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Hand Over Hand Canyon

| flynny101

08/11/2025

Gadget and meeeeeeeee

It had been a hectic week, we needed to get out and wanted to do something neither of us had done before but had limited time.

What about Hand Over Hand? It’s suppose to be a short half day.

Kylie did a quick bit of research and noted the trace on ropewiki did not match the description on ropewiki. While the notes mention several exit options the main description was for the shorter exit. The trace was for the longer exit if you went down South Bowen.

TBF the South Bowen option would make a good short day trip but if you had just glanced over the description expecting a couple of hours then blindly followed the trace you’d be in for a shock.

With mapping apps like alltrails becoming more popular this is becoming a bit of an issue. There have been reports of people looking for the infinity pool at the end of Fortress or the bush walker route to Dalpura but unknowingly loading the GPX trace for the canyon trips instead and getting themselves into trouble.

Don’t get me wrong, Alltrails and other mapping apps are a handy resource, but like any tool you need to know how to use them.

A good tip is to start with the premise that you have no idea who uploaded it, what their skill and experience is (an easy rock scramble for a gun climber might induce a BLM (Bowel Liquifying Moment) to the average canyoner). You don’t know what information or directions they themselves were following or if they just stumbled along and got lucky. You don’t know if it’s their trace or one they got off someone who got it off someone who got it off someone. Hell, you don’t even know if they have actually done the route, it might be just a speculatively drawn line on a map.

So, load it onto your mapping app and have a good look. Does it look to follow the best contours? Are there other options? Why does it do that big zigzag at the cliff? And does it match your expectations from the description?

Cross referencing the track notes with other sources and trip reports will also give you a broader understanding of the trip.

Anyhoo, enough pontification. that side track was longer than the trip and maybe well over the top for experienced canyoners on a simple trip like HoH but it’s how we role.

Now onto the canyon.

We leave home at the crack of 10:30am and make our way across to park up at the start of the Mount Wilson East Power Line fire trail. A short distance down here and we swing down under the powerlines.

The description hinted at horrendous scrub in the creek so I had hoped to drop in a little lower. I choose a nose I hoped goes between two side creeks and we make easy time down to the cliff line.

Right creek looks like it cliffs out. Calls I

Left looks like it goes, answers Gadget.

I make my way across and scramble into the side of the side creek. In doing so I disturb the biggest copperhead snake I’ve ever seen. Chunky boi makes a bee line toward Kylie.

Snake coming directly at you! warns I

WTF! yells Kylie. But in long form. This is no time for three letter acronyms.

Snekie snek dodges her ankles and disappears into scrub.

Well that was fun.

We gain the creek. Scrub and dead fall awaits. We hadn’t saved ourselves as much creek bashing as I hoped but we make our way down to the upper section of canyon.

It starts with a bit of promise, with a crystal clear pool below a small down climb as the cliffs close in.

But to call it an upper section is a stretch.

The “canyon” opens back out and a short way down the creek the cliff open as well. There is what looks to be a gentle ridge entering on the left. In hindsight this could be a much better spot to enter. It’s not to far a divert if you want to head up stream to bask in the glory of the upper section and it would miss a 1km of creek bashing.

We all know I have a rep for horrendous scrub bashes to canyons of questionable quality but up until now even I was wondering if this one was going to be worth it.

Just downstream the bottom bit makes up for it.

Gadget above the first drop
One of the few keeper potholes in the Bluies.

There is a couple of ways to get out of the pothole. 1. Scramble out over the lip or, 2. duck under and swim through an arch

Water levels looks low so scrambling over the slippery walls may prove difficult and we couldn’t see if the tight duck under was clear so we opted to by pass over the top and abseil in the side.

Once down I thought I’d try the duck under. It’s a bit deep to be called a “Duck Under” it’s a full on swim under and it’s silted up making a tight squeeze.

yes I chickened out. Got my head under the arch and thought screw that for fun

pretty but

A lot of these little side canyons have 1 really nice chamber and that’s it. I was kinda expecting that to be the case here but what we got was a very beautiful series of enclosed dells. it reminded me a bit of an untouched deep pass.

the water clarity was amazing

and the canyon opens up. We are a bit above the junction with South Bowen but follow a break in the cliff lines up to the left where a rough bush walkers trail leads up back up to the powerlines near where we first dropped in.

