Winter having hit Natimuk sometime in
April this year, I had been counting down to our winter trip for
about 6 weeks by the time we finally drove out of town. On the way
north, we stopped to visit friends and family and everyone seemed to
have sick children so courtesy of these harbingers of plagues, by the time we got to Frog, we both
had horrible colds. What a start. It seemed like colds had hit the whole country simultaneously as
people from Melbourne, Hobart, Nati and beyond converged on Frog with
their own strain of virus, on top of half of Qld, so I was expecting
it to morph into a superbug any moment.
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| Keep Left, 24 |
So much for the plan of a bit of
mileage to get into the groove then hitting a few routes I had been
saving for a brave day for about 15 years now. Instead, everything
felt desperate. Normally, I disagree with the popular view that the
grades are stiff at Frog, but as I dragged by sorry snuffly self up
Infinity, it had never felt so hard. Ok, so this might be what is
feel like for the masses. By the end of the week I had given up on
getting any form anytime soon and decided to scope out some potential
projects on a nice friendly top rope. Fat Mattress conveniently got
us above Keep Left which turned out to be very cool, highly body
tensiony thin layaways in a sharp groove up an arete that widened to
a flared offwidth and remained desperate to the end. The gear would
be pretty thin down low, so I was happy I hadn't tried it ground up.
Then Blood Sweat and Tears set us up for a rope on Future Tense,
which is pretty stunning climbing, although to be perfectly honest,
probably isn't 26, maybe because it's now standardly done with out
the poorly protected and rather contrived start. The odd poor lock
and flared handjam intermingled with a lot of technical layaways to a
goey finish of crimpers and gastons.
I started to feel a tad better and
decided we really should give the big gear a workout. I had borrowed
some extra 5s and 6s (thank you Andrew and Callum!) for the occasion
and wandered up Castor and Pollox. Castor really involves no
offwidthing, but is super nice climbing, and remarkably for Frog,
good rock the whole way. Well, it would if it had an anchor on the
ledge where the really climbing finishes instead of having to
scramble up to Theory ledge. Pollox on the other hand, involves some
serious earning of every millimetre. The initial flary crack went
from fat hands to fat fists, not exactly a cruise for my small hands,
then proceeded through steep ground of 4 and 5 camalot sized. I was
in there and grunting. But it was great. Again, the rock was perfect
but it might be one of the harder 20s at Frog.
Continuing with the theme, we moved
onto Lord of the Flies the next day. This has to be the most
underrated route I have ever done. All versions of the guide
described it as a long worthless wide groove, but whoever started
this rumour must have just been putting people off actually climbing
it, because it was great. It's a stonker of a line to look at. The
initial finger crack was beautiful locks, like an easier version of
Yankee. From the stance above it, I pulled up the rack of big gear
ready for this “long, worthless wide groove”. Armed with 4 3s, 4
4s, 4 5s and 3 6s, I launched up a steep hand to fist crack then into
the groove. The rock continued to be as good as Frog ever gets, and
the walls decorated with just enough face holds for it to be funky 3
dimensional bridging up until the last 2m, where some good old
fashioned thrutching brings you to the tree you have been eyeing off
for 20m wondering if it was actually getting any closer at all. 40m
of sustained, varied climbing on good rock and it has a real anchor at
the top. No idea why it has been disparaged all these years. You
maybe don't need all that big gear … you could get away with out
any 6s, but take all the 4s and 5s you can get your hands on.
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| Lord of the Flies and the rack Douglas took out of it. |
Douglas had this brainwave to do Sabrasucker, then finish up Grandma's Tonic to Theory Ledge in order to get to Southern Comfort, another obscure route neither of us had done before. Grandma's Tonic deserves all the disparaging it gets. After a loose vegetated traverse, Douglas got to thrutch up a manky, filthy groove and arrived at the belay tree happy to be alive. Southern Comfort however turned out to be impeccable locking up a clean corner that was sadly all too short. If the route continued as for the first 10m, it would be another 3 star route. Sadly, the 10m of filthy Frog top out knocks off 2 of those stars. Another candidate for an anchor below the choss.
