Sunnyside, Zorro and Alcatraz Canyons

Sunnyside, Zorro and Alcatraz Canyons are all relatively short canyons in close proximity to each other in the Newnes Plateau, which means… 3 canyons in one day?!

Heck yes.

Sunnyside Canyon

(Also known as Acoustic Canyon).

Jess gets very excited when she sees moss covered rocks, understandably.

There were some pretty fun and squeezy sections as we were making our way into the canyon!

I can’t unsee it… but all I see in the image above is a face in the rock! You can make out the eyes, nose and mouth!

One of the most spectacular features of Sunnyside Canyon is the acoustic chamber! A large cave where your voice echoes.

Apparently, the canyon was originally named Acoustic Canyon (because of the echoing chamber) when first discovered in the late 70’s, but the name was already taken, so it was renamed to Sunnyside Canyon. I like to think because of how sunny the end of the canyon is when it opens up.

The canyon ends at the end of this cliff! With beautiful views out to the Wolgan Valley.

We traversed the cliff line to the west until we found an exit gully that was easy to follow back up to the top of the cliffs and back to the cars.

Zorro Canyon

Our second canyon for the day was Zorro canyon! The name came from the shape of the canyon slots, when looking at aerial maps it is in the shape of a Z.

The fire trail leading to the canyon was very overgrown – sorry again to Haydo’s car!

We found the start of the canyon and decided to rig up an abseil through this fun looking hole.

At the base of the abseil looking up the slot it is very easy to walk straight down, but what is the fun in that?!

Abseiling was definitely a lot more fun!

Similarly to Sunnyside Canyon, Zorro is another dry canyon but with more abseils.

It also had plenty of narrow chambers which were lots of fun! The exit was a little tricky scrambling out of the canyon, but once you’re at the top of the scramble it was easy navigating back to the cars.

Alcatraz Canyon

The final and shortest canyon of the day! Alcatraz canyon was named and discovered by David Noble, because it was located near the Newnes Forest Prison Farm.

The hike to the start of the canyon is very short, leading to what looks like a somewhat unremarkable creek. A short distance down the creek leads to the start of the abseil, which drops you down a waterfall that appears out of nowhere, completely hidden from sight by a large cavern like chamber.

To exit the chamber, you need to crawl through the letterbox like gap in the rock you can see in the above image. After this, that is the canyon finished! It is really just a single waterfall and abseil – but a stunning one at that.

It took us a little time finding the exit up the cliff line, and I think we traversed the cliffs too far away (I am sure there is a better exit closer to the waterfall).