Seeing places few others see and doing things few others do is what it’s about

About 3hrs car to car with a lot of photo phaffing

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Hat Hill 2025

| flynny101

23-08-2025

Kylie, Hywaida and meeeeeeeeeeee

Despite just getting back from Blue Lake hot on the heals of New Zealand we were feeling like we hadn’t been too active this winter. I hadn’t really been riding and Kylie was missing regular trips to the climbing gym and we were both missing canyoning.

We briefly considered a simple Empress run then I thought to myself, I haven’t done Hat Hill in like forever.

Hey Kylie, says I, I haven’t done Hat Hill in like forever.

Me neither, says Kylie.

So we put a last minute call out and H joins us.

Driving into Blackheath, Um, Does anyone know where we are going? say I

A quick check on Ozultimates to confirm the car park and we are off.

We had considered abseiling in via one of the side canyons but there had been a crap load of ran through the week and since we hadn’t done it in like forever we decided to stick with the standard trip as a reccie for later adventures.

We are expecting the water levels to be up and were prepared to abort the trip if it was too high.

The walk in is short and easy we get to the start of the first section now dramas

The water was a bit pushy, making the down climb a bit tricky

The first section is a nice little teaser, the walls close in then pretty much open out.

But it’s pretty creek walking in between the canyon sections

We take the time to explore up the side canyon on the right making plans for future trips before heading down stream
The high water made some features a bit harder to negotiate than usual.
We scope out the entry to the middle section and carefully consider it before committing.
A still from Kylie’s Video. Might not look like much but personally I would be reluctant to try it any higher. If you needed to reverse out for any reason it would be problematic

There is a lot of tree fall which would also create dangerous hazards in high water. the calmer bits between, though were noice.

The lower section was as pretty as ever with multiple side waterfalls
the infamous double arch waterfall in a side canyon

Making our way back up to the exit through the lower section was surprisingly hard work. The extra water flow and deep sand working like resistance training on every step.

And back at the exit there was nothing left but to have lunch then haul out.

It’s a different world out there.

How many worlds are in your world? Andy Anderson

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Great Ocean Road

| flynny101

Doesn’t really need words but we road tripped out of Melbourne and made our first stop in The Great Otways NP for waterfalls and old growth Gondwana forests.

Glowworms. Always chasing glowworms

And then we cruise on down the road turning left at every opportunity to look at big rocks sticking out of the southern ocean.

We spend the night at Warrnambool and then make our way back on the slightly less travel inland route to check out the amzing geology of Victorias extinct volcanos and salt lakes

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New Zealand South Island Road trip 2025 – Aoraki

| flynny101

From the Clay Cliffs we make our way up to White Horse Hill campground which is nestled below the towering peak of Aorali/Mount Cook.

White Horse Hill is a paid ground. During the winter the main toilet/shower blocks are closed off as the frequent negative temperatures lead to burst pipes and what not. What you are left with is two of the smelliest drop toilets I’ve ever encountered, And I’ve done long weekends at Newnes Camp ground in it’s heyday.

Take the biggest breath you can here and hold it as long as you can, a young whipper snapper was heard giving advice to her younger brother…..

Don’t let that put you off though, the scenery is well worth a skinny loo or two.

We roll in late afternoon and set the camp up. The temperature is already -2ºC and falling. The little diesel heater fitted in the van is amazing.

As night settles in and the temp plummets to -8º we decide to brave it for the sake of the most amazingly clear night sky.

Clicky Clicky to see full photo

The next day we head out on the Hooker Valley Trail.

Normally this gives the closest access to the base Aoraki the general public will get and also views over the proglacial Hooker Lake, complete with icebergs, however only a short section of the trail was open at the time of our visit due to track work and a bridge being washed out.

the short open section did, however provide great views over the Mueller Glacier and it’s lake.

Next we return to the van and duck over to the village for a coffee. While there we dropped in to the Department of Conservation information centre.

Wow!!!

What an amazing free resource. If you were in the area and the weather was bad you could easily spend a whole day in here. There are displays and videos and more lots more.

But today was a blue bird day so we have a quick look and then head over towards the Tasman Glacier.

Here you can take helicopter tour or a boat tour on the lake. We opt to just do the tourist walks.

Sitting between NZ’s two tallest peaks the Tasman is New Zealand’s largest glacier, being up to 4km wide and 600m thick in places. It had remained a fairy constant 28km long through out its recorded history up until it starting to retreat in the 1990s. It’s currently 23km long and retreating on average 180m/year.