Finally by our last day, the dregs of
the cold had passed and we cruised up Devil's and Conquistador in a
manner more to be expected before flying out to Darwin for a 2 week walk in Kakadu. My lovely
friend Kylie asked me to write a little something about it, so if you have more time to kill, you can find what turned
out to be a not-so-little something here:
http://outdoorsyodyssey.blogspot.com.au/2015/08/kakadu.html
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| A little taste of Kakadu |
After nearly a week to recuperate hanging out in Darwin with Natasha and Dave, drinking coffee, champagne and eating tropical fruit, we returned to Brisbane motivated for another quick trip out to Frog to send Future Tense before heading further north. Coming from 30 degrees everyday, Frog seemed a little cold, and I was rugged up in my thermals and jacket whilst a bunch of Tasmanians ran around shirtless. Future Tense was still glorious, was quickly dispatched then I rewarded myself with a top rope on Badfinger. I know, toproping an offwidth is a strange reward … but it was right next door and easy to throw a rope on. I was rather put off leading it by the story of Dave Jones nearly shredding through his rope on the sharp edge of the crack when he came off it years ago. The Antarctic Vortex was just reaching Qld at this point and the Main Range had been covered in black clouds all day that were ominously creeping towards us. An unusual mix of laybacking with knee bars got me to the stance between fat sections and a chance to see the wider world again for a moment. Armageddon looked like it was just about to hit us. A wall of black was only 100m away and wild winds were increasing by the second. I buried myself back in the crack again and at the top was quite relieved that Douglas still wanted a lash at it so I didn't have to face the pendulum over to the anchor in the increasingly atmospheric conditions.
We headed north trying to outrun the
Vortex. We failed. Coolum reached a whole of 19 and after 2 days of
climbing in all day shade in sub 20 temperatures, we kept running. We
weren't so inspired by Coolum anyway. Not at all because we could
barely get up the 24s …. It is potentially funky, interesting
climbing, but consistently horrible rock. It is either sharp or dusty
and friable or slopey and with the friction of a bar of soap. Just as
I as I was about to remark that it was also one of the ugliest
locations I have climbed in for a while, some local youngsters turned
up to do a photo shoot. Not a climbing one, a scantily clad young
woman who must have been rather cold. I tactfully shut up.
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| Lady Musgrave Island |
Conditions looked good for a trip out
to the reef the next day so we zipped up to 1770 and splurged on the
boat out to Lady Musgrave Island. For a touron trip, it was
remarkably good and conditions were perfect – the sea flat as a
tack, no wind and plenty of sun. You are pretty much left to do your own
thing once you get out to the lagoon and we snorkelled for hours with
loads of fish, coral, a few turtles and an octopus that got rather
pissed off at us and flashed all his range of colours. The island itself is a coral cay covered in pinsonias forming a forest straight out of fantasy novels.
Northwards further and we were
convinced Qld was broken. We stopped for the night near Rockhampton
and there I was rugged up in my thermals and puffy jacket. Should we
go out to Eungella? Nope, too cold, keep running. There's a lot of
cattle and cane in Qld and it just seemed endless by the time we
finally made it to Townsville but at last, it was actually warm. We
set up camp at Alligator Creek, a lovely, quiet campsite south of
Townsville with heaps of shade, a swimming hole and a lot of
voracious bush turkeys. Bush turkeys really bring home that dinosaurs
didn't actually die out, they just evolved into birds. Had we thought
about it clearly, we might not have stayed there as Frederick's Peak
is northwest of Townsville. By the time you had driven there and
walked up to the cliff, it was 2 hours travel each way.
Local climbers were very helpful and
gave us plenty of info on finding the crag and that there was really
nowhere safe to camp around the quality outskirts of Townsville.
Burnt out wrecks of cars and burnout circles mark the drive into the
crag. I had assumed that they were stolen cars, but was later told
that one of them was a climber's car, left there while they camped at
the cliff and torched in their absence.
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| The walk in. South Sentinel is the obvious central peak |
It's enough of a walk into the crag if
you have a high clearance 4wd. More of one with a standard 4wd and
really quite a lot of one when you have a little red Mazda 323. We
got it as far as we could and hoped it was sufficiently out of the
way not to get gutted. It's about an hour with full packs from there
to the crag, and most of that road was actually built by the
enthusiastic local lads with a chainsaw and jackhammer. They have
also carried a shitload of bolting gear up that hill over the years.
Chris told us they'd bought 1000 bolts from China last year and were
already running low. They really are keen developers. We got a lift
in with them one day and left our car way out on the main road. On
getting back to Chris's car, we realised our keys were in the pack
left at the cliff, so Douglas got a bonus run up the hill. We got
dropped off at our car just in time for the police to rock up,
someone having reported it being abandoned, so much later and it
could have been missing on us anyway.
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| The python I tried to step on |
We'd had a car drama to sort out that
first morning, so it was near 1pm when we started walking. Not prime
time in the tropics to walk up a big hill. I nearly stepped onto a
massive carpet python drinking from a puddle on the path. It didn't
move. I guess it knew it was a bloody great big snake and nothing was
really going to attack it. We got there in time to run up 2 routes
and stashed our packs there. The next day we took the time to look
around the crag a little bit more. We were at the South Sentinel,
which is the most developed crag there. Citizen Arcane, a grade 27
overhanging crack, looked amazing. We wandered up Primosanity in
order to put a top rope on it, and this turned out to be very good in
its own right, varied and and funky climbing on solid rock. The top
rope didn't turn out to be the best idea. 40 degree over hanging
diagonal cracks are rather hard to get a top rope on and then rather
hard to actually work from it once you have. The next day we
discovered it was much easier ground up. I put my foot in my shoe and
nearly squashed a lizard. At least in wasn't a scorpion. It obviously
hadn't had a lot of love since the first ascent in 2012, with the
start sporting a lot of bracken and dusty crozzly rock, but the top
2/3s were delicious. I gave the bracken a hair cut and a bit of
traffic cleaned up the rock so by the time we sent it, it was in
great condition. Unfortunately, I don't think the crag gets that
much attention and virtually none of that attention goes to trad
routes, so it might return to its previous state quite quickly.
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| Citizen Arcane, 27 |
It was one of those routes where
Douglas and I may as well have been on different climbs. From the
knee bar rest at half height, I am virtually completely in the crack
and he was virtually completely on the face. But as we both loved it,
it must be good either way. Douglas had been demonstrating an amazing
ability to send on his warm up this trip, and nearly did so again
with Citizen Arcane only to take a 10m whipper of the last move of
the crux. I scored the second ascent then moved onto Townsvillians, 25. I
think the locals thought I had strange taste in climbs, but they
suited me well. Townsvillians starts up a 22 that is given 3 stars
and I hated it. It was everything I dislike about some Nowra climbs –
polished slopers and crimps a long way apart and the whole thing only
5 m long. However, the moment you left that into Townsvillians, it
was awesome. Steep jugs with great knee bars and squishy rests until
you cut loose at the lip on double hand jams. Or at least I did.
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| Cutting loose on double hand jams, just an everyday trick |
Then we moved on the The Gommernator, a
steep groove that was hard to read, but succumbed to lots of kneebars
and 3d weirdness. Sadly, after the 7th bolt, the rock
deteriorated, but the first 2/3rds were very very cool. I thought
I'd quickly run up Steeling Time as it was not yet midday but got
spooked going for the 4rd bolt. With a bit a faffing, I
got a long draw on it and cruised to the top. So it was supposed to
go easily 2nd attempt, when I managed to get my hand stuck
behind my knee bar, nearly rip my fingernail off trying to wiggle it
out, then pop for the hold above the lip, get my feet all muddled up
and come off. Ok, 3rd shot, really no worries. So up I go
again, managed to keep my knee free of my hand, pop for the hold,
realised I have the wrong hand on it, swap them around, completely
mangle the sequence but think there is no way I am going to do all
this again and pull out all stops bellowing and reach the thank god
jugs that are nevertheless disconcertingly poorly attached to the
cliff. I had some seriously worked back muscles from that one.
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| Happy Douglas after sending Citizen Arcane, his first 27 in many years just as he was thinking he was too old to climb hard anymore |
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| Yum yum double icecreams |
All this walking up hill and climbing
steep stuff was getting bloody exhausting. Fortunately Townsville has
a few nice things to do on rest days. We'd zipped down to the
Whitsundays to see my parents and snorkelled with the largest turtles
I have ever seen. We ate a lot of ice cream at the Frosty Mango, a
tropical fruit farm that makes their own ice cream. Honestly, I
really needed 2 double ice creams each rest day to keep up this level
of activity. Besides, who can resist mango, black sapote, paw paw,
ginger, macadamia, dragonfruit, coconut, sapodilla …We swam in
Crystal Creek, Douglas twitched at birds and I read trashy vampire
novels. And old friend of Douglas's took us for a boat trip around
Magnetic Island. We discovered the Riverway Lagoons, which you would
think were part of the river that had been made safe from crocodiles,
but they are actually outdoor pools. Still, they were free and
surrounded by massive shady trees made for lounging around. As most
Townsvillians thought it was way to cold to swim, being the depths of
winter now, it was also very quiet. We tried to swim in the Strand
rock pool – another amazing piece of free swimming architecture
that allows for year round ocean swimming, but it was closed for
maintenance. The cafe next to it did have 5 different sorts of
cheesecake, so being unable to decide between Cointreau and Pina
Colada, I had both.
