Rambling memories inspired by music: The Clouds

Much as I am tempted to keep writing about covid 19, I am diversifying before it drives all of us insane. You're not out of the warzone however, I might yet start ranting about the police state! In the meanwhile, I am moving onto another highly popular internet theme that I've always found rather annoying, which is chain posting of "10 albums that changed your life" or "10 photos" or "10 books", no words, no explanation. The thing that annoys me about them, is that these things are interesting for the stories behind them. What makes them meaningful? What memories do they stir? How did they change your life?  I don't want to just see an album cover. I want to hear about it's context. So strap in, I'm about to verbosely write all about some music that always takes me back to certain places, people, times in my life, starting with the Clouds.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLA247F35B040D7533









The Clouds exemplify a genre of music that I call "Kylie music". Kylie and I have known each other for 32 years now. Fuck that seems like a long time. I had a very mobile childhood, with my father being in the RAAF, and as a result, I don't have those lifelong friends from primary school that most people have. Kylie is my oldest friend. We met briefly when we were both in Venturers, before I became on off the rails teenager, then when I got back on the rails again, we reconnected through Adelaide Uni Mountain Club. We were both very young to be at Uni, and came from the ill reputed north eastern suburbs of Adelaide where university was a whole different world.  Uni really was a lifechanging experience.

Those years at Adelaide Uni really  made me who I am today (you can thank them or curse them).  I started a suburban bogan with little perspective on the world and left a radical, post modern feminist climbing bum. I still remember the lecturer who explained the difference between Freud and Lacan by acting out how Freud worshipped the giant penis up on a pedestal, whilst Lacan actually though he was a giant penis and she danced around the lectern with her arms shaped above her head as a phallus to demonstrate this.

In those days, student activism was still a big thing. We had street protests, rallies and strikes. We had a strong student union and a vibrant community of all sorts of clubs and societies, from the Society for Creative Anachronisms beating each other up in medieval costumes in the courtyard, to feminist, anarchist and antiracist groups plotting in cellars on how to change the world, and of course, the Mountain Club.  We were a funny group of social oddities now I look back at us, but we became each others network in a way our course mates never did. This was the vehicle by which I became an obsessed climber, there were endless adventures and parties and I nearly dropped out of uni entirely just to climb. Instead I started picking my subjects based around how much climbing time they would afford me. Much as I acknowledge we were dodgy as fuck at times, we all survived and we loved it. It's amazing feeling young and immortal! I still don't advocate learning to climb the way I did though.

In those days of social irresponsibility, the Uni Bar served us all, including still 17 year old Kylie and me, and Friday nights were inevitably spent seeing live bands there. Hence where we discovered the Clouds.  It was a great venue, and even my dodgy long term memory takes me back to the crowded, smokey dance floor, dim lighting tinged with red, the black and purple cloak that I virtually lived in then (I still have it, I can't bear to throw it away), and Kylie's A line mini skirts. I still have a crotchet top of hers that she gave me when she moved overseas for a few years. It also is impossible to throw out. Uni social clubs had lock in parties, where you paid your $20 entry and could drink all the beer you wanted or tricycle relays with compulsory beer sculling before you could hand over the baton. So problematic in hindsight, but such good times!

I'm sad that the radicalism of our universities has disappeared. Voluntary student unionism, HECS, a general return to conservatism in the world and the pressure of rising costs of housing all fed a change to university being a mechanism to earn money, rather than a place of learning, exploration and growth. Students became focused on getting a job that would repay their mammoth HECS debts and their mammoth mortgage. There was no space for radicalism anymore. I am loving seeing young people out on the streets protesting again now. It's like young people tried to play the capitalist game we are told to play for more than a decade there, but now they are looking at the world and realising that it's a game they can never win. Here I am, feeling like a doting aging activist, nodding approvingly at the climate strikes, at slut walk, and the gun violence protests in the States, all of which young people of have been integral to. I love the young adult fiction showing rebellion against the conservative regimes that take control after the apocalypse. Maybe popular culture will become the hotbed of modern radicalism in the ways that higher education once was.