Looking up the lake from the tourist lookout the glacier is’t much to look at. Compared to the white snow and crystal blue ice on the Franz Josef, the Tasman crunches up and contains a lot more rock and minerals (Glacier flour), giving it a dark, almost dirty appearance. Without the information sign at the I doubt most people, me included, would pick it out in the distance.

The lake, however is stunning.

The Blue Pools. When named they were connected to the glacier and very blue. Now they are cut off they are more a stagnant green.

Back at the van we start heading back down the valley.

On the way in I’d caught a glimpse of Wakefield Falls. It caught my eye on the way back out.

Is that waterfall frozen?

Looks like it.

It’s difficult to come to terms with scale here. That waterfall tumbles 230 vertical meters.

We pull over for a better look.

Na, it’s flowing. Looks like a cracker of a slot it’s tumbling into.

Should we go for a look.

hell yeah.

I grab the camera and off we go.

There is what appears to be a former tourist trail that comes and goes through the scrub and scree.

Did I mention it is hard to come to terms with scale here? It becomes apparent it’s further than it first looked.

Belatedly I realise in my excitement to get going I failed to grab my puffer jacket and beanie. This is how silly tourist get themselves on the news kids. Luckily not today though

Halfway up we meet to Russian(?) guys coming back down.

Did you get to the waterfall? ask we

Yes yes. Beautiful. Very careful. Very careful.

We push on. We reach the end of the flatter basin and the terrain gets steeper and looser. We had been yeeting up but slow here. A rolled ankle, rock fall or dislodging the scree here would be bad indeed.

There is still a fair way to go. Says Kylie. We should set a hard stop point.

Good idea.

It had been about 2:15pm when we left the van. We decide at 3:15 we need to turn around to get back prior to loosing the light.

I think we gained about 200m of elevation from the road. A bit after 3pm we get to a point where we had a a reasonable view into the slot where 3 streams of the falls converge.

We are so close. Another 10-15min and we’d be at the base of the falls. but hard stops are hard stops and but I know by the time I get the camera set up and get some shot we’d be close to time so thats what we do.

I’d guesstimate the bottom tier you can see here is about 50m tall

We get the shots and video in and scoot back down.

Part way down we come across this old information sign. Weird spot but I guess the old tourist track came up to this vantage point.

Explaining how the moraines pushed up by the glaciers formed dams in the rivers as the glacier retreated. or sumfink

Back at the van we chug down the road making for a freedom camp at lake Pukaki

New Zealand South Island Road Trip 2025 – Clay Cliffs

| flynny101

From Wanaka at the end of the Haast Pass we head up to Omarama for another geological wonder, the Clay Cliffs.

We miss timed it a bit and got there pretty much at noon which meant the contrasting light made photography difficult but hopefully the epicness of the landscape still came through.

The Omarama Clay Cliffs are on private land and there’s a honesty system donation to enter.

Formed from millions of years of sediment deposit at the bottom of a lake then uplifted and tilted, the Clay Cliffs are a classic example of what is termed “Badlands erosion”

They really are spectacular.

Kylie has a much better and more scientific explanation of these formations.

Here’s what she said

“I still remember the first time our lecturer brought us here and told us to “run wild and free” as he explained to us this magnificent example of tectonics in action. The Clay Cliffs are sedimentary deposits that were once the base of river bed. Due to the position of the Ostler Fault line under the South Island of New Zealand the river bed has been uplifted overtime and then eroded to form these strikingly alien planet like features.

New Zealand is an amazing country to see Earth in motion, similar to Iceland where tectonic forces are still very much at play building the landscape as we speak. Unlike Australia that is so ancient it only erodes now.

Anyway the Clay Cliffs are totally cool, I’m still finding new parts of it to explore every time I come back.”

Click to make the photo go biggish

it was still a little chilly
Ice

After spending most of the afternoon here we jump in the van and make tracks up to Aoraki aka Mount Cook.

new Zealand South Island Road Trip 2025 – Waterfalls of Haast Pass

| flynny101

We’ve seen some amazing thing so far and the next adventure was one I was looking forward to.

We opted for a super early wake up at Bruce Bay and made our way down to Haast for breakfast and coffee. Today we would be driving the Haast Pass, in an of itself a great scenic drive but we were leaving ourselves plenty of time for exploring.

Haast Pass is home to some of the most popular canyons in New Zealand. It would be too cold to descend them this time but with the constrictions often ending in stunning waterfalls just off the road we planned to take most of the day exploring them.

Some of the waterfalls are sign posted tourist attractions, others you just need to keep an eye on the bridge names and find a place to park. We had several picked out that we wanted to check out but there were plenty more.