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| Boat trip around Maggie with Ewan |
After the first week, we'd given up on
our pretty campsite at Alligator Creek and moved into the old farts
caravan park at Black River. When googling camping on that side of
Townsville, we'd been very impressed by the lack of child facilities
and emphasis on quiet. Ok, so they did say they were an over 50s
park, but we aren't that far off now, surely they'll let us in. When
we rock up, they are also a bit worried that we have a tent. They
don't normally have tents there. But they were very helpful and we
were soon set up in the shadiest spot in the park. Someone asked us
where our caravan was and Douglas told them we had a blow up one.
Being the only people there without a caravan, we were also the only
people using the kitchen and storing stuff in the fridge, so it all
worked out very well. And driving to the crag was now a mere 15
minutes.
The local lads had been busy developing
a new sector on the North Sentinel, so eventually, we committed to
moving our stuff down from the South Sentinel and up to the North.
We'd been assured the walk in was much less, but as we trudged up the
very steep eroded dirt, it really didn't seem that way. Eventually,
we pop out at the Fishbowl, a fairly small but steep cave with a 27
crack out it. We warmed up on a couple of easy routes outside the
cave, the first of which, the quantity of rock on the ground
reflected the quality of rock on the climb and the next Douglas said
took him straight back to the old days at Kangaroo Point. Then we
jumped on Calamity Clam, which might actually be a good route, but
there's some scaly rock and seepage at the start, then a fingery move
into the crack and my fingers are way too old for that shit. Once in
the crack, there are some great knee bars but a distressing lack of
jams, which is a bit disastrous for a weakling like myself as I tried
desperately to climb on face holds. The top 2/3s of the route are
actually cool, but it was too late in the trip to devote time to
sending it, so we stripped the gear and trudged on down. It was quite
a relief to think that we weren't going to slog up that bloody hill
again ….
In general, Frederick's Peak is a
pretty good crag. We did do a few easier routes, and the climbing was
often interesting, but the rock a lot worse. I wouldn't bother going
there unless you can climb steep 23+, at which point, there are some
great routes. South Sentinel is definitely the better sector, with a
lot more climbing and better warm up routes. It's also quite a pretty
spot to hang out with lots of big trees overhanging the base of the
cliff and plenty of shady stuff to choose from. The North Sentinel
might be subject to a little bit of developer's hype. It's not a very
pretty spot, with sparse vegetation, and the base of the crag is all
scree. There's no shade once the sun comes round, which it starts
doing before lunch. The easy routes are less than decidedly average,
but if you can climb 27+ steep stuff, the cave does has some cool
looking things.
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| Zombie wallabies of Magnetic Island |
We were suffering rather badly from
being at the bum end of a long road trip and treated ourselves to 3
rest days and a holiday house on Magnetic Island.On our boat trip
earlier, we had stopped at Rocky Bay so Douglas could show off the
routes he had put up there in 1999, and as I rack up beneath them
now, he's commenting on how he would never have imagined having a
girlfriend who wanted to come and repeat these routes. But really,
how can I say no when you show me some overhanging granite cracks?
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| Sussing out Curlew 23 |
To be perfectly honest, the rock on
Maggie is not that great. It's coarse, crumbly and has that weird
soapiness that can make sea cliffs really slippery. Still, the actual
climbing is great. There'd been some ongoing jokes about how I was
going to downgrade all of Douglas's routes, which was not exactly
what I was thinking of doing as I battled up Not Without Jase, 20. 90
degree corners that overhang with a ¾ camalot crack in them don't
really look like a warm up and it didn't really feel like a warm up.
