Dargan Creek Photo trip

10-02-2018

Albert, David and me.

 

So I found myself with a spare Saturday and my usual crew busy elsewhere so I sent a request through the airways to see if anyone was out who wouldn’t mind a tag along.

Dave responded with an invite on a photo trip to my local canyon, Dargan creek.

Dave’s photos have always been an inspiration to me (if you haven’t checked out his pages have a gander here) and it had been nearly 16 years since our only other trip together so I jumped at the chance.

Dave and Albert busied themselves with the DSLRs while I felt a bit out gunned with my Olympus TG4. I managed some reasonable shots but I can’t wait to see theirs.

In the mean time

Albert setting up the tripod at the start of the constriction

Looking down the canyon

I was expecting them to march out 10 paces, turn and shoot.

Even when I wasn’t canyoning full on we’d do this canyon once a year or so. Being 20min from home I’ve been through it a lot but I haven’t really spent time in there taking photos. It’s a sure way to see things you normally miss.

Dave on the down climb. Fixed hand lines seem to be a relatively new phenomena in Blue mountains canyons. Was certainly always able to get down, and back up here with out a fixed line in the 90s.

Dargan creek has some lovely canyon formation

Dave setting up for a long exposure.

This bit gets so dark it is almost cave like. You sometime see glowworms here in the day and big brown eels in the water. Neither today

 

In the dappled light of the canyon I couldn’t make out the marking on this little fellow. I was 99% sure I knew what it was but that 1% meant I was careful to stay out of strike range

While it looks snakelike a bit of post editing to lighten things up brings out the classic patterns, external ear holes and limb vestages of a legless lizard. The common scaly-foot (Pygopus lepidopodus)

As well as the external ear holes (which snakes lack) legless lizards have a broad fleshy tongue, rather than the forked tongue of a snake, and eye lids so if it blinks or sticks out a wide tongue you know it’s a lizard.

The arrow on the left points to the external ear holes which snakes lack. On the right you can make out the tiny flap which is a remnant of the rear leg.

They also have a long tail. Snakes are all body with a short tail, these guys are 2/3rds tail. That might sound silly and it’s certainly hard to see where this ones tail starts but they can and do drop their tails as a last ditch means to avoid being someones lunch, a bit like a garden skink, and the tail often grows back a slightly different colour. So you get a coppery body and a grey tail.

 

This is the classic patterning but they come in a range of colour from smooth coppery brown with hardly any pattern to an almost purplish colour  with gold  highlights in between the black dots which is absolutely stunning.

 

Sun beams

You’ve probably noticed I shot a lot more in landscape orientation which is unusual for me in canyon settings, but it seemed to work today

 

And then it’s up the tree and out

Dave asked if I knew the history of the spikes in the tree which are used as a ladder for exiting. I’d always assumed they were placed by Col Oloman who was a bit of a Blue Mountains Canyoning pioneer and Lithgow local but Dave says Col’s notes speak about the spikes already being there.

They look to be railway spikes so perhaps the builders of the 10 tunnels diviation in the early 1900s, or perhaps the original railway prior, were the first white folk to visit this canyon? Seems odd they would be scrambling down here as you can walk in up stream and you can also follow the creek down into Hartley Vale without too much trouble. Maybe surveyors looking at another dam wall lower down?

What we get from this adventure is pure joy.” George Mallory

*Slight detour* in March I am again taking part in the West Cycles Classic to raise money for the Westpac rescue helicopter service. Whether preforming bush rescue, emergency patient transfers, and all the rest no one has ever had to pay to use the helicopter due to public donations. If, like me, you believe this is an invaluable service or if you just enjoy reading my blog think about pitching in with a donation. Large or small every bit counts. follow this link for details 2018 West Cycles

Anyhoo

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