20-26 Jan 2025

Featuring: Kosta, Ollie, Sean, Toby (Author), & Zen

There was a bit of hype in the canyoning community when the “Canyoning around Victoria” guidebook was released back in 2022. It was a very pretty looking book, so I quickly secured myself a copy. Since then I’ve been eager to put it to use and explore some of the aquatic gorges they seemed to have down south.

Finally around the long weekend, Zen and I both happened to have 6 consecutive days off. Just enough time to make a trip down to Victoria worthwhile. We put together a crew of 5 and set off for Mount Buffalo, which appeared to have the highest density of quality canyons in Vic.

Zen came up with a solid itinerary that had a nice progression in difficulty and would break up our biggest days.  We checked the Buckland River Gauge which was sitting around 1.3m putting it right on the line between the “Low” and “High” levels referenced in the guidebook. I took this as good news, expecting the water levels to be at a safe but fun level.

Zen’s Plan

Day 1: Légére Déscente v4a3I*

Day 2: Running Jump Creek  v4a4III**

Day 3: Crystal Brook v5a5V***

Day 4: Twin + Triplets v5a5IV***

Having just arrived back from New Zealand the night before leaving for Victoria, I was thankful to be getting a lift from Sean. Anyone who knows Sean knows that he’s not known for his punctuality. I knew that I could count on him to arrive late and give me a bit of extra time in the morning to unpack from NZ and hastily repack for Vic.

While Sean’s car definitely had the most space, it was also the most unreliable. It had just been serviced though, and had four brand new tyres so was good to go… fast forward to a service station in Bright, where Sean is now under the car trying to diagnose a mysterious clicking noise. The car then decides it doesn’t want to start at all so we’re stuck at the bowser for 10 minutes until the car decides it’s happy to go again. This is apparently a common occurrence.

Top tip, Lake Catani Campground is on the Buffalo Plateau and would make an ideal base for a similar trip but it books out way in advance. It’s free though so go ahead and reserve a spot the second you start making plans, even if those plans are tentative. Unfortunately forward planning was not our strong suit, so we missed out on Catani and ended up basing ourselves at Ah Youngs Campground. A nice enough free camping area with a great swimming hole, but about 50 minutes drive to most of the canyons.

Day 1: Légére Déscente

This is the only canyon in the area that doesn’t require you to drive up to the plateau. It’s also nice and close to our campsite, but does require a car shuffle up a long and winding dirt road. The last 500m once you turn off Goldie Spur Track and head up towards Green Hill are extremely overgrown, and almost look disused. We suggested just parking at the turn off, but Sean’s aversion to walking uphill overpowered any sense of preservation he had for his vehicle. He boldly drove up the steep, narrow, vegetated track and thankfully found a large turning circle up the top, saving us a good 80m of ascent. Sean wins this one.

The approach and exit of this canyon were both pretty long and scrubby. It was difficult at times deciding whether to creek bash or bush bash. Bush bashing was often faster, but creek bashing was often more pleasant. We had one close call where Sean rolled a large rock onto his leg. A bit of blood but nothing major.

After a 2.5 hour approach we’re finally at the first abseil!

But it’s hot.

And there’s only a trickle of water.

And the canyon looks sort of like Box Creek, just big granite slabs baking in the sun.

Forgoing wetsuits was an obvious choice.

Not too much to say about this “canyon” and it’s definitely not one I’d do again. Some unusual anchor placements, maybe they make more sense in higher water?

 

R2 is a 45m abseil that we downclimbed without even realising it was listed as an abseil.

R3 has the bolts hidden off to the left behind some scrub.

R4 is a 65m abseil where you can easily downclimb more than half the distance, why not put the bolts somewhere further down that doesn’t necessitate carrying 2x 65m ropes?

R11 has bolts 10 meters back from the edge, we just downclimbed. This pitch is also listed as a slide. I mean sure, it looked survivable, but very bumpy and not something I’d do for fun.

After the final abseil we continued following the creek towards our exit. We passed a small gorge with some deep pools to cool off in, and joked that this was where the actual canyon started. We found out later that this is actually “Training Canyon” and is listed in the guidebook. I guess it’s a useful training ground in higher flows if you wanted to practice some aquatic canyoning skills, but certainly not worth doing otherwise.

Back at the road, Kosta and Sean drove off to go collect Sean’s car. While waiting for their return, Ollie and I were kept entertained by Zen’s musical talents on the handflute. A beautiful sounding and very portable instrument that you can take just about anywhere.

Kosta soon arrives back, but Sean who was “just behind” is nowhere to be seen. We decide to drive back up the road to see what’s up. All bets are on a flat tyre. Turns out Sean’s brand new tyre wasn’t just flat, it was properly shredded. Anyway, the tyre was quickly changed; we prayed for no more flats, and then rolled on back to camp. Car to car Légére Déscente took us 8 hours, right in the middle of the guidebook estimate.

