Roys Peak & Waterfall Creek - The Stack Conservation Area

Waterfall Creek is visible from the back of our house and would be the view point from where I scoured the slopes of Roys Peak searching for David and Ben. Earlier that day they slogged up Roys Peak with the intention of descending down Waterfall Creek, all went well until David slipped down a waterfall and landed on his back, which resulted in two weeks of sofa bound action. The outing was abit of a disaster and a descent of Waterfall Creek laid low for a while.

By now David was back in the UK, Sam and I decide now is the time, lets hit it. We climbed Roys Peak via the more direct route along with Calla and Marsh and reached the summit within 2.5 hours. We made our way towards Alta Peak, down to the saddle then dropped into the head of the valley where the source of the Creek began. At the start the water was a mere trickle but the vegetation was thick, jungle like almost, a machete would have proved useful!

We eventually came to the point we figured was David's brokeback moment, a short 5m waterfall followed by a larger 20m drop...luckily he fell on the shorter drop. Well this time we had a rope to help make the descent a wee bit easier, Sam made the abseil on a single line while I scurried round 'the veg' to the bottom of the fall. From here on in the Creek continued to flow with several more vertical drops, none of which required ropes. On and on we pushed wading though the pools wondering where our get out point was, a fence line we had scoped on a earlier trip. We must have past it because all of a sudden Lake Wanaka seem rather close, and we were stood at the head of the bottom falls, a series of large drop flowing with water. A descent down the falls would be possible with the rope but anchors may have proved difficult so we sidled around the falls and dropped to the bottom of the Creek. We had done it, made a full descent of Waterfall Creek, the full outing may had taken 8 hours but we had ticked it off in style...now to tell David the good news

Enjoy the video

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQg_tEIipwQ&w=560&h=315]

Robinson Creek

Another fine weekend for another fine canyon. This time Robinson Creek, just a few hops along from our last adventure. Robinson's Creek is relatively short, starting with an open upper section of pools, jumps and swims then closing in for several drops.

Me and Sam had arranged to meet up with Julie Burton, a canyoning enthusiast from Australia who visits NZ once a year to tackle some descents, she is good friends with a core team of NZ canyoneers who devote their time exploring new unexplored canyons.

We picked Julie up form Hawea and headed along Hasst Pass to the base of Robinsons. After about 25mins climbing through the stunning NZ bush we reached the start of our descent.

The canyon began with and icy fresh jump into a crystal clear pool, followed by a small abseil and scrambles over log jams. The canyon then closed in for several drops, most of which we abseiled. The highlight of the trip is the main descent, a 25m pitch down a waterfall into a giant cavern. Spectacular stuff. Video to follow shortly.

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Sam on first Abseil

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Julie descending another pitch

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Sam leaping off

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Julie about to rappel the 25m pitch

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Bottom on giant cavern

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Sam in Giant cavern

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exit just a few steps away form the car

Cross Creek

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.

Kitting Up

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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.

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First Abseil

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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"

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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.

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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

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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]

Neck Creek scope out

Following our new found passion in exploring New Zealand Canyons, we scoured the maps looking for a potential creek that may offer some form of adventure close by. I found a creek at 'The Neck' of Lake Hawea/Wanaka, which we later found out is called 'Neck Creek'. After playing around with Google maps and assessing the creek from Google earth we decided that it may hold some potential.

We had limited gear so this was going to be a scope, hopefully ascend up the creek see whats involved. As we drove along towards The Neck we saw our canyon and as we suspected the creek ended with a rather large waterfall. We decided an accent from the base would be awkward so we climbed the ridge line through the recently scorched bush to try and drop down into the creek from higher up.

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Lower Fall

We eventually came to a saddle which enabled us to drop down back towards the creek where we met with the water. By this point it was raining so we figured we may aswell put our wetsuits on and stash the bags and head down. We knew we would have to return as a descent down the main falls would require a longer rope than what we had.

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Start of Canyon

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The canyon began with a few small pools and a gentle flow of water from which the walls began to raise and steepen up. It was evident that there was no access or escape from here on in. So we only descended obstacles which we could retreat up. We arrived at a large boulder choke, Sam managed to pass under it whilst I pass over it.

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Boulder choke

Abit further on we hit a small 3m fall jammed up with logs, we careful dropped down balancing along the logs, being careful not to dislodge any of them. Just beyond the fall the creek dropped 8m over a large boulders, to the right there was a sloping wall where a large trunk had lodged itself in. We put a short rope around a stump and Sam lowered himself down the drop.

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mmmm

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Lower off

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Vegetation

Before lowering we could see that we wouldn't get much further than this point, so I stayed put whilst he passed through a maze of vegetation until he reached the point that we spotted early on our walk up, a series of drops and pools above the main waterfall. This was to be the end of our scope.

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End point (for now)

We both retreated form the canyon and trekked back down the to car. Satisfied that we had covered enough ground to say a full descent is possible on our next return with a bigger rope.

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