Canberra is not known as Australia’s canyoning capital. The average Blue Mountains canyoner scorns our canyons as waterfalls and obsesses over their precious slots. In NUCC’s opinion, the constrictions that seems to give NSW canyoners their jollies are over-rated! Give us a big pitch with a nice view and a waterfall any day. If you’re happy to accept these sort of creeks as a canyon, then Canberra starts to offer many more options!
However, NUCC is the National University CAVING Club, not the National University CANYONING Club. That’s not to say we don’t do canyons, rather it’s just something we do occasionally- caving is our core interest! We do recreational canyoning quite well, but don’t stretch ourselves to beasts like Gleniffer Canyon on the NSW North Coast (v6a5V***).
So, having said that, here’s some canyons are available to canyoners in the Canberra Region. Click on the links to the different canyons to get details about each canyon (note: this area is still under construction). What’s the point of this guide when most of this information is currently already available in the public domain (or on OzCanyons)? We thought it’d be useful to have it all summarised in one place, with a Canberra-centric focus!
In addition to that, there’s about a dozen canyons in and around Kanangra Walls, which is pretty easy to get to from Canberra. The Victorian High Country also has an active exploratory canyoning scene, and there are good prospects for new discoveries in south-eastern NSW. There is a lot out there- just much of it is in remote bush that and hasn’t been published! If you descend anything not on this list in south-eastern NSW, please consider doing the whole canyoning community a favour and publishing track notes!
Oh, and the Blue Mountains aren’t really that bad to get to from Canberra- a 4.5h drive from Canberra can get you to the starting point for pretty much any Blue Mountains canyon! The Blueies do have some amazing canyons, with beautiful dark constrictions.
There are also a few other areas of good canyons in Australia:
If you’re interested in doing some canyoning in Canberra, hit us up in NUCC! Otherwise, here’s some other local groups that also go canyoning occasionally: