamorphic rock formed from sand and mudstones that have been reheated and placed under pressure then subjected to folding and uplifting to give it the patterns and swirls.

All good, gentle fun so far. A couple of small hydraulic features to be aware of.

The route is really well set. Unlike the typical Blue Mountain canyons we are use to there are times where you need to set traverse lines to avoid the hydraulics at the bottom of the waterfall, or loose log jams that act a sheives part way down. We are not unfamiliar with high flow canyons and practice this stuff a lot but it was a lot of fun putting our skills into practice in an easier canyon on day 1.

Then we come to the cavern pitch.

Jason sets the rope and I jump on, peering over the void.

It looks epic.

Then I notice a guy in board shorts below…. He’d scrambled up from the bottom but doesn’t hang around long. It was cold enough in the 5mm wettie.

Anyhoo, this pitch was amazebalz

Kylie at the top. The roar of the water beside you is awe inspiring.

More photos of this glorious little canyon. Click to enbiggen

Mine

Kylie’s

Hywaida’s

We scramble down the next drop on true right, walk around the corner and lo and behold there’s the car!

Fully psyched and eager for more we leave the wetsuits on and head down the road to Cross Creek

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin. Will I Am Shakespeare

Back to the canyoning page

Cross Creek

March 10, 2026March 13, 2026 | flynny101

Buzzing from Robinson Creek we make the short drive down to the Cross Creek Bridge.

Now I may have been a little over hyped.

I may or may not have mis-read the notes to say “From the Bridge Walk 10min back toward Haast to find the obvious trail.”

Well we walked toward Haast for 10min…

What the notes Actually said was “Walk 10m (As in metres everybody) back towards Haast Pass (As in toward Wanaka- away from Haast, like der Fred ) You would have thunk the friendly guide having a chat with us while suiting up his clients might have said “Hey Bros you’re going the wrong way. It’s just there aye”

Anyhoo, we correct our (my) mistake.

what’s a Flynny trip with out a slight navigational hiccough anyway?

The warm up walk curbed our enthusiasm slightly so we opted not to go all the way to the upper sections and dropped in to the middle section a little early to get the jump on the guide group.

and we are pretty much straight into it again.

while the canyon was a little more open the colours were even more vivid.

And once again the canyon finishes pretty much at the car. We change and eat and swap tall stories about our first 2 NZ canyons then make our way back to our rented house at Haast where the lovely flies had told all their friends just how tasty we are.

Unfortunately the Haast river itself and some of its tributaries, including Cross Creek are infected with the invasive Didymo slime, AKA rock snot.

And while we didn’t see any it’s important to do the right thing, this means cleaning all our gear in diluted detergent and drying it off each day. Most parties we spoke to suggested we get a plastic tub each for this.

But Jason had a better idea

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all. — Helen Keller

Continued onto Wilsons Creek

Back to the canyoning page

	Mathers – slee… on Wilsons Creek
	Imp Grotto – s… on Mathers
	Mathers – slee… on Cross Creek
	Mathers – slee… on Robinsons Creek
	Mill Creek – s… on Wilsons Creek

sleepwhenwearedead

blue, mts, canyon, canyoning, mtb, mountain bike, gardens of stone, Lithgow

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Mill Creek

Robinsons Creek

Cross Creek