Downclimbing a 45m pitch

 

Day 2: Climbing at The Horn

The last four pitches of yesterday’s canyon had been shared with Running Jump Creek, which also looked like a trickle. We therefore decided to change plans for today and go climbing instead. Heading out to The Horn area and wandering around until we found some fun looking rocks. Sean led a trad route up the Grade 13 climb “Dick Selector”, and I learned some new climbing lingo that apparently described this climb well “a grovel”. From there Sean set up a few top ropes so that no one had to lead the adjacent slabby sport routes. The granite at Mt. Buffalo is pretty textured, the benefit of this is that it’s extremely grippy and once you trust your feet it’s surprising how high an angle you can essentially just walk up. The downside of this texture is the potential loss of skin and/or climbing rubber if you slip on a slab route.

RIP Kosta’s shoes.

I was definitely regretting wearing shorts when I sort of did my first ever lead climb up “Swerv’n Mervin” (thanks Zen for leaving the quickdraws in place), and was absolutely humbled by the fact that it was only Grade 7.

The sun then came out, it got hot, we lost a lot of motivation and spent a good chunk of the afternoon seeking out shady patches and eating Sean’s breadsticks.

Back at camp it was my turn to cook dinner. If you aren’t aware, Vegemite goes great in Spag Bol, even if it’s apparently disrespectful to Zen’s Italian heritage.

Day 3: Crystal Brook & The Underground River

This canyon had certainly been hyped up with phrases such as “the best canyon in Victoria” being tossed around. It looked fairly technical with a bunch of hanging belays (sometimes in the flow), and rumours of hard to find bolts. Most of the pitches would require two ropes tied together so we planned out our whole sequence in advance, who was going to rig what drop and with what ropes. There are two sets of bolts at the first pitch, the guide book advises to use “the double bolts with captive rings further back” from the edge. This is what we used, but the set of bolts closer to the edge looks like they might offer an easier pulldown?

Zen went down first, I ran around to the lookout on the other side of the creek where you’ve got a great vantage point and can easily communicate to people at the top and bottom of the pitch.

The bolts for R2 were challenging to find. Well out of the flow, a few meters to the true right of the falls, on a rock face that is actually pointing away from the falls, quite easy to miss.

R4 was another interesting one. To find the bolts, just look at where the majority of the water is falling and go there. It’s genuinely a tiny ledge right in the flow. I was managing this pitch so hung around at the anchor station for a good 20 minutes or so. It was quite pleasant in my 7/5 wetsuit on a hot day with a trickle of water, but in higher flow or a colder day the R4 anchor would be a miserable place to spend any length of time. It would be easy to combine R3 and R4 into one 80m drop if you had long enough ropes.

Soon enough everyone has descended R4 and I start pulling the rope for R3. It’s a tough pulldown from this angle, but eventually the rope pulls through the bolts only to get hung up around a small rock horn. I only have one strand at this point and after giving it a few tugs and flicks it’s clear that Kosta’s very expensive, very lightweight rope is firmly stuck. I think that if I can reach the other strand of rope and pull from the other direction it might come free. To do this I needed to jump on R4 descend a few meters and traverse across to the true left of the falls. I got the abseil line seated in a bit of a natural redirect so there was no longer risk of a pendulum, descended a bit more until I was free-hanging in the falls and could reach the other strand of the stuck rope which thankfully pulled.

R7 (the final abseil) is listed as 10m in the guidebook but was closer to 18m. Our 35m rope only just reached with neither end of the rope touching the ground. A boulder at the top has also been washed out so the bolts are now very hard to reach. We’d heard about this and had been carrying a stick through the canyon in anticipation of making a DIY panic draw by taping the stick to an alpine quickdraw (a bit of Sean wisdom). Thankfully we had an abundance of tall people on this trip and Kosta was able to reach the bolts, but unless you’re like 6’5” a panic draw or something similar would be a good idea.

Soon enough we were all at the base of the falls, looking up at the impressive gorge walls, and reflecting on the last 2 hours. The grade for this canyon is v5a5V, and as with all canyons in the guidebook it has been graded for low flow. “Low flow is a trickle” according to the book, which certainly matches what we experienced. None of us understood how this canyon was graded at a5. There were no swims, no jumps, and as demonstrated by Kosta you could comfortably get through it without a wetsuit on a warm day like today. Nonetheless, this one is definitely a worthwhile trip.

The exit is a climber’s track on the right about 200m downstream of the falls marked by a large cairn. On the way out Zen found a golf club, and as an environmentally conscious citizen decided to carry it out. The climbers track was well trodden and easy enough to follow. Sean was eyeing-off the rock faces on the opposite side of the gorge where we could see the classic aid climb Ozymandias. Perhaps the one place in Australia where he’d be justified in using the clubs recently purchased portaledge. Eventually we reach a t-intersection, the right hand track looks slightly better trodden so we decide to head that way and abruptly begin a steep climb.

