Bushwalk Australia

Hi,

I'm looking to explore down the lower Wollangambe this weekend. I've done Wollangambe 1 and 2 about 10 times now, takes me about 5 hours (excluding walk in\out).

I just want to know if there are any large jumps or areas that require abseiling gear? Also, which of the exits have exposure worse than the Wollangambe 1 exit.

I want to do an open ended trip, seeing how far I get in 9 hours.

I've been meaning to set aside a day to scope out the exits for Wollangambe 3,4,5 and 6, however I just haven't found the time to 'waste' on a scouting missing like that.

Any advice would be GREATLY appreciated. Feel free to PM if you feel this infomation is too sensitive to say publicly.

mandragara wrote:I just want to know if there are any large jumps or areas that require abseiling gear?

Way back in the early 1980s a friend and I decided to lilo/walk the Wollangambe all the way to the Colo River. The going got progressively scrubbier, and after four days we realised that we had no chance of making it within the 9 days allotted, so we bailed out. But I can tell you that we encountered no abseils or large jumps on the stretch that we did, nor was our exit difficult (although I no longer remember exactly where our exit was).

ribuck wrote:

mandragara wrote:I just want to know if there are any large jumps or areas that require abseiling gear?

Way back in the early 1980s a friend and I decided to lilo/walk the Wollangambe all the way to the Colo River. The going got progressively scrubbier, and after four days we realised that we had no chance of making it within the 9 days allotted, so we bailed out. But I can tell you that we encountered no abseils or large jumps on the stretch that we did, nor was our exit difficult (although I no longer remember exactly where our exit was).

Thanks for the intel.

In that case I'll go and scope out each exit as I approach it from below, noting the difficulty. When I find one that's doable, I'll just make sure to always be able to make it back to it before dark.

I'll take a bet that one of the 4 exits is doable. Worst comes to worst I can just exit where I enter.

The big thing is that's it's, in principle, not downstream only. So I'm not commited to finding a lower exit.

I have a feeling I am imagining this as being much harder than it is

As per Ribuck's comment, there's no abseils anywhere downstream, but the going does get slower the further you go. More time spent walking and scrambling, less time floating.

As for passes, there are quite a few, and some in quite obvious spots. The one at the end of what you probably consider Wollangambe 4 is probably the easiest pass anywhere around there. The location is really obvious on the topo map.

It's a great area to explore, but give yourself enough time to find a pass. The exploration is a big part of the fun, so it's not appropriate to give away too much given it's a wilderness area.

FatCanyoner wrote:As per Ribuck's comment, there's no abseils anywhere downstream, but the going does get slower the further you go. More time spent walking and scrambling, less time floating.

As for passes, there are quite a few, and some in quite obvious spots. The one at the end of what you probably consider Wollangambe 4 is probably the easiest pass anywhere around there. The location is really obvious on the topo map.

It's a great area to explore, but give yourself enough time to find a pass. The exploration is a big part of the fun, so it's not appropriate to give away too much given it's a wilderness area.

Thanks for the reply. I agree with you about the wilderness area stuff, I actually prefer less infomation as I like to explore and be surprised also. This little bit of intel just saves me doing a dedicated scouting trip, which I'd of course love to do, but don't have a lot of spare time at the moment. So thank you for sharing!

We met a party of Rover Scouts coming out of the Angorawa Track once. They had spent a week or more coming down the Woll.
They headed on to the road while we sorted ourselves out and drove out. So there they were, sitting on the Putty Rd, obviously waiting for their cars. We said hello/goodby and started down the asphalt towards Windsor. About 200 m from the turnoff, at the old pig farm, we saw a large cluster of cars. Bells rang and I stopped and crossed the road to them. Aha: they were waiting for the kids to come out thru the pig farm, which is PP. And the kids were waiting for them up the road ...
My good deed for the day (week) was to tell the cars they were in the wrong place.

But the kids did seem to have enjoyed the trip down the river, although iirc there had been a bit more bush bashing on the bank than they had expected.