Kylie and I are such different women in some ways. But here we are all these years later. Probably I have Kylie to thank for it. She is always incredibly good at keeping in touch. We haven't lived near each other since the mid 90s, but through all that she checks in on me, she makes time to visit, she welcomes me to stay, she invites me on trips. History is important to Kylie, and despite all the changes in our lives, we have history. Kylie became a librarian, and the seeds of it were there all along. She has diary entries and photos all ordered and accessible to remind us of events in our lives, not to mention a far better memory than I have. About this time last year, she sent me a photo of  me in the Pines in 1999 wishing me a happy 20 year anniversary of living in Nati. Of course, I had been unable to remember even if it was 98, 99 or 2000 that I moved to Nati. Kylie knew down to the month. This, she told me was our last trip camping at the Mt before I moved into Natimuk. I look so young! The gear and the tent so old! The pines so empty of people, but also so full of trees.

Music has always been a big thing for Kylie. She was over visiting for Invasion Day long weekend this year, and made me listen to the Triple J hottest 100, which she follows obsessively each year. I don't think I knew a single song on it, until they played an excerpt of the 1999 Hottest 100 which they were going to revisit on Double J. Those songs, I remember well. Maybe it's because the 90s were really my formative years, and the connection of music to memories are stronger for it. They were fun and amazing but also tumultuous and traumatic years, and I wouldn't live them again if you paid me!

Kylie is the epitomy of nice. I mean that in a genuinely lovely way. I feel terribly cantankerous and impatient in comparison. It's hard to imagine Kylie ever hurting a fly.  She's devoted to her friends and family, and to her community work such as the Climbing Club of SA and Amnesty International. On the outside, she can appear to be a sweet and respectable product of an all girl Catholic school, but I know the wild Kylie as well. In someways, she's a bit like the music I associate with her. Sweet female vocals over grunge guitar. Whilst Kylie is The Clouds, I am more like Bikini Kill. Outright swearing and rebellion against the world. But I love her to bits and we'll still be sharing our lives in another 32 years.

The cost of social distance, or please #shutthefuckup with #staythefuckathome

I'm a bit sick of the #staythefuckathome brigade. It makes it sound as if it's all easy. We just lay on the couch and save the world. But what really is the price of staying the fuck at home? We talk about the economic and health costs of this pandemic, but the shouting of stay the fuck at home is rude and hurtful to those for whom staying home is in fact, really awful.

The day we locked down my work, I cried. I had residents crying in front of me and families crying over the phone. It sounds so straightforward. The elderly are at risk, we must lock down the facility to save them. But the costs of that lockdown are huge. Seeing their family is one of few remaining pleasures in life for them. Residents and families may never see each other again. Many are unable to use Skype or even a phone, and elderly partners in the community frequently don't have a computer or smart phone. Most are unable to understand why they can't see anyone. I hold the Ipad up for them to see their family, and they cry again.  I feel guiltily like I am running a prison. In staying the fuck at home, we cut a large amount of their quality of life remaining.

When they shut the borders with SA, I also cried. I was going to see my mother this week. She is high risk and I wanted to get over to see her before it was too risky to visit. I was too late. I will still go over to nurse her should she become sick. I will strap my battle wombat on the front of the van and storm the border if I have to, but by staying the fuck at home, I may not get the chance to spend time with her well ever again.

Our communities are already full of isolated people. People only marginally connected. People only just holding it together in the normal world. People whose families or partners are a source of stress or risk with whom they are now locked in.

I am one of many people living alone these days. It's great when I could pop into friend's places for a cuppa, held pot luck dinners, arranged sociable climbing days, headed off on road trips or went on random Tinder dates. It's not so great right now. I have mornings when I wake up and contemplate 6+ months of living alone through stress and grief and without those things that keep me together, and it's not good. There's no one there to give me a hug and I can't just turn up at a friend's for a comforting tea and chat. And what if staying the fuck at home mean no fucking for 6 months???? I'm not entirely in jest when I say I don't know that I'd make it through 6 months without sex, climbing and riding. That's like all the great pleasures in life ...

So stop saying just #staythefuckathome and acknowledge the cost of it. There are people coping with the fear and anxiety of covid 19 alone or coping being cooped up with people who are causes of fear and anxiety. Grief and depression will be rife. Rates of suicide and family violence are going to skyrocket. Instead of shouting at them, try saying, "I understand staying at home can be hard. Is there anything I can do to help you stay safe, sane, connected and healthy through this?"

The cost of mixed messages: can I go climbing if i buy takeaway first?

