Climbing, and a wee bit of cooking too

Back in February we drove out to Namadgi with Andrew, Penny & Adam, hoping to get in a spot of climbing at Orroral Ridge. It was not to be said the weather gods, although it was just cloudy down in Canberra, it was raining fairly convincingly up in the hills.

Plan B was to do a spot of bouldering at the Deacon residence, but not before we’d stopped to pick Blackberries, and scrumped a few apples on the way too.

The end result was a great afternoon of bouldering, really we did, interrupted by a feast of home made bread thanks to Adam, and followed by home made Blackberry & Apple pie. Nice!

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Posted by mike on Thursday April 21st, 2011 | comments disabled

Brissie

After Woodford we popped down to Brissie for a few days to hang out with Dan & Michelle. As usual we arrived covered in mud and smelling like wet dogs, but they’re used to that by now and barely even noticed.

We spent a bit of time relaxing and generally hanging about. Dan & I managed to get one of his nerf rockets stuck in a tree, and then got the cricket ball we used to knock it down stuck in the tree, and finally got them both down with a soccer ball. Serious stuff.

There was some gourmet cooking, with thanks to Jamie Oliver. We drove out to Redcliffe, and got to stick our feet in the sea, which seemed more like a river to me, a big river for sure.

The main event though was climbing at Kangaroo Point, which we’d brought gear up for and stashed with Dan on the way to Woodford. We spent an evening and a morning there, the best times for the heat. Our dodgy print out of routes gave us a rough idea, but the locals were really helpful and gave us our bearings.

We started with a 12 or thereabouts, which was easy enough, and gave Dan a nice easy start I think. After that I think we did a 14 and maybe a 16, which were good, though I was starting to add 1 or 2 to the grades in my head.

As the light faded the spot lights came on. Although obviously better than it being dark, it was pretty darn weird. As you climb up, with the spotlights below you, you increasingly can’t see your feet because of the glare. Perhaps though it’s my fault for not climbing routes that are sufficiently overhanging and so consistently lit.

In the morning we did something else I’ve forgotten, and finished up with the excellent Halva (16). It is one of the star routes of the crag and I have to agree. Again I think we’d probably call it 18 down south, but maybe I’m just not used to the rock type. Anyway it was a great route. Dan didn’t quite finish it, but made a very good attempt, including a major detour onto what was definitely harder ground, all good fun. Meg said it looked hard, but then cruised it.

And so finished a great little trip to Brissie. Little did we know, just a few days later the whole place would be under water!

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Posted by mike on Thursday April 21st, 2011 | comments disabled

Woodford 2011

Another year, another Woodford. It rained, of course. A bit more than usual, and the site was already insanely wet, so it felt like a really wet Woodford, but I think it was only about half rainy days.

Still, as we arrived, thanks to a kindly lift from Mr Scott, it already looked as wet as “the” wet year did after a week. That lead to a last minute change of plan and a camp site up on the hill, out in the new territories, which I think despite the long walk was a good decision. Our camp site was muddy, but only locally, ie. we didn’t have the contents of the camp site up the hill flowing into ours.

We’d also seen the weather forecast and decided to bring the Swedish tent, which as you can imagine is able to handle rain. So there we were pretty comfortably setup, and so ensued a week of music and fun and all things hippyish.

Highlight of the week would have to be beating Scott at his marble game, which he brought all the way from Africa so that I could beat him on it. In fact I think he had it hand carved just so I could beat him on it.

The other highlight would have to be the very cute and funny Passenger, who we might have seen three or four times, but he was very good, writes nice songs and sings them well, with a chuckle and a sparkle in his eye.

Tim Rogers was another standout, his solo show is a bit like watching a train crash in slow motion, compelling viewing. Somewhat surprisingly Tim Freidman was also really good. Kevin Rudd stopped past, and managed to actually be quite good, the whole robot bureaucrat thing is actually an act it seems, god knows why. And of course most of the usual suspects were there, all were good.

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Posted by mike on Thursday April 21st, 2011 | comments disabled

Nowra & Tianjara Falls

Late last year we managed a trip to Nowra and then Tianjara falls. I think we won the award for latest start at the crag, I think it was 6, pm, when we clipped our first bolt. Still it was actually pretty smart because it was a bit warm during the day.

We went to Hospital Rocks because we were short on time, and climbed I don’t remember what, but it was good fun. The evening light was gorgeous, and we were visited by an Echidna. To start with he was shy, but then he got used to us and in the end ended up walking straight over the rope bag.

After a nice nights camping at the animal park we headed up to Tianjara falls for Sunday, where we met Andrew & Penny & Tim & Tanya.

We headed to the Huskisson Homo and the Hill Top Hoods wall, mainly because it’s the first with a good looking descent gully. There was a big bunch of locals, who were all really friendly and gave us lots of good advice on which routes were good.

In some order we climbed Roger Bourne Identity (16), Bingo Wings (14), Cool Bananas (17), Little Miss Sunshine(11) and Trad dads can’t campus (20).

They were all good, especially the first two. The start on Cool Bananas is not 17, but still a good route. Trad dads can’t campus was quite good, though has a bit of a ledge which made for nervous ankles.

Andrew and Penny put us all to shame by doing the awesome looking Dodecahedron (22). I was keen to top rope it but then the rains came, what a pity!

After we all sheltered under the cliffs for 20 minutes, Andrew had the fun task of climbing the 22 in the rain to clean it, but I don’t think it was too horrendous owing to it being slightly overhanging and so mostly dry.

Owing to the rain we got an early start home, which meant we had plenty of time for gourmet pizza in Braidwood, life is tough!

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Posted by mike on Thursday April 21st, 2011 | comments disabled