We almost didn’t get to Woodford this year. We’d been planning on a January holiday in New Zealand, which ruled out going to Woodford, but when that plan fell through we sort of forgot that made Woodford a possibility again.

In the end the thought of all our friends heading to Woodford without us was too much to bear, so we searched frantically for cheap flights, and found none. So driving it was, and the inland route for a change (Newell) got us there only a little bit frazzled after a day and a half of zooming through the outback.

I didn’t take many photos, it pretty much looks the same every year – though I did try and get a few more shots of bands and other acts. In this collection are:

• The Panics – one of our favourites
• Kerry O’Brien interviewing Bob Hawke!
• The Panics again 🙂
• Clare Bowditch – who was kooky and great
• Whacko & Blotto – our fishes’ name sakes
• The Audreys – great folkies, with much more pep than a few years back
• Weird spaghetti monster at the Endorphin show
• Timothy Caroll – my big find for the festival – loved them
• Mr Percival – amazing one man show

Intermixed with a few random photos. JBT were also great, really liked their new material, though didn’t get any decent shots of them.

The weather was good this year, possibly the best ever. It did rain, but mainly just the odd shower, which kept the temps way down and made the hangovers less painful. Though it did lead to some slippery slopes and nasty twisted ankles 🙁

But all in all it was another great Woody!

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A few weeks back we headed up to Mt Coree for the day. Penny had nicked off to Arapiles for the weekend, so poor lonely Andrew came with us 😉

The drive in was a bit rough, but we kept going slowly but surely. I’d heard to rode was bad so I was expecting to have to walk a fair way. In the end we got the car up to basically the 2nd last bend before the summit, though we probably could have stopped a bit lower. Still it made for a short downhill walk to the first climbs.

To start with we headed to the pretty backside area, not finding an easy route down the gully we walked around which made for a bit of a scramble. For a warm up we all climbed School Girl Fantasies (14) and King Cup No.1 (13), the latter was a nicer climb I thought. After a bit to eat we did Brillo Pad (15), though I would have said it was harder than that.

While climbing we’d spotted a fixed rope on the descent gully, so climbed back up that way. With a full pack and my brand new hiking boots it was a bit of a struggle, they are not very flexible yet!

Next stop was Wind Wall, to climb Jerusalem (19). We didn’t have the topo, so we just counted routes across from the left, and it should have been 3rd. Andrew started leading, only to find that he was on something different, probably harder, and bolted sporadically. Still he bottled it and made it up, clipping the Jerusalem bolts. I climbed it on top rope, and although it wasn’t terrible I was glad I wasn’t leading!

We spent the rest of the arvo on Jerusalem, Meg climbed it twice, Andrew lead it and so did I, but I’m not quite sure in what order 🙂  Still it was an awesome climb, definitely worth the attention.

There are definitely some more Mt Coree trips in my future.

ps. Most of the good photos (the first 10) we took on Andrews camera, and I nicked them off his picasa page 🙂

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Sometime in November we found a spare Sunday and walked up to Gibraltar for a spot of climbing.

It was a funny day, sunny, windy, little bit rainy, but not too hot which was the main worry on the mostly north facing boulders up there.

We retreated to the summit boulders for lunch while it rained a bit, and then climbed My Name is Luka (14) – I think, with a really nice bouldery start.

After a bit of bush bashing we eventually found our way to the bottom of Juvenillies & Geriatrics (15). It’s a great Gibraltar climb, two pitches, but only about 25m high. Up one blank slab to a belay and then out under and over the boulder perched above the first pitch.

The top is pretty speccy, leaving you on the knife edge boulder (3rd last photo). The only downer was there’s no hardware on the bolts for abseiling off, so Meg abseiled on our gear, and then I threaded the bolts on the other side of the boulder and walked down from the top of the first pitch. Only problem was I’d forgot my shoes, so Meg tied them to the rope and I hauled them up – what a faff!

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Back in November (before it was Christmas, how the hell did that happen!?), we went down to Nowra for a weekend. We were a bit late getting there owing to dropping the fam at the Bus for their Nepal trip, but we got down there by early afternoon.

