Ryde Falls, Mt Oxford

I'd spied the falls on a previous tramping trip and thought they might be worth the effort to come back and canyon through.

Murray Cullen joined me for the day and was very pleasant and interesting company. Thankfully, we had plenty to talk about during the slightly tedious approach. 1.5hrs of easy well graded track brought us to the base of Ryde Falls.

Handy hints..

We ascended the scramble track on the true left to get in above the canyon and got suited up. From previous recce's, there didn't look to be a lot in the way of natural anchor options, so with only a hand drill, we took a bunch of short cords and fixed all the drops so we could ascend our way out of a no anchor situation.

Murray enters the gorge

Thankfully there were sufficient natural anchors in the form of trees and flood debris to descend all 6 drops without fuss. As expected, the canyon only took about 30-40 mins, even on the first descent, so we climbed back up to make another two trips through.

R2, that can be slid/jumped with a push away from the rock halfway down

Despite being rather short, it was rather pretty, with some lovely pools and enclosed passages. With a few bolts in the right places, you could have lots of fun with the light flow, but we were forced to rap where the anchors allowed and missed out going straight through the flow of the big drop.

Murray on R3, which has a clear line down 3 drops,
(15, 2 and 8m) giving about a 35m rap

Sadly this one ain't a slide.. just too shallow

Having done 3 laps and clocked up 18 pitches, we felt that we'd had a worthwhile amount of canyoning for our walking. Still, this would be an ideal beginners canyon were it 10mins from Road access...