Cheers

Hi all,

Just like to report back that I swam Wollangambe 1-4, turning back at a big jump just before Wollangambe 5 as I could not see a way to scramble down. I was flying solo so I don't feel comfortable doing things like jumps etc. I started a bit late, so I ended up having to do the W4 exit with a headtorch. I do not recommend doing an exit from the Wollangambe for the first time by head torch, I didn't really know where I was in space and sort of just fell upwards. I didn't really see anything like a path, but I could have been 5 meters from it and not have known. Best to get above the cliffs with daylight to spare as this exit felt more like a Colo Pass than the other routes I've done around there.

The river portion of the trip took me 11 hours and I stuck my nose up some of the side canyons briefly, I'd say my pace was relaxed yet mildly purposeful.

2.5 hours Wollangambe 1, 3.5 hours for W2, 2.5 h for W3, 2 h for W4 and half an hour or so to get to the big jump and back. The walk down to W1 took about 45 minutes, the W4 exit pass took a whole hour in the dark with an additional hour to get back to the road and then an hour back to the car along the road. In total about 15 hours, got back to my car at 23:30.

I know this is a wilderness area and if this is too much infomation, please let me know and I'll edit my post or ask someone to delete the thread.

Perhaps you hit the same obstacle I came up against about 10 years ago...
https://ozultimate.com/canyoning/report ... report.htm

tom_brennan wrote:Perhaps you hit the same obstacle I came up against about 10 years ago...
https://ozultimate.com/canyoning/report ... report.htm

That's pretty cool! I should have trawleded your trip reports harder, I missed that one!

and -

http://www.david-noble.net/blog/?p=27654

DaveNoble wrote:and -

http://www.david-noble.net/blog/?p=27654

Guessing the jammed log that you used to get down the tricky bit might have gone in the Feb 2020 floods?!

DaveNoble wrote:and -

http://www.david-noble.net/blog/?p=27654

I read your website a lot, but in this case I didn't actually realise that one was for the bit I was going to. I know you're occasionally intentionally a little vague on the exact route of a trip. I remember spending a bit trying to reconstuct your adventures from this report: http://www.david-noble.net/BlueMts/Coor ... gooba.html

Been meaning to head out to Koondah tower for a while...

tom_brennan wrote:

DaveNoble wrote:and -

http://www.david-noble.net/blog/?p=27654

Guessing the jammed log that you used to get down the tricky bit might have gone in the Feb 2020 floods?!

From what I could tell, no log was present. But I'll be honest that I turned back fairly quickly after seeing the jump to make the W4 exit before sunset.

I should add I have no idea what you mean by "Wollangambe 3,4,5 and 6", beyond generally downstream of the lower tourist section (aka "Wollangambe 2")!

Also, there's lots of interesting stuff upstream of Wollangambe 1. Should this be known as Wollangambe 0, Wollangambe -1, Wollangambe -2 etc?

tom_brennan wrote:I should add I have no idea what you mean by "Wollangambe 3,4,5 and 6", beyond generally downstream of the lower tourist section (aka "Wollangambe 2")!

I see those names mentioned here and there, but I don't have a super fixed idea as to what they mean

Best I have is this map by Dug Floyd, a member of Blue Mountain Canyoners: http://www.users.on.net/~floyd1/reps/Wo ... anyon.html

Wollangambe 1-6 are mentioned below in anti-colourblind light green on yellow background textboxes

ribuck wrote:Also, there's lots of interesting stuff upstream of Wollangambe 1. Should this be known as Wollangambe 0, Wollangambe -1, Wollangambe -2 etc?

Indeed, I'll be scoping out that area today (once my hiking partner wakes up, grumble grumble, it's 8:20 and we were supposed to leave at 7 )

ribuck wrote:Also, there's lots of interesting stuff upstream of Wollangambe 1. Should this be known as Wollangambe 0, Wollangambe -1, Wollangambe -2 etc?

That's the main reason I generally refer to them as the upper (1) and lower (2) tourist sections. The numbering thing gets a bit silly once you go upstream or downstream.

mandragara wrote:I see those names mentioned here and there, but I don't have a super fixed idea as to what they mean

Looks like they are exit numbers rather than section numbers. If you asked me where "Wollangambe 3" was, I'd be reckoning it finishing at Dug's Exit 5.