75m (single pitch)

Public Access

12hrs+

Table Creek cuts straight through the middle of the Abel Tasman National Park. An amazing granite gorge, around 850m of vertical descent, around 18km from car to car, with the 70m Jenkins Falls in the middle.

A very very long day for fit and efficient groups, this is a bit of a canyoning marathon, after a very long car shuttle to put cars at Canan Downs Campsite and Awaroa.

The best access point is to follow the Inland Track until the pin, then scramble easily to the stream.

The 70m is best done as 1 pitch.

The ideal is having 75m rope as abseil rope and tie ropes together to have at least 80m on the pull down so you can pull from far back. The double bolt anchor at the top is too far back and too low which makes it a poor pull down.

To make it worse there is a perfect rope pinch on the first edge. Last person should keep the rope away from pinch and have a clean rig, keep ropes separate on way down.

Efficiency and a high level of canyoning fitness are required for this adventure. It took us 12hrs from car to car, going quickly and efficiently with a very experienced team. Jenkins took us about an hour with 5 of us.

From first feature to confluence with Evan’s its reasonably continuous but not back to back. Always a bit of a scramble to get to next feature. Below Jenkins, long swims.

Short fun slides at the top, some bigger ones down the bottom but nothing huge.

Most abseils apart from Jenkins in the 15 to 25m range. Good number of jumps, biggest around 12m.

After Evan’s some hydraulic features but nothing gnarly.

Toine Houtenbos

Very long trip, first descent in early 2015 by Toine Houtenbos, Lee Den Haan, Matt Dingley and Richard Bramley

Photos from Toine Houtenbos and Adrien Paris