Australia is rife with mixed messages at the moment, but the one currently doing my head in is the encouragement to order takeaway to support local businesses.  I get that people want to support local businesses. They are often an integral part of small communities, are run by people we care about, employ people we care about. But there are two major flaws I see in this strategy. One is, we are still creating a vector of transmission. Sure, it might be less than if we all crowded in the cafe, but there is a line from the homes and other connections of staff and owners to each other and to customers, and vice versa. We're just minimising the customer-customer vector.  Don't go climbing. Don't go riding. Don't go camping. Don't go to the beach. But do go buy takeaway. Does anyone else find this message a little inconsistent?  How the hell are we gong to trace contacts if one of these takeaway providers becomes ill? I am so not eating food prepared by other people at the moment.

The other is that this is just not a viable strategy for keeping small food businesses alive. Anyone who has worked in the industry know that it's always marginal. The chances of covering costs on the limited services available is pretty slim, let alone making a living out of it. We are also asking people in the community who have lost jobs or reduced their income to spend money supporting these businesses. For example, those in my community who worked in the outdoors industry have basically lost all income for an indefinite period.  How are they going to be able to prop up local businesses?

This appears to me as yet another way in which our government is trying to fob off dealing with a major crisis onto individuals. Slowly, our government is realising that this strategy is rather limited and turning to government intervention - enforceable closures, boundaries and isolation, increased financial support, but it has stopped short of the incredibly obvious solution to the mass loss of livelihood caused by this. Universal basic income. Massive queues at Centrelink could be avoided. The delays in processing claims and the immense stress on Centrelink staff avoided. People in need supported. The farcical measures to try and keep some non-essential services functioning that still contain risk stopped. Clarity could prevail and we could actually have an effective shutdown without people starving or loosing their home or business. People will say but not everyone needs it, to which I say, who cares? So a few people will get some money they don't need. The government does that to big businesses all the time. High income earners will still be paying tax on it, whilst low income earners won't. The money and stress saved in administration will make up for it. Imagine if all that policing welfare that we do just no longer happened. This is a time when we are seeing how flexible the world really is, and different ways things can work. The benefits of a large, benevolent state are becoming obvious. Maybe once shutdowns have finished, we could move onto to government job creation instead of welfare policing. Maybe it's time to find out if the world doesn't end when we simplify welfare.

I am not buying takeaway. Not because I don't want to support local business (don't you love how there is always a moral imperative in these things? Good citizens support their local businesses. I think good government supports their people), but because I think it is an unnecessary risk. A much greater risk of transmission than a solitary ride on gentle trails, or a climb on an obscure crag, both of which those with moral imperative like to tell me I shouldn't do. Driving to pick up your takeaway is a much greater risk of an accident than my gentle trails or obscure climb as well.

I believe one of the reasons people are not adhering to physical distancing is the inconsistency of the message. If the message was clear, then people might hear the urgency of the message, and also make better decisions about what they do. And if people don't start making better decisions about what they do, we will all be subjected to the required boundaries of the lowest common denominator and be shut in our houses. I don't want to be unable to do anything because the government has a policy full of loopholes or people are just doing stupid shit. We are trying to avoid something that has droplet transmission. So don't have close contact with other people and don't touch shared surfaces whenever possible or wash your hands before and after. Minimising your time around other people is the easiest way to do that. But the stay at home message is pointless unless you also don't go to the hairdresser, don't crowd crags or beaches and don't get takeaway. I'd love to not go to the supermarket, I was never a fan of them at the best of times, but it seems unavoidable every so often. Try and make staying at home fun enough that you want to do it and make sensible choices when you do leave the house. Right now, exercise is an acceptable reason to leave the house. If we follow the principles of physical distancing,  all we can still do that. If we don't, we'll shut in our houses completely for months.

