After a steady morning we finally set off to what is known as 'one of the most fun canyons in NZ' Cross Creek. Situated along the Hasst Pass about 1 hour from Wanaka, the canyon consists of back to back jumps and slides into crystal clear pools set in a very Jurassic looking environment.

We've decided to make Canyoning one of our main past times, after all New Zealand holds the spot for one of the best Canyoning locations in the world, particularly here in the Mount Aspiring National Park. So this was going to be our first full decent of a local canyon.

We arrived at the base of Cross Creek, quickly kitted up and headed into the mossy wonderland of the Hasst Pass Native Bush. After abit of "are we on the right path" we finally dropped down into the creek.

Entrance into Creek

The canyon has three sections upper/middle/bottom. Most people begin from the middle as this holds the most fun, but we fancied some larger abseils, after all we had just bought a new 300ft rope between us for our antics.

First Abseil

First Abseil

The upper section consists of several rappels, the main one being the 22m drop at the start. I lead the way and the other guys followed me into the depths. Dave looked abit edgy at first since this was his first canyon back after his incident in Waterfall Creek, which had resulted in him being out of actions for the past 3 weeks with a bad back and muscle spasms.

We slowly moved through the upper section carting the rope around the log jams and setting up anchors before entering the middle section, where we began to don the rope in replacement for jumps, down climbs and arse slides. We soon arrive at our first little halt, a 6m jump where I caught up with Sam and Dave pondering how to jump out. I moved them to one side and leaped off the edge..."all good lads, come on down"

Halt

The fun from that point just rolled on. A few meters down we were greeted by another 6m jump followed by a 6m arse slide all of which ended into emerald green pools. We passed under an arch to yet another slide which dropped off into a pool, we were loving it but was well aware of what lay ahead.

We arrive at the biggy, 11m jump from the top of a waterfall. It would have been a fairly straight forward jump but turned out to be one that would shut Sam down. Dave went first, scrambling down to the right of the falls onto a slippy mossy ledge just big enough to stand both feet on. Looking down he realised that the rock under the falls bulged out meaning that a rather firm push off the slimy ledge was required. Dave leaped off and Sam stepped down. After 2mins of hesitation Sam stepped back up again, then back down, basically s****ing his pants. He stepped back up once more so i slipped in and leaped off. A few minutes later Sam finally manned up and flopped down into the pool below.

Biggy

The rest of the canyon continued with prime slides and jumps into pools now lit up by the sunlight. Before we knew it we had hit the end of the canyon where the creek passed under the road bridge. One last jump remained on the other side of the bridge which finished off our trip nicely

Emerald Green Pools

Back to Wanaka we returned, once we had finally got Sams wetsuit off!

Heres the video

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DG7SwJsAFdE&w=480&h=360]