I was about to slip off any moment for most of the route. I topped
out pumped out of my brains and suggesting that might be me done for
the day. Maybe we would be upgrading all of Douglas's routes …
After recuperating in the shade and downing a few coffee lollies for inspiration, I racked up again for Curlew, 23. Douglas had done the first ascent onsight, so the pressure was on to keep up. This wall is rather steep too, and after placing a high wire, I pulled on then stepped back off again to psych myself up a bit more. Committed this time, I motored up with sufficient decent locks and the odd hand jam to get me up to where the 22 zips off right. I was pretty pumped again, but the 22 finished up one of those horrible slab things, so onward up the crack was the only option. I roared and bellowed and managed to pull off a sharp layaway, the grit under my feet stayed attached to the rock and finding a good lock gave me enough encouragement to make another move to the final horizontal. Suddenly, none of my gear wanted to go in the crack. I threw in the red, the grey and finally the yellow alien, but each time I had left the preceding one overcammed in the best spot for the next size down, so eventually I clipped them all, warned Douglas they might all pop and reached left. Oh, the delights of soapy granite! Just what I want, a round, slippery lump. I desperately reach further and the horizontal narrows enough to get a jam in so I launch onto that, swing my feet around to the ramp coming in and pull up to a jug and a squishy rest where I can procrastinate for a moment, knowing the action is all over but not want to mess up the easier finish. I didn't really feel like downgrading that one after that almighty battle either.
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| Brudl 27 |
On the opposite side of the boulder is
Brudl, 27. Fingers to off fingers and steeper still. I'm feeling
completely trashed already, so we popped a nice top rope on it and
proceed to have completely different experiences of the route. It
starts up a thin crack which peters out, leaving you to move right
onto another crack. The angle relents slightly towards the top but
offers some dreadful looking off fingers. Douglas struggled up the
top crack whilst I struggle on the initial crack and reaching across
to the second one. But it is awesome and surely it will feel better
the next day when I am not torched.
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| Snorkelling in Florence Bay |
Surfing the net in bed the next morning, I discover a gelati bar in Arcardia. That's it, we have 15 minutes to the next bus to get me to gelati. They also turn out to do awesome pizzas and then full of coffee, pizza and custard gelati, we went for a snorkel in Geoffrey Bay. This was the best snorkelling we did on the island, with great coral cover and a few giant clams thrown in.
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| The rattly fingers section of Brudl |
Hoping we were sufficiently refuelled,
we headed back down to Brudl. We rapped gear into it and attempted to
warm up on a few boulders and a dogging lap of the route. Then I
psych up for a real go at it. I was channelling my inner Sharma,
pulling of the first big move with a grunt, then setting up a hand
jam in the horizontal from which I dynoed, screaming, to the what we were
euphemistically calling the jug at the start of the second crack. The
Sharma must have been powerful in me that day as I caught the jug,
swung my feet around, clipped and thought I was back in more
comfortable territory in the crack. Except off fingers locks don't
feel that great when you are already pumped rather than pulling on
off the rope. I put my left up, stepped up, stepped down, retreated
to the jug, shook out. Put the left in again, gritted my teeth
and pulled up, got the next rattly lock, wiggled and wiggled but
couldn't get it to feel good enough to release my left hand. Retreat
to the jug. Try right hand up first. Retreat. Eventually, I try and
channel Sharma again, but maybe he's not so useful on cracks as the
second lock blows and my power scream becomes falling scream. I was
caned. I could barely pull on from the rope. How had the crack
suddenly become so hard? Then I realise I was stepping up to early,
and I could pretend I was actually taller for a moment and stretch
out with my feet on the horizontal break. Then I only had to pull on
one ring lock with dodgy feet, before some good locks and a thin
hand. From there, I had it down fairly solidly and topped out without
further dramas.
Douglas made short work of the start
before cursing the rattly fingers. After going up and down innumerate
times, he still didn't feel like he had a sequence. By now the route
was coming into the sun, so we retired for a swim. Rocky Bay is the
nudist beach on Maggie. What that mostly means is aging, portly men
with full body tans perambulating solo around the beach. I would
imagine they were getting some exercise, but they aren't really
moving enough for that. Occasionally they paddle in the water, but
fall short of actually swimming. I'm not sure what they made of the
odd people climbing on the rocks. People are rumoured to peek with
binoculars from the lookout above, but there wasn't much
action worth peeking at.