Climbing in the time of coronavirus: not quite as poetic as Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Countrywide, we have the two extremes of panic and denial going on around covid-19, neither of which are really justified. Lots of people are panicking because covid-19 is new and unknown. There’s no doubt that many other things will continue to be far more dangerous – climate change, poverty, family violence, driving, hell, lifestyle diseases lead to a huge number of preventable early deaths in Australia. People continue to refuse vaccination and can be rather lax at using condoms. All these things could kill us, but the risks are dealt with through normalisation and denial. Covid-19 is a long way off being normalised. It will be eventually. Most of us will get it at some point, a vaccine will be developed and life will go on. Until then, there’s a lot we don’t know about covid-19. We don’t have clear figures about how prevalent it really is, how contagious it is, or even rates of mortality. The different living conditions, populations, health facilities and management strategies of different countries all effect the outcomes we have seen. Between its frequently mild presentation and limited availability of testing, there could be a much larger reservoir of it out in the community than we know of.  Rates of mortality may be elevated by its presentation in countries where many people live in poor conditions with poor access to health services. Having said that, Italy is a modern western society, and its health service is overwhelmed. This again leads to increased mortality. As we are living longer, we have a large aging population particularly vulnerable to acute illness. I also dread to think of the impact if it gets into remote indigenous communities, who have high rates of pre-existing health conditions, crowded living conditions and very poor access to services.

Despite all of the uncertainties, one thing that has been clear that it is spreading exponentially. Australia is on track to have 1-2000 cases in another week. I don’t think we are going to prevent the spread of the virus. The sort of serious intervention, investment and support that was needed weeks ago in order to prevent it is the sort of action that is anathema to liberal governments, as is the health and social welfare action we should have had over the years that would have been made us more resilient to this. Instead we get told things to do as individuals. Self isolate (is quarantine a dirty word?). Take your annual leave to do so. What, casual workers haven't saved their meagre casual loading for a national crisis? Part time nurses, step up to fill the staffing shortage! (Yeah, right, like I'm going to work more to save Scotty's arse ...).  No wonder people are unwilling or unable to do this. No amount of good will is going to solve this problem. Welcome to the trainwreck that neoliberalist policies get us.

  

Climbers like to think of themselves as a healthy bunch, so it seems there’s a fair bit of complacency about covid-19 in our community. For most of us, it is quite reasonable to expect we will not suffer badly with the virus. But that doesn’t mean we should remain unconcerned about it. Some climbers are not as robust as they may seem. Some have chronic respiratory or heart conditions. Some are on immune suppressing drugs for conditions like rheumatoid arthritis or Chrone’s disease or after organ transplant. Some are recovering from cancer treatment or are just becoming older and more vulnerable despite their continued capacity to climb. You can’t really tell how strong someone’s immune system is just by looking at them. We don’t know if someone is going home from the crag to care for an elderly or sick friend or relative who may be vulnerable to serious complications if they become ill.

Climbing is actually a pretty good medium to spread bugs in. Covid-19 is transmitted via contact and droplets. This means that infected particles are heavy enough to fall to the ground within a metre or two. They aren’t airborne. So if you are two metres away from someone, you should be pretty safe. That’s easily breached in a crowded gym or even a busy crag. The virus can survive on surfaces, meaning every time you touch something, you may get some your hands. We don’t know how long covid-19 survives on surfaces, but studies of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome virus suggest it survived 60 minutes on surfaces. A lot of people can touch a door knob or climbing hold in 60 minutes. Of course, the skin is a great barrier, but you become infected when those organisms on your hands get into your mouth, nose or eyes.  How often to you put your gear, or your climbing partner’s gear in your mouth? We handle all our grotty, probably never been washed equipment, then scoff down a sandwich without a thought of washing our hands. How many other sweaty hands have caressed each hold you are using? I’d avoid the gym at the moment, but that’s no great sacrifice for me, as I haven’t been in one since about 1997. Now is a good time to start taking hand sanitiser to the gym and to the crag though. Put a generous dollop in your hand, rub vigorously together until dry, making sure you include thumbs, between fingers, finger nails and backs of hands.

Should we still go out climbing? I certainly will be, but remote and obscure crags have extra appeal at the moment. In consideration of the more vulnerable members of our community, don’t go out climbing if you are at all sick, or known to have been exposed to covid-19. If you are feeling well enough to do stuff, save your sanity with some solo or non-contact outdoor activities, like hiking, trail running, mountain biking, surfing. Well or unwell, quarantined or not, practice hand hygiene all the bloody time. Before touching stuff, after touching stuff, before eating, before and after blowing your nose … it starts to feel ridiculous, but ridiculous is best practice. When you are sick to death of washing your hands so much, sympathise with us poor nurses whose skin is basically falling apart from years of handwashing like this. If you are at gyms or busy crags, you are at more risk of exposure, so don’t spread your exposure to vulnerable people. It’s fine to take risks with yourself, not so fine to force those risks on other people. Ring Nan rather than visit. Leave a care package on her doorstep, but make sure you wash your hands before preparing and handling it.

