Rennies Tunnel ~ 9 May 2004
Party: Pete Harvey, Nazih Chammas, James Bevan
The initial plan was to get to splendour rock in the wild dogs via cattle dog ridge. Cityrail trackwork + the cancellation of buses meant it took Nazih nearly three hours to get from parramatta to katoomba.... So pete, nazih, and I headed off to narrowneck, to explore redledge pass & rennie's tunnel. We left the golden stairs carpark & headed into a gully at the top of first hill.
Some fun scrambling and bush bashing took us around to an exposed overhang which led to the rockclimbers path under the western side of the plateau. Nazih pulled out his groovy miniature digicam, not bigger than 2 matchboxes....I'd left mine back at the car. So we still got some nice shots from the neck.
We headed round, passing abseilers near diamond falls & made it to the point before redledge pass. However, the traverse of an open cliffface was looking a bit dodgy, so after a few climb downs, we made our own pass to the valley below. The spur off the point led us to an overgrown old road which we followed to Diamond Creek and the 6 foot track.
We made a nice fire by the creek and tucked into lunch. Pete nodded off after a while. While I was putting out the fire pete suddenly woke from his dreams to his own little snowfall...
We turned off the 6 ft trail up to the neck, hoping to find the western end of rennies tunnel. Instead we found Andrew Mitchell and he didn't know where it was either. So we went back and climbed the pumping station ladders (which have apparently been removed) and headed down the golden stairs.
The tunnel on the other side is made obvious by the orange creek running across the track. It was built for the old mines, however, I think everyone they must have all been dwarves back then..
Pete at the entrance
Pete and Nazih at the entrance
All of us at the entrance
We muddled along, in a position which reminded me of my days picking zucchinis in Bundaberg. It dropped quite a bit more to about 1.2m in the middle. Crawling along, at some stages I was thigh deep in mud. Pete thought we might need to swim at one point, which would've been something to savour.
Halfway through the tunnel
After about half an hour I spotted light and we crawled out...rather glad to be standing up again! The exit is actually a couple of hundred metres below the cliffline, and would be quite hard to spot.
Nazih about to exit
Pete and Nazih
In fading light, we scrambled up to the track, climbed back up the ladders and headed off. Nazih grabbed some pizza from rene's, which he kindly shared.....mmmm eating pizza which orange hands....and we took off down the mountain, satisfied after quite an enjoyable day.
Nazih on the waterboard ladders
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