We set the tent up at the Animal park and then headed over to Thompson’s point, where we met Andrew & Penny, and also a bunch of folks from the ANUMC on a club trip.

To start with we did a few short routes near the descent gully, and then climbed random things until it was pretty dark. Andrew kindly took photos of me dawdling up something with an awkward start over a cave, and while he was at it spotted a little native (?) mouse in the cliff!

A nice mash-up dinner at the Animal park was all we needed before hitting the sack in our new tent.

Had a pretty lazy start the next morning which was nice, and spent some time doing rope skills with Meg which was great practice. After a while we headed to the Grotto cliffline, which we hadn’t been to before, so it was an interesting change.

Meg & I wandered around for a bit and got lost. After a bit of scoping for bolts with my new Binocs, I climbed Beans on Toast (16). It had a nice unbolted ground-fall section in the middle, requiring a trad placement, though that made for some nasty rope drag. For extra fun there was a big piece of loose rock near the top. Meg decided not to follow, which I could only agree with 🙂

After lunch we climbed Blade Flake (13), which was good fun, and then walked back to the Belgian Tourist wall where everyone else was. Andrew & Penny had a top rope on Avocado Queens of Death (23), so I fell up it, thanks to Andrew for the (long) belay 🙂

To finish up the day Andrew lead an awesome roof called Spinning Blades of Steel (20), and I seconded it. It was pretty hot and I was not at my freshest, but it was still a great climb. I’ll have to go back and lead it one day.

A quick bite to eat in Kangaroo Valley kept us going for the drive home. A top weekend!

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A couple of weekends back, owing to another dodgy looking weather forecast for the coast, we converted our rock climbing plans into snowshoeing plans.

It was a bit last-minute, and we were already committed to dinner for Ange’s birthday on Friday night, so it had to be a shortish trip. So on Saturday morning we got up as early as we could bear, and drove to Thredbo.

After suiting up down in the car park we lumbered over to the chairlift, feeling rather over dressed for the valley weather. Up on the mountain there wasn’t a breath of wind, and with the sun blazing down we were still over dressed.

We made good time on the snow shoes from the chair lift up to roughly the Koscuiszko lookout. Given our late starting time the snow was already quite slushy, which makes for harder snow shoeing, but it was still great fun.

From the lookout we contoured around to the east of Etheridge Ridge, possibly not the best decision given snowshoes awkwardness on sideways slopes. Still it was warm and the views were awesome, and by 5 or so we were at Seaman’s Hut.

After a bit of scouting we found a nice camp spot between the rocks behind the hut. It was a top spot, though on further inspection it came to be christened the Bog Rock camp site, good thing every thing’s frozen 🙂

Soon enough we had the tent setup and a cuppa on the stove. After a little walk around the rocks we got dinner started, and were all fed and watered before sunset. As the sun dropped so did the mercury, so we quickly hit the sleeping bags and settled in for the night, spying the last rays of sun through the tent window.

We both slept pretty well, or as well as you can when it’s -5º outside and you’re entombed in a sleeping bag. Neither of us was cold, even though our condensation was freezing inside the tent inner, so our -10º rated bags are at least good for -5º.

The sunrise was awesome, starting with that purple bruise over the horizon then lighting up the mountains with a gorgeous red glow. I took stacks of photos between trips back to my sleeping bag.

After a leisurely breakfast and pack up we were on the road before 9. During the morning some clouds had blown up to the west and the wind was picking up, so we decided to walk back across the Snowy River valley, rather than via Rawson Pass.

With the snow still frozen the going was brilliant, and we were at the river in no time. We wanted to pay Opa a visit but couldn’t quite find his spot with all the snow, but we were close by anyway.

Morning tea was taken on a rock outcrop at the top of Merritts Spur, with great views back to the main range and down to the Thredbo valley and beyond. We did a bit ‘sploring around some more rocks, just to fill in time really, we didn’t want our little adventure to end too soon.

Still we were back at the top of the chair lift well before the 4pm closing time, and after a short trip through the air were back in the land of ice cream and cars.