You’ve got the climbing trip of a lifetime planned and you’re wondering whether to cancel? I guess we should be grateful that these are the hard decisions of our lives, because they could be so much worse. Check your travel insurance to see if they will cover cancellation in case a pandemic, or if your airline will change the dates of travel. Assess the risk of the country you’re are going to, or any transit countries. Check the travel information from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Who knows what restrictions may end up in place for international travel? It looks suspiciously like it’s too late for travel restrictions to be of any use for Australia now, but our government does like the “strong border defence” lines. They are practiced at that. You might get out of the country, but face quarantine to come home, or be unable to enter your destination country. Planes are great places to spread illness, so you will inevitably be increasing your risk. If you have any chronic conditions that increase your risk of complications, think about it even harder.  If you do go, get immunised for everything you can before you go, stock pile your first aid kit with medications to relieve symptoms and antibiotics for secondary infection.  If you get sick, find yourself a comfy hotel, hole up in your room, order in food, minimise contagion, make sure the hotel knows to take precautions and lounge around until you recover. That is, if anywhere will let you stay there by that stage. Consider the possibility that you could get seriously ill in another country. Will your travel insurance cover you, and will that country be able to care for you? Is your trip worth the risks?

There’s no great reason to panic.  If this was ebola though, I’d be hiding out bush for the duration. Be sensibly cautious nevertheless. Practice scrupulous hand hygiene, choose less crowded places to go, avoid close contact with vulnerable people, and just stay home if you are sick or aware of an exposure to covid-19 until cleared. I’d love to take the social distancing advice as a chance to disappear somewhere with my bike for a few weeks, but sadly, I don’t think they mean nurses when they say please stay away.  For those of you who want to self isolate via climbing, may I recommend the Australia wide tour to repeat all of Greg Pritchard’s new routes?  I am certain that you will not find anyone with coronavirus on Greg’s new routes, and by the time you’ve managed to find them all,  if you ever get back out alive, we should have a vaccine. Bugger stocking up on toilet paper, though, make sure you have enough coffee, wine and chocolate. I’ve also got a supply of pop corn in case I get the pleasure of watching the capitalist system collapse around me.

Am I doing this for fun? My dramas on the Otway Odyssey.

If I believed in things like fate, I would definitely believe my racing career was jinxed. So far, I have done recce rides of 6 races and not actually made it to 5 of them. I looked almost certain not to make this one either. Firstly, from being heartbroken, secondly from a shopping injury. Yes, a shopping injury. I was holding the shopping trolley with one foot hooked over its bottom rails whilst I used both hands to lob a heavy bag into it. The bag hit the top of the back of the trolley, sending it for a little kick, which wrenched my hamstring. That’s it, I’m online shopping and getting home delivery the week before races in the future. I moped on the couch for a day, limped around work for a day, managed to score a physio appointment at short notice (more than a minor miracle) and left with my hamstring taped up like a football player.

Simey attempted to be reassuring by telling me the hardest part of any race is getting to the start line and I am far from alone in injuring myself at the last minute after weeks or months of preparation. He also said athletes compete with far worse injuries than this and I should toughen up and go. I may be extrapolating a little, but basically, he was being a combination of an unfamiliar comforting Simey, and familiar blunt Simey.  I spoke with a few people about it and started a running total of advice – 5 for fuck it, go race, and 2 for be sensible, go sit on a beach. The physio suggested I could ride, just to pull out if I started getting sharp pains. What was the worst that could happen? Well, I could be on the couch with a mangulated leg for months …

The voice of enthusiasm won out and I headed down for the important bit at least – free champagne. I met with some of the other women riding and walked through the transition areas. I guessed I was racing. The next morning, I am there for coffee and watch the 50k race start. The 100k start was a bit too early. There are a lot of racers, and the end of the pack are really very leisurely. I decide I am starting near the front. I sort my stuff out and I’m so nervous I feel sick. Just as I’m about to head up to the start line, I run for the side of the oval and throw up. Nervous is bad enough, so nervous I am throwing up is really the edge of tolerability! I wish the other girls a fun race and say I am getting up there because I can’t deal with waiting anymore.

