Adventures in Bungonia Gorge

Where do I even start about this weekend? Well, I guess I should say I went canyoning at Bungonia Gorge about 2 hours from Canberra with the UC Outdoors Club. We left Friday night so we could head out early Saturday morning because we had 10 hours of canyoning ahead of us. For those of you who don’t know what canyoning is, it is a crazy activity where you hike down into a canyon and then walk/climb along the bottom on the giant rocks along a creek. At several points along the way you will come across waterfalls where you will have to abseil (aka rappel) down to the bottom. It really is an incredible activity unless of course you encounter problems because once you go down the first waterfall you have to go all the way to the other end of the canyon before you can get out. Let me explain to you some of the problems you can encounter. First of all, rain. Rain is bad because it makes all the rocks slippery. Next, there is a high risk of falling; not when abseiling but when climbing over slippery rocks. Finally, there it the risk of rock slides. I encountered all of these problems this weekend.

First abseil

As soon as we got into the canyon it began to pour rain on us, which slowed our progress considerably. Then, immediately after the first abseil we were trying to find a safe way to get around some huge rocks and I slipped and slid down the side of a rock then fell a couple metres onto some more rocks. I landed pretty hard on my right foot and banged up my knee pretty good but I survived with no broken bones (I went to the hospital today and they told me so). My foot is seriously sprained though and I’ll be on crutches for the next few days.

After falling

So, after I fell I didn’t really feel too much pain but after about half an hour more climbing I didn’t think I could go on my foot hurt so bad. Once we got to the next abseil they put a tensor on my foot, gave me some drugs and we ate some lunch and I was feeling considerably better. But then, we heard the sound of a small rock slide. We looked up and saw the rocks falling quite a ways away and didn’t think too much of it because we had seen a couple mini rock slides earlier. But this one didn’t stop like we anticipated. All of a sudden some rocks hit right next to where we were sitting and as everyone else scrambled to get out of the way I got hit in the shoulder with a cantaloupe sized rock. I think it was more shocking than actually painful. I was pretty angry with my luck and was ready to pack it in for the day but as I said earlier, once you go down the first waterfall you’re in it for the long haul. So now I have a small cut and a big bruise on my shoulder to add to my injury inventory. So we kept going and went down the second abseil which was 50m down a beautiful waterfall into the water below. It was breathtakingly beautiful. My spirits were considerably improved after surviving the abseil (at the top I was sure I was going to die) and my foot and shoulder were feeling good. I’m still not sure if I stopped hurting because of the first aid or if mentally I didn’t allow myself to hurt because I knew I had no choice but to keep going until the bitter end.


Second abseil; Third abseil (I'm the one about halfway down)

Anyway, after the third and final abseil it began to get dark. The rain had slowed us down so much that we still had at least 3 hours before we would be out of the canyon and it was already nearly 7pm. By 8:30 it was totally black. So now not only was it wet and slippery but it was dark too. At 12:09 am, 15 hours of canyoning and several miracles later, we finally arrived at the car. I have never been in so much pain and so incredibly proud of myself as I was at that moment. On Sunday, instead of more canyoning, we decided to go to the pub to reflect on our ordeal over a good brew. I think in about a week this will all be very funny.