Note: The Haast river is known to have Didymo, an invasive fresh water algae also known as Rock Snot, so if you enter the river bed or water it’s important to Check Clean Dry shoes and gear before entering another waterway or traveling.

Anyhoo our first stop.

Depot Creek

A camping area on the right just after the bridge made a good spot to park and a trail headed off leading upstream. Less then 5min later we came to the 10m tiered Depot Creek Falls.

Click to see the full photos

Imp Grotto

When I say the canyons open with a waterfall near the road, Imp Grotto finishes right under the bridge. We had to park a little up the road and walk back but it’s a cool spot

Roaring Billy

Not far up the road Roaring Billy falls is a signposted tourist stop. A dedicated parking area gives access to a trail that takes you down to the Haast river for views across to Roaring Billy falls, it’s around a 30min round trip with a bit of time taking photos. Thou the mountain mist made getting a decent shot hard today

Douglas Falls

Another small waterfall right by the road

Thunder Falls

Thunder falls is signposted with a constructed tourist walk down to the stunning 30m waterfall

Pyke Creek

This one was a little harder to get to. Being directly fed from the Brewster Glacier the water is even colder. Kylie decided to sit this one out. I carefully made my way up stream on a rough track that at times traversed narrow ledges. Im handy in the outdoors and a good scrambler with a head for heights but this was at the limit of what I was willing to brave on my own in unfamiliar terrain so take care.

In summer you might be able to work your way up the creek itself but I’d imagine with ice melt the water flow would be treacherous as the canyon descent has rarely been repeated.

Fantail Falls

Another signposted waterfall with dedicated car park and walking track to views across the river towards the falls.

Robinson Creek

One of the more popular canyons in the area for which the bottom chamber is easy to get to

Wilsons Creek

The show case canyon in the area, Wilsons creek is spectacular and if you are willing to brave cold water and wet feet you can visit the last little bit just in off the road.

Other waterfalls within 5min walk of the road or visible from the road that we didn’t visit this time around include

  • Orman Falls (10m high)
  • Joes Creek Falls (150m High)
  • Gunboat Falls (150m High)
  • Diana Falls (15m High)

We decide if possible we’d spend a night at a van park to get a descent shower and stuff. A quick google search revealed Mt Aspiring Holiday Park to be cheap as chips and referenced something about a hot hub.

Calling ahead the lovely Erin assured me they had plenty of spots and if we could get there by 6:30 we could book the last allocation for the hottub.

How mush is it said /i

$10 each for 25 minutes. Says she

Book us in said I.

We got there around 5 and Erin informs me she’d given us their best non-powered site. She wasn’t wrong, close the kitchen and amenities while not too close but better it gave an amazing view out the back of the van to the snow capped mountains reflected off the lake.

No only that but she also said no one had booked the 6pm spa spot and she was keen to leave early so if we wanted to pick up the key to the spa at 6 it was ours for the night, just put the key in the safe when we finished. Winning.

But wait, there’s more!

Um, I saw a sign for a drying room how much is it to use that?

What gear do you have?

Just some old boots, we were in the Haast and have done the check and clean and gave them a good scrub but it would be good to get them dry.

Oh yeah of course, no charge. Leave them outside the door and when I get a chance I’ll pop over turn the heating on and put them in for you.

I like Erin.

So that’s an unpowered van site, pretty much unlimited use of the hot tub (TBH we were tired and hungry so only took the 30mins anyway but still.) and they turned the ski gear drying room on all night just for us for a grand total of $68NZ.

We do a nice diner in the kitchen, get a good night sleep and then head to the Clay Cliffs of Omarama

New Zealand South Island Road trip 2025- Hokitika Sunset point and glowworms

| flynny101

From Hokitika Gorge we slip back into town and head to Sunset point for diner in the van.

I’d never seen the sunset over the ocean before, Unfortunately the cloud cover closed in an all but blocked it out.

Not to be discouraged I thought I’d try my hand at some more arty farty photos at the memorial and art works.

Driving into town I’d spotted a sign post for glowworms.

I know we had just done the most amazing cave tour but I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I will never not be awestruck by glowworms.

Lucky Kylie shares my fascination with the little shiny slugs with their little glowy bums.

If a cave tour sounds a bit too strenuous or clautrophobic for you I have some good news.

The Hokitika Glowworm dell is literally (Literally babes) 50m off the main highway in a shady, fern filled gully. A concrete path leads you in.