“You sure this is the right way” says Sean.

“Yeah, we wanna be heading up, right?” responds I.

It was not the right way; we should have taken the left hand path…

Eventually we reach some handlines which seem to just keep on going. Getting progressively steeper and more exposed until we realise that we’re essentially climbing up an abseil. We harness up, break out the ascending gear and push on up. Someone’s put a lot of work into this route. There’s a good 200m of fixed rope left behind that takes us up a broken cliffy gully, through a tight squeezy boulder cave, and finally up to the tourist track. Last to make it to the top is Zen, his golf club which had been snagging obstacles the whole way triumphantly protruding from the top of his pack. This exit took a lot longer than anticipated since the fixed ropes were long and we could only have one person ascending them at a time. Despite not being the “correct” exit, this route was honestly a highlight.

All up we took 6 hours car to car.

The day was still young, and still hot.

Sean, Zen, and I were keen to check out a nearby “Underground River” and hopefully cool off there. Kosta and Ollie preferred the idea of ice cream so they drove off back to camp.

I’d heard a little bit about this boulder cave on Eurobin Creek, but didn’t know much more about it other than the requirement for wetsuits and headtorches. The three of us raced down the trail, with easy to follow signage guiding us right to the cave entrance. This little cave exceeded all our expectations. Navigation was relatively easy; just follow the flow of the water. We got much wetter in here than we did in the canyon, with numerous squeezes, deep pools, and climbs up and down small waterfalls. Glow-worms could be seen the entire length of the cave.  After maybe 100m we got to a dead end with no obvious way forward. I’m convinced that there was a duck under at the end of a deep pool, but it would be extremely deep and committing. After a bit of scouting around we reversed it back to the entrance. This cave apparently continues for 300m. I’m very curious now if it’s traversable for the entire length, and if so how? Took us about 1 hour, highly recommend, especially on a hot day.

View of the first pitch from the lookout

View from the R4 anchors

These falls could be abseiled in one 80m pitch

Some nice squeezes in the underground river

Day 4: Twin + Triplets

Twin + Triplets sounded like a serious mission. 2-3hr approach, 10-16hr in the canyon, 3-5hr exit, for a minimum estimated time of 15 hours. So far the guidebook times had been somewhat accurate, this plus the forecast of 36°C swayed Sean, Ollie, and Kosta into doing Eurobin Falls instead, leaving just myself and Zen still keen to tackle Twin + Triplets. I was fairly confident we’d get well under the suggested time. Looking at the topo 10-16hr did not seem realistic for a canyon with 10-15 short abseils. Nonetheless, we set off at 6:00am for a 7:00 start.

Overall, this trip went very smooth. 1.5hr approach, 4hr in the canyon, 2.5hr exit, for a total of 8 hours. To be fair we were moving quite quickly out of concern for having an epic. The “one to two hour” creek walk between gorges only took us 30 minutes, but I felt like I was almost running at times trying to keep up with Zen.

This canyon was the most canyoney canyon of the trip. Big granite slabs formed the canyon walls, so it’s fairly sunny and open, but still has that committing feeling. The abseils didn’t feel contrived and despite being very low flow there was still enough water to keep things interesting.

After seeing the forecast, I’d decided to only take my spring suit, and Zen didn’t take a wetsuit at all. This worked well. The water was honestly a nice temperature, and there were plenty of sunny spots to warm up.

At J/S11 I abseiled down and pulled out the goggles to check if it was safe for Zen to jump. The pool was deep, but in the middle was a log sticking vertically upwards, maybe only 50cm below the water’s surface. This would have been very easy to miss if I’d tried to depth check without goggles.

The only other point of note was R25, where the bolts would have been very difficult to reach, even with a belay. Maybe a rock’s moved, or maybe we just missed something obvious? Either way I was very excited to put Sean’s DIY panic draw into practice. Finding a stick and taping it to my extended alpine, which I used to hook and pull myself up to the bolts. Problem solving like this is part of the reason I love canyoning.

On the exit there was a faint trail all the way back to the fire trail. Easy to lose, but much easier than bush bashing.

On the way back we grabbed some ice cream from the excellent Bright Ice Creamery, surprisingly beat the others back to camp, cooled off in the river, unsuccessfully fished, and successfully cooked some burgers on the fire.

And that’s a wrap! Always worth it to explore a new area, though I won’t be rushing back to Victoria for canyoning purposes anytime soon. Thanks to a great crew for an enjoyable long-long weekend, and special shout-out to Sean’s glamping setup. First time I’ve ever had a pantry while camping; don’t know how we ever survived without one.

Improvised panic draw

This is the pool with the submerged log