5 o'clock in the morning: "Alex time to get up!" dad said. This was the starting time of the day. from there was breakfast, and a trip to my leader's house, then from there to the blue mountains. We had two canyons planned for that day, one dry and one wet. We all met at an old abandoned train station, from there we all drove to the first canyon. But of course it wasn't as simple as just driving up and going into the canyon. No, we had drive to the entrance to a bush walking track, then we had to follow that track until we reached the canyon. The first canyon was fairly straight forward. It didn't feel like we were in a canyon as it was just a track we had to follow. But, the next 'wet' canyon we did definitely felt like a challenge. they told us it would be knee high water. Wrong, because of the rain the water level had gone up to waist deep. For me this was easy, except for the unbelievably cold water. The hard part was when we approached a small waterfall type thing. it was about a meter high with gushing water. We had to step up where the water was coming the fastest and walk on from there. This was extremely difficult so me and a mate from another troop took the initiative and helped the 25 kid troop up this tiny terror:) By the end of this I was beat but we had another Km to go. after we had finished the course the car trip home was very quiet compared to the trip here.
Overall it was a great day and I personally would love to do it again, especially the wet canyon. I highly recommend canyoning for every scout.
~Alex Robinson - 2nd Castle Hill Scouts