Monday, January 16, 2006

Arrgh! My thighs, my thighs, I tell you!

I'm broken. Utterly shattered! And so's my wife.

Yesterday, we (and various other For Battlers) went on our first canyoning experience. It was totally huge but I think we overdid it a little. I think there are muscles in my body that aren't sore but they are hard to find. And I've got some great bruises on my shins and knees.

Nik and Scruffy led us through Caustral Canyon. The team of Lemmings (figuratively and literally) were me, Mr Tops, SJ, Anti Ob, Coz with Tony coming along as the redundant yank.... (That actually sounds a bit cruel when I put it like that - The story goes - Nik said, to test the depth of a jump into pool you throw a yank in... We already had one but Nik thought we should have some redundany in the system just in case....)

The highlight of the day was definately the 'Black Hole of Calcutta', which consisted of 3 abseils, each through a small hole in the rock, down waterfalls and ending in the water (or on a tiny ledge if you were extra cunning). That was huge fun.

But when you looked up and saw the cliffs towering above you, shrouded in mist from the water with the sunlight tinged green as it filtered down from the fern covered gully so far above your head.... that was totally awsome!

There are photos - Scruffy had a waterproof camera. Hopefully we will see them soon. Plenty of amazing stuff happened and the views were fabulous. The jumping in puddles was great fun! I loved the abseilling (which I last did 15 years ago). The swims were cool, both figuratively and literally (but the last one was freezing! - but the view while floating on my back was again awesome... Three huge boulders were sitting on the gap with more green tinged sunlight)

The adventure was a lot of work. I will be paying for it for at least the next week! Thank you to Nik and Scruffy for organising it and having all the gear we needed. And thanks to the whole team for getting us home again. (The problem with going down the canyon is that you have to get back up again... )

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