A Black Art Canyon Hunting in Tasmania
Nick had captured our imagination with his idea: An exploratory canyoning expedition to Tasmania. We were sceptical. I mean exploration, don’t you need to have a sponsorship deal to be an explorer? Have backing from National Geographic? Or some sort of explorer’s certification? Besides, with humans stretched out on every extremity of the planet, is there anything left to explore? But there was a logic to it. While explorers have long headed to the highest peaks or longest rivers, canyons have been viewed as nothing more than obstacles. No one seeks canyons, except canyoners. And—while numbers are growing—there are not a huge number of them in Tasmania. Perhaps first descents still awaited.
And so it was on Boxing Day that Nick, myself, Jin, Josh, Gab and Jess found ourselves in our first Tasmanian canyon, Dove Canyon. Discovered by kayakers who were scouting paddling routes via helicopter, Dove is the one of the few commercially-guided canyons in Tasmania: Friendly, fun features, no compulsory abseils and—importantly—within walking distance from the start of the Overland Track, meaning a guaranteed stream of tourists.
Commercially guided canyoning wasn’t our goal, of course; we wanted to explore. But we also realised that a guided descent down Dove would be useful: Tasmanian canyons were going to be a whole lot wetter than the NSW Blue Mountains canyons we were used to, and we wanted to train for local conditions. Using funds provided by ANU’s Mountaineering Club—who’d kicked in with an expedition grant—we booked in for a day of custom training with Cradle Mountain Canyons. We met with Urs Grueter, a stringy, energetic instructor with an obvious passion for all things canyoning.
We negotiated cliff jumps and slides, and on the way learnt advanced techniques, skills we thought we might need. Like bypassing re-circulations. Or keeping ropes from tangling in swift water. Even how to cut a fellow canyoner from their rope after rescuing them. We also learnt that
