Galah Canyon

Galah Canyon has long been on the canyon bucket list – so we finally got a bit of a group together and made it happen!

It has the same entry track as breakfast creek canyon, but is a further distance away. The hike getting to the start of the canyon went reasonably quickly, thanks to the funny, over-sharing, random and bizarre chat between our group of friends that always passes the time quickly. We all live far away from each other, so these are the moments we get to properly catch-up.

It was a little scrubby getting in, as it seems to be with all Blue Mountains canyons at the moment.

Don’t forget to look up!

We finally made our way into the main constriction of the canyon, which was stunning! The high canyon walls reminded me of the deepness of Surefire canyon.

This is the famous guidebook waterfall! That features on the Canyons near Sydney guidebook back cover by Rick Jamieson.

This is one of the best canyon abseils in my opinion… Abseiling a big wide waterfall, but you are so deep and sheltered by the towering canyon walls around you. A huge cavern formed by nature. A place you can only experience by being fully immersed in it. Incredible!

One of the most stunning canyons I have ever experienced.

After pulling down the ropes on this abseil and starting to make my way down the canyon I checked to make sure my phone was inside my wetsuit chest pocket and had a heart attack… it wasn’t there.

There was no where else it could have been, so on telling the girls my phone was missing, they helped me search the pool at the base of the falls. I knew I had it before the abseil, so it must have fallen out while abseiling.

No luck. It felt like searching for a needle in a haystack… a dark, underwater haystack. Feeling a little defeated and about to call off the search, I looked over and saw this narrow pothole at the base of the falls. A voice in the back of my head said to search it, I can’t say why. I was reluctant to put my hand inside this dark hole… what if there was something snappy inside?! I did it anyway, and was SHOCKED. There it was, my cheeky phone that didn’t want to leave the canyon.

We unfortunately reached the end of the canyon… just as it was opening up before meeting with Rocky Creek.

This canyon has a really interesting exit. Instead of continuing down to meet with the main creek, the exit takes you to a brief climb, and meanders back to the top of the canyon, eventually dropping back into the first section of the main canyon.

I didn’t take any photos on the exit hike, but once you reach the first section of the canyon you reverse the canyon and hike back along the same track that brought you in.

The trickiest part, was climbing back up a slippery waterfall that was the first drop into the canyon. There were fixed ropes in place, but we had more water in the canyon than normal, so even with the fixed lines this waterfall was a slippery nightmare.

Vince managed to climb and manoeuvre his way out, and set up a hauling system to help the rest of us out. It took some time, and we all got pretty cold while waiting. It was late May, which was possibly too late in the season for a trip through Galah.

Thanks to Vince and with the assistance of Jess, we were all hauled over the slippery freezing cold waterfall ad onto the exit track back to the cars.

I am proud to say, this was the first ever canyon exit hike where we have been caught out walking in the dark for the last few kms, short days or long days! Which I think is a testament to our planning, navigation and abilities.