I left the bach in the morning and drove out towards the coast stopping at Carew Creek on the edge of Lake Brunner. There was a white Sentra waiting for me there and a bearded man assembling equipment to make a coffee. After a hot drink Craig and I also assembled equipment for descending a canyon and walked up the short track to the Carew Creek waterfall. From there we floundered around in the bush on the true left of the river for a while. The guidebook said stay close to the stream but we strayed off away from the creek and ended up climbing up steep muddy slopes with bits of supplejack and dead branches to hang on to. We came out above the waterfall that we’d been aiming for but were able to climb back down to it. We crossed the stream with its dark water coloured by the tree leaves after the recent rain. It was running a little higher than normal, we decided after comparing pictures in the guidebook. We continued up on the true right of the river for perhaps 15 minutes before finding our way back to the creek.
We started with a short down climb before finding the first feature on the map, an abseil. We did our best to avoid the flow as we rappelled into a small pool below the waterfall. There were only a handful of features and we chose to abseil the jump as the guide recommended checking out whether if was safe before doing it. The last abseil was a long one and took us 40m down to the end of the marked track. We had an audience. Three girls sat watching us from the rocks at the top of the waterfall and a family watched us pick our way down through the water from the track at the bottom.
It was a nice, short and enjoyable canyon. We drove down to the lake, not far from the carpark and sat by the edge of the lake trying to avoid the motorboats and little kids riding around on noisy little motorbikes two fast for their abilities. A spot along a small track around the side of the lake was a little quieter. Craig prepared cholesterol wraps for lunch, wraps that were guaranteed to increase your cholesterol filled with tuna, mayo, and fried in butter.
