Rumors of deep water solo crags hidden deep in the wilderness of the Hawkesbury have circulated for many years.  Eagle Rock and Craftys are place of rock worship that require serious pilgrimages. The thoughts of hanging ropeless from a high cliff have never left me, but opportunities to get there are limited to boats and serious logistics - as well as most importantly - willing participants. Thus trips to those magic realms of low gravity are exceedingly rare and never really eventuated. Until I started to talk to Peter from Pittwater, during the lead climbing final championships in Villawood, who told me that Jason Piper was organizing a trip for the gym in Gosford. It was okay to come along so I convinced the entire unsuspecting family that it was “easy” and worth trying something new. Little did they suspect of what they were getting themselves into.

Jason met us a Cowan station with a few people from Gosford bouldering gym and led us straight through the bush track to the remarkable Jerusalem bay at Cowan creek. The track follows the great northern track for about 2.5 km and terminates at a shallow sandbank where you can wade across to the other side. During high tide the water is chest deep here but drop quickly to knee level or complete dryness. We walked in waist deep at 9:30 and back out across dry sand at 13:30. There are two main areas: the high deep water solo cliff and the bouldering cave right next door. While the bouldering cave is tide dependent, the high cliff has deep water all day. The classic of the area is called Wet dreams (21**) with a little crux traverse off the deck into a mightily exposed arête on jugs. While the climbing is easy here the head is high up in the clouds. Lots of heelhocks will easy the nerves just don’t pop off here and land upside down. Much more serious is Hiding Three fingers (22**) with excellent jug to hiding fingers, a big reach to the lip and a tough lip mantle, then jugs up an overhanging orange arête to the top. Not for the faint-hearted. Chris took an unexpected fall from the mantle when his foot popped off and he luckily missed the ledge below.

A short swim gets you to the bouldering cave just to the side of the main Deep Water Solo Crag, where several “shallow water Solo” problems wait for you. The boulder problems and their grades are 'tide dependent' here and with low tide the landing becomes about knee deep. Grades rise accordingly and the fear factor sores. There are top-outs for all problems but they are NOT advised at low tide. The classic is the jump start of the oyster encrusted rock in the middle of the cave. Heel hooking in good jugs gets you to the lip of the cave and then a hard exit move to the highball finish. Its best not to fall off the last move! Gently V4 to the top. The next problem is a left hand hard start to a full cave traverse on jugs also about V4. The linking line between the oyster rock start is V6 with crimpy moves and a long throw to finish the bouder problem. In the middle of the cave is a nice campus problem about V5.  While the water is shallow the sand is soft so fall lightly here.

Roman 18 February 2019