We roll over the start line and up the hill. I could do with about a litre of Mylanta. I’m incredibly tense and am sure there is more stomach acid in my oesophagus than in my stomach.  But I’m making good time up the hill, then we are all funnelling into the single track. The crowd has thinned a little on the hill, but I’m suitably mediocre to be in the middle of all the other mediocre people. There’s a lot of us getting onto Red Carpet, and I’m nervously looking at all these people and not concentrating enough on riding when I clip a tree and go flying over the handlebars into the next tree. I rub my shoulder whilst people stop to see if I’m ok. Apparently it was speccy, and I went for a good fly through the air. The guy behind me suggests I walk the bike back to the marshal and get a lift out, but I am stubborn, and get back on the bike. I’m stuck behind someone very slow on the rest of Red Carpet, but at least that gave me time to calm down.

Despite that, I was feeling miserable riding back up to the footy oval. My shoulder hurt, I’d crashed where I really shouldn’t have and I’d ruined my chances of placing. I was almost ready to give up when Charles caught up with me. Charles was also the walking wounded, riding with sore knees, sore back, sore bum, but he wasn’t falling to pieces. His company kept me on the bike and we rode through the transition and onto the Yaugher trails. I get back into the swing of things and start riding fast again. The trail has slight turns in it, but you could basically ride a straight line down the middle. I remember the instructor who told me "we are on mountain bikes, we don’t need to avid a bit of leaf litter, take the straight line because it’s fastest". So I take the straight line. There’s something in the leaf littler that catches my wheel though, and I’m flying again. Someone suggested they should follow me with a go pro. I land on the already sore left shoulder and my bike’s handle bars are twisted. I sit on the side of the track and have a cry whilst Charles straightens my bike. I do really owe a lot of thanks to Charles for getting me through this race. Stubborn and stupid are my middle names though, so I get back on the bike and off we go again.

Finally, I start actually riding well. The tracks flow, I pass other riders (even going uphill!) and out onto the bit where they have fortunately cut out most of the horrible gravel road from my recce ride. Passing people hasn’t turned out to be such a stress. Lots of people just pull over because they aren’t racing, others ride to the side for you. I get less stressed about people passing me, although I do find myself saying "Go, go, go!" to encourage them to get past quickly so I can go back to concentrating on my own ride.

The race photographer is in a boring section of trail and takes a few photos that look like I’m out for a Sunday stroll. Jess Douglas rides pass me near then end of her 100k. She can’t remember my name but does remember vaguely where I came from and calls out “Hey Horsham girl, how’s it going?” I can’t say I’ve ever been called a Horsham girl before! I say I’ve been in struggle town, 2 falls and a mechanical, but I’m still on the bike. She says she’s had 2 falls as well, and her ego is struggling. Mine too! Jess has the most incredible thighs I’ve ever seen on a such a small woman and they power her up the hill and out of sight in no time.

That stupid gland is strong again, and I roll past someone at the start of the wild downhill section and catch up with the hoards pushing up the sandy hill. It’s really churned up. My shoulder tells me about pushing the bike and I favour the right arm. It turns out that it’s even possible to overtake whilst pushing the bike. I’m back on again and onto the techy climb. I pass several people already pushing low down and get over the worst of it, but when I see the line of pushers around the next bend, the fuck it wins out. It’s not like I was riding a winning time at all. I get back on near the top, pass the few final pushers (yes, Simey, it is faster to be on the bike even in granny gear) and onto the weaving descent. Someone later commented that this wasn’t even fun single track, and I can see what they meant. There’s too much negotiating of trees and grass trees close to the track, and the slow weaving and winding doesn’t compare to the fun of tracks in which you can more freely move. The course setter for the Odyssey likes his courses to be difficult though, hence keeping in the sandy hill, and the tricky to navigate descent.

Despite the dramas of the journey, my legs feel remarkably fresh as I cross the road into the final run to the footy oval. There’s a woman finishing the 50k ahead of me and we both get up in the pedals and push it through to the finish. It’s nice to be able to finish strong and we grin at each other as we pull in. Somehow I’ve still managed to come 5^th. Then I drop the bike and head for the medic tent to get the shoulder looked at. It has full range of movement, and they aren’t worried about it, but an hour later when I try and drive the van, it’s seized up and I can’t change gears with it. I head back to the physio when I get home and finish as I started – all taped up like a football player.