Then we settled in for some Scrabble to
while away the hours before the sun went off the route. Sadly, no
amount of Scrabble seemed to be rejuvenating my forearms. Douglas
had another go, not really trying and casually said “take” on a
low piece so he could work out a more efficient clipping stance. Then
he got back on, waltzed through the dyno, set his fingers in the
crack and just pottered on up as if it had never bothered him. He
climbed over the top then asked had he really just done that with the
one sit? We supposed to head back to the mainland the next day and
deliberated whether we should change plans to give the route another
shot. Douglas thought there was also further important gelati and
pizza to be had. We gave in, left the gear in and extended our stay.
Our final day on the island saw me
still strangely tired. Common sense would suggest that 3 months of
hard climbing will do that to you, but I remain infuriated
by my body's inability to keep up with my desires. I got on the route
and it felt terribly hard again. I sat around and grumbled about how
I was too tired to climb anything anymore and we should just start
going home. Douglas got on and battled through the off fingers until
I thought he was going to make it. He was shaking, panting and making
all the right noises when suddenly he was off the very last move to
the best jam on the route.
Still grumpy about being tired, I tied
in again. The first big move to a two knuckle flat top felt dicey as,
but in the spirit of not really caring, I tried to keep holding it
long enough to execute the hand swap into the shallow horizontal jam
that I dynoed off. Then I was set up for the dyno and still on, so I
thought I may as well jump for it. With another almighty scream, I
reached the jug but only just. For a millisecond, there was the
subconscious debate between trying to hold it or giving up and trying
to hold won. Somehow, I held it and set up for the locks. The second
ring lock felt terrible, but I wrenched into it further and reached
up for the good lock. Then my hand just didn't want to find the thin
hand jam above it. After wiggling it in twice failed to find the
sweet spot, I had to just go with what I had and cranked on. The good
jam appeared and I almost breathed a sigh of relief, except I was too
pumped to feel secure on the final face hold. I tried to shake on the
jam, but nothing was coming back, so with another wail I threw myself
for the jam over the lip which provided a better position from which
to procrastinate about not falling off the exit before committing to
it and finding myself squatting on the top slab in disbelief. It took
me half an hour to recover enough to feel excited about sending.
Douglas goes for it again and makes it
through the worst locks. He's much more comfortable above gear than I
am and has skipped a piece so I'm watching closely as he starts to
wobble. From my poor vantage point under such a steep route, I see
his arse start to fall away from the cliff and I step down and brace
myself against flying up in the air but no weight comes on the rope.
In the milliseconds it takes to process this, I look up again in
horror expecting to see him falling to the ground when the rope
starts tugging upwards. He's grabbed the gear and is desperately
trying to pull up and clip. He sits on the rope and I attempt to put
my heart back in my chest after my microtrauma. Being the proud first
ascentionist, Douglas was quite happy to call that a day and we
stripped the gear, went for a swim and made a bee line for gelati.
And champagne. And fish burgers.
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| Eye of the Tiger Direct, 20 |
One final thing we had to do before
leaving Townsville was a nostalgic trip to Mt Stuart for Douglas. We
had a lazy morning and hit the crag at 1pm just as it comes into the
shade. As it also had a howling gale, I was rather wishing we had got
there in the sun. We wandered up a couple of cracks at the
Playground. The rock leaves a little to be desired, although the
climbing was quite fun. Sort of like doing 1 star moderates at Frog.
and I was rapidly quite excited about doing a few more. I have a
problem. Just one more day before we really have to go home … We
head back to camp debating if we have time. Eventually, common sense
prevails. We are still trashed, Douglas's fingers hurt and only a
week until my flight out of the Gold Coast.
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| Big Bend campsite |
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| Boowinda Gorge |
Taking the inland road down, we stop at Carnarvon Gorge for an overnight walk. It's cold in central Queensland. We might have ruined our ability to ever spend winter in Victoria again. Despite managing to organise a 2 week walk in Kakadu, somehow we manage to fumble a little overnight jaunt up a superhighway. We're about 20 minutes in when I ask Douglas if he'd grabbed the coffee. Oops. Oh well, tea and coffee lollies would suffice. A little further on, we realise we've forgotten a pot as well. Dinner became the crackers and cheese intended for lunch the next day and we'd just have to make it back to the car by lunchtime. The gorge is beautiful, but when you have been spoilt by off track wandering, somehow it's not the same traipsing up a path knowing you are going to find something good at the end of it, liberally decorated by placards and other walkers. We did see platypus and an echidna train. Horny echidnas are so focussed on their purpose they almost walk into you and over your rucksack. We were quite hoping for another party to be camping so we could borrow a pot. For once, we were disappointed to find ourselves alone and when another group did turn up at dusk, they didn't have any cooking gear with them at all. Crackers and cheese for dinner it was.