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Despite posts on this blog that might lead you to think otherwise, the shopping trip was actually for Meg’s birthday present – which ended up being an  Osprey 55L hiking pack. It’s a bit on the small size, but we decided Meg shouldn’t really be carrying much more than that anyway – I’ll just have to take the slack in my 90L behemoth. It’s a really nice little pack, I have a serious case of pack-envy.

So on Sunday we wanted to give it a run and headed out for a hike. The plan was to walk from the Cotter to Kambah Pool, or perhaps not all the way, and then back. Unfortunately those clowns at Actew are rebuilding the pumping station at the Cotter and have dug up & mucked up the track at that end. We ignored a few signs saying the track was closed and wandered around trying to find the start of the track, but after nearly falling in a few holes and generally mucking up the place we decided to give it up.

Plan B was to hike up Gibraltar Peak from Tidbinbilla, but being a grade A tightwad I balked at the $10/car entry fee and we drove to the Corin side and walked in from there. I don’t mind paying to go into Tidbinbilla for a day, but it was 1pm by the time we got there and the only facilities we were planning to use was the carpark – rip off 🙂

I forgot my camera so I didn’t get any good shots, just a few quickies with the camera phone. There’s a really cool rock formation about half way up the track, we decided it was called Mushroom Rock – not very original. It looks like you could easily climb up to under the mushroom, but getting on top of that would be a serious feat.

Had a bit of lunch on top of the peak and watched some climbers scramble around down below the knife-edge boulder, not sure what they were climbing on. It was fairly pleasant in the sun, but the icy wind eventually forced us back down the mountain.

We decided to take a different route on the way down, but ended up picking the wrong track and just did a giant loop, via some insane ruts and divets. The roads around there are just getting crazy with the erosion, but we still saw some trail bikes and a few kids in a Nissan Patrol getting through without much trouble. It’s amazing what you can get a 4WD through if you just take it off the bitumen.

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Michael was a very good munchkin, and gets a special treat!

Getting a little slack on the blog, so these photos are a tad late. In fact I wasn’t going to even bother putting them up, but I got a request for “more climbing photos .. and less technical bullshit” 🙂

So a long time ago we went for a Sunday’s climb up at Gibraltar Peak. The walk in was, cough, a little longer than I remembered, but we made it eventually.

The weather wasn’t particularly kind to us, but we squeezed a few in before lunch. I recall I lead White Rabbit – which was squeezy, and rather precarious going through the rabbit hole – I took a cam for that section at George’s suggestion and was glad I had it.

The cool photos are of Julien leading something I’m not sure the name of, and couldn’t be bothered looking up in the guide book. But I remember it was hard. White Rabbit finishes near where he is in the third picture, but comes up from inside the stack of boulders.

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A few weeks back .. or actually at the start of May, Meg and I spent a Saturday & Sunday out rock climbing.

On the Saturday we went to Wickerslack and did a few climbs while soaking up as much good advice as we could from Nic & Andrew. I led one of the easy climbs on gear and Meg “seconded” it (with a top belay) – it was good practice for Sunday …

We got going pretty early on Sunday and drove out to Booroomba rocks. We hiked up to the peak and then down the gully on the other side, then around to the base of the Northern Slabs.

The plan was to climb Sunstroke, a 4 pitch grade 9 – but we were giving ourselves the option of chickening out – in the end we decided it looked easier, and far more pleasant, than climbing back up the access gully – so off we climbed.

Most of the time we were busy climbing, so we didn’t get many photos, but there’s a couple from the third belay, and a few from the top. It was a great climb, nicely within my ability, and a short harder section on the third pitch with a bit of air behind you which was the mental crux for me.

We actually ended up climbing five pitches, or climbing four and scrambling one, because we weren’t sure where the top was. I even fell, over a half dead tree, on the final pitch so it was a good decision 🙂

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Wow. I want one. Checkout the full demo.

Email, instant messaging, photos, collaborative editing all rolled together and done with that usual no bullshit Google style.

The 25% of my time spent on email would be a joy with a system like that – or perhaps just less of an ordeal 🙂

The really good news is that they’ve already published a draft of the protocol, to allow competing server implementations, and they’re talking about open sourcing their code as a starting point.