Tip: either use a red light (even a bit of coloured cellophane or contact over your torch) or hold onto the hand rails turn your torch off and let your eyes adjust.

From here it was on to a highlight in a long list of highlights from this trip Franz Josef Glacier

Wild Swimming in the Wollemi

| flynny101

16-05-2025

Kylie and meeeeeeeee

Our weekend plans had fallen through so we thought we’d go in search of some waterfalls neither of us had been to before.

Kylie suggested a spot and during research got a tip off that the fire trail out to them had recently been gated.

So we put the mountain bikes in to help eat up the kilometres.

Not only are the swimming holes spectacular this could now be my favourite fire trail ride (Did I just say that? what have I become?) I have a feeling the guy who did the road work is a mountain biker. Each waterbar seemed to be a perfectly shaped step down. Even though recovering from a shoulder injury meant I couldn’t take to the air it was still a blast.

Anyhoo, that’s not what we are here for.

20min later we are stashing the bikes in the bush and heading down a steep trail cutting through subtropical rainforest quiet different from anything you usually see in the upper mountains..

This brings us to a pleasant creek and we head downstream.

the stunning cliff lines close in ©Kylie

And we reach the top of our first waterfall

It really is breath taking
stunning

We play around here for a bit then continue down stream.

At the junction with the next creek is another spectacular pool.

It’s a beauty

We slip up to a large rock shelf above the falls to find a bit of sunshine.

The shelf was riddled with keeper holes. ©Kylie
beautiful

We have some lunch and a splash then make our way out.

The Haul up the hill is steep but interesting enough that I wasn’t in a world of suffering. And while I thought the ride back to the car might be tough it was just as much fun as it was coming in, with some pinches to keep you honest.

On the way back we spy some interesting mushrooms.

So of course we had to head back in the dark to see if they still had a shine.

It was faint, barely able to be made out with naked eye but some long exposures brought up their beauty.

Click to enbiggen

Ghost Mushrooms produce bioluminescence for around 22hrs a day. And for 14 of those hours you would think they are just another mushroom. People are like ghost mushrooms, if you can’t see their glow you are looking at them in the wrong light: C Flynn

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Good ol’ henry Deane and thomas Penrose

| flynny101

04/05/2025

Jason, Russ, Vince and meeeeee

I always enjoy discovering there’s hidden canyons in areas I thought I knew fairly well.

Suddenly finding ourselves with a spare day we organised a last minute semi exploratory trip to a little canyon none of us had been to before.

Vince had prepared the lidar maps which suggested the constriction would start a bit further downstream than the spot I had selected to enter.

The one source I had said the lidar hadn’t picked up a small cliffline near the creek. says I. I’d hate to miss something.

So we bush bashed in to the spot I had picked. Somehow picking a path to the only 2 cliff lines in that area, luckily there was a path down in-between the two outcrops that look surprisingly like a butt on the lidar. We went down the crack.

The first part of the creek was a bit of a scrubby dub dub with 1000 fallen trees to clamber over but then it opened up a bit

I’ve visited worse creeks
A nice spot for a dip on a warm day. Today was not warm.
and soon it dropped into something that looked very canyon like

A slippery scramble down brought us to a deep, crystal clear pool. Vince spidermaned across. Russ and Jas follow.

This is going to be a test for my shoulder.

I manage to bridge out but as I try the next move I feel the shoulder giving way….. In I go.

It was refreshing.

It should have been a simple bridging exercise.

Couldn’t support my own weight

Not overly deep or consistent but a canyon non-the-less
With some very noice sections.
the next pool looked less avoidable
Even Russ suited up and swam through
Jason decided to give traversing along the side a go. And very nearly made it.
And more pleasant canyon follows
Getting down this tangle of rotting logs and loose boulders was one of the biggest challenges of this little canyon.
And soon we came to the tributary we had planned as our exit.

A little bit of scrambling and a tad of scrub bashing and we were back at the road and quickly headed back to the car to pick up the ropes and harnesses then head off to visit another little canyon not too far away.

Everyone’s favourite squeezy canyon
Russ sitting on everyone’s favourite dodgy anchor
Jason on everyone’s favourite cheese grater abseil
Everyone’s favourite Go/No Go gauge. Don’t go down go over!
Everyone’s favourite helpful team mate
Everyone’s favourite return to the big wide world.
a noice ramp back up through the cliffline.

Then all the was left to do was to bash some more scrub to the main trail and a 3km walk back to the car.

Searching is half the fun. Life is much more manageable when thought of as a scavenger hunt: J Buffett

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