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| Echidna seeks sex |
For a finale, we stopped back at Frog to do Deliverance. I figured a stronger day was unlikely to occur, and brave days never really occur, so this was as good as it gets. Douglas was still trashed, but like a dedicated climbing boyfriend, he came down to belay. Being the wuss that I am, I zipped over whilst cleaning Devil's Dihedral and whacked in some high gear to protect rather exciting looking start. The corner is ridiculously smooth low down, the crack fused except for spaced pin scars, which started off good before becoming bad and ending worse. I made it to my preplaced gear at the worst pin scar without too much drama, then got flummoxed. There was nothing on the face. The lock was bad and super painful. Above it, a pod opened up that would become the recessed twin cracks shortly, but right now offered the worst flared fist jam I have ever had the displeasure to try and pull on. I wedged my feet in the fused corner which was slightly more frictional than ice, cranked into a weird bum wedge then pushed into bridging on more ice in an attempt to reach the tantalising opening at the top of the pod. The feet went and so did I. In a vague attempt at salvaging the ascent, I lowered off, stuffed down some coffee lollies and went up again. This time I pulled it off and wedged into the twin cracks with relief. I really didn't want to fall off the rest of the route simply because I didn't want to have to repeat that start again. It hurt.
The middle section is easier but pretty
odd climbing. Or at least it is for me. I don't know if normal people
climb it with hands crossed into the opposite side crack to jam, or
wedge a leg into the opening between the cracks like an offwidth or
knee bar and chimney between the left wall and right crack, but it
all worked well for me. Under the first roof, I reached up and placed
some microcams as high as I could reach, then wiggled into as high a
bridge as I could underneath it and just reached a hold that
proceeded to moult on me. Reassuring. Warning Douglas, I committed to
it anyway and soon found myself under the final roof. This one took a
slightly chunkier green alien and I pulled through on good locks only
to find myself desperately trying to get my feet over the lip in
order to reach past the fused section towards some face holds.
Eventually I admitted my foot wasn't going to make it and threw a
knee at the left wall and bridged onto that inelegantly. Thus I could
reach up for what turned out to be a non hold. I slapped frantically
around to no avail and found myself dangling on the end of the rope
contemplating I would have to do that painful start again now.
Pulling on again, I sorted my feet rather than knees onto the rock
and discovered something better resembling a hold further up and with
only a little whimpering crawled over the top. I was wrecked. I was
down skin on my hands, knuckles, knee and shoulder. I hurt everywhere
I even thought about moving. We left the gear in and retired for chai
and cheesecake.
Overnight, it pissed down. Really
pissed down. It was the first rain we'd seen in 3 months. I got up in
the night and walked straight into a puddle surrounding the tent.
Fog, dampness and soreness delayed any thought of climbing in the
morning and we went out for coffee thinking we might have a little
abseiling excursion to retrieve the gear later. The sun did seem to
want to come out and the ground was drying so soon only soreness was
remaining as an excuse. Still, it was the last chance to do anything
for the trip, so we headed down. A few laps on Gladiator seemed to
kickstart the sore muscles and I roped up for Deliverance with the
power of complete lack of expectation. The first bits of gear were
wet. I cleaned a bit of grot that had washed down the corner
overnight. Conditions were not looking good, but somehow it seemed
more frictional and less painful than yesterday. Or maybe I was just
numb. Actually, it was probably not carrying gear for 45m of climbing.
But I found myself at the twin cracks without drama and suddenly the
expectation level went up. Then I was under the final roof again,
reminding myself where the holds had been and pulled up on the locks.
The expectation level was sky high now. I got my feet up and cranked
the final lock down, not quite reaching the hold as I felt it
slipping. I wrenched those fingers harder in that crack, I was not
slipping out of this now and cranked again, getting my tips over the
hold, then walking them onto it properly, pushed out on the left wall
to get my foot out wide and I was above the lip. Not the glorious
onsight I had hoped for but nevertheless, a pretty good ending to the
trip.
