On Australia Day, a group of us went Canyoning at Macquaries Pass National Park. It’s a fun canyon which is close to Wollongong; and what I especially like about it is that you park a car at both the start and end of the canyon. So there isn’t the need to walk back up to the start, which is typical in the Blue Mountains.
Below is a short video which I have quickly put together showing the abseils and jumps on the canyon route. Further down on this page is more information about the canyon.
Canyon Information
Typical Duration: ~4hrs.
Ropes are required and wetsuits are highly recommended.
The canyon is at Macquaries Pass (refer to Google Map below). Two cars are required, one at each end of the canyon.
Best to meet at the carpark at the bottom of the pass. If you are driving from Albion Park (from the bottom) that is the car park on the left of the road. Leave a car there, along with towels and dry change of clothes, and jump into the other car and drive up the pass.
Not too far up the pass, you will want to turn off to the left onto Clover Hill Road. You will have to park your car right after the turn off as there is a gate which prevents you from driving down further. It is about a 2km walk past the gate to the first abseil point. The walk does seem to take a while so don’t worry (just yet) that you might have overshot the turn off. Along the walk there will be a fork in the path, take the path to the left. Keep walking until you come to a large clearing. There you will see a small defined path to the right which will take you to the first waterfall abseil (which is the first abseil in the youtube video).
From there it is pretty easy, just keep following the water until the last slide at the end where there is a path that takes you back to the car (it’ll be quite obvious when you get to the end).
In total there are 4 abseils, 1 jump and 2 slides.
[googleMap name=”Macquaries Pass” width=”400″ directions_to=”false”]Macquaries Pass, NSW[/googleMap]