The unintentional mountain biking holiday.

When I left Natimuk, it was 41 degrees. By the time I’m on the ferry to Tassie, it’s howling winds and rain the whole way. I tried to go out on the deck, but as the wind was about to pick me up and blow me off the boat, I thought better of it. Thus rather than a glorious birthday lounging on the deck of a boat staring at the ocean, mine was lounging in a chair looking out the windows at the ocean.

The ferry was running late, I stopped for shopping in Deloraine, I scoffed down some food and kept on driving towards Derby. I consider stopping for the night, but decided I can drive a little further and thus find myself on the winding road over the range between Launceston and Scotsdale a bit after 11, mists floating across the road, when what looks like a young girl from Picnic at Hanging Rock crawls out of the bushes. Then I see a car overturned off the side of the road and I think her family must be stuck in the vehicle as I pull off the road thinking fuck, fuck, fuck …. She turns out to be the driver of the car and there is no one else in it. She’s trying to call 000 but failing and I take the phone and tell them where we are. I can’t find any injuries on her, but she has hit her head, is hysterical, drunk, possibly drugged and confused about her evening. I can’t tell if that’s intoxication or head injury. I settle her in the van with me and reassure her whilst we wait. With great relief that my birthday has not ended with a major trauma scene, I hand her over to the paramedics and drive on. Extremely cautiously.

I wake in Derby to blue skies and settle in for a coffee at the café whilst I wait for Simey to make it over after his attempts to hook up in Launceston. By the time he arrives just after 9, the blue sky has gone. Still, we head out to the car to shuttle up to Blue Tier and it starts raining. We go back in the café and stare morosely at the radar. It doesn’t seem to have much chance of improving, so we decide to just head out anyway. We drop a car at Weldborough pub and continue up. Simey tells me the trails at Derby are better than those at Forrest. I’m a little dubious. The trails at Forrest are pretty bloody good, and Simey hasn’t exactly done a lot of riding. Plus he was here with his favourite squeeze, so he was probably just having an overall awesome time.

We get out at Blue Tier and it’s not quite as bleak as we expected.  There isn’t snow for a change. I always get snowed on in Tassie. We rug up for the ride and head out on an undulating trail with a few techy features through beautiful alpine meadows. 

It gets wilder, windier and wetter. My glasses need windscreen wipers and demisters. But the trail is awesome. We drop into fairytale like myrtle forests and over gorgeous trickling creeks. We slide sideways on a fair few wet tree roots.

A tree is down over the path and I get one of those delightful short person moments watching someone of 6 foot 5 crawl under a tree. 

Then we hit the main descent, and it just goes on and on and on, gorgeous flowing bermed corners, into rainforest and weaving between giant tree ferns. When we get to the bottom, I think it must be nearly over, but Simey assures me we go up, and then there's another fantastic descent.

It gets muddier. Sloshing through puddles, sliding out and flying off the bike, what mud hadn’t come up at me, I went down to it. I try riding without my glasses. I could actually see better, but then I get an eye full of mud and get them back out again.  It’s the most fun I’ve ever had getting muddy and saturated. I might not have been so enthusiastic about it had I gotten cold. Not a single layer came off in all that riding. 

We pull over at the river at the end and decide we are so wet, we may as well jump in the river with all our clothes on to get the mud off. We throw the bikes in as well. I didn’t throw my phone in, but it seems to have objected to either flying with me off the bike, or getting a bit too muddy as well and has seized up. Simey has also seized up and needs a little nanna nap in the car before he can make it back to Derby for shower, beer and dinner.

I don’t have the delights of a car shuttle the next day, as Simey is off on the ferry, so I start from the trail head at Derby ready to slog up the hill. The climbs are incredibly well crafted though, and I weave up hair pins and the height is gained easily. For a while. Still climbing 5 k later, I know about height gain now. The upper trails are more techy and I’m grunting over rock steps and working really rather hard. I am a bit chuffed to overtake 3 people pushing their bikes though. At about 8k, I get to the top. The down is fast, techy and exciting almost straight away, with sections of armouring, rock steps and steep corners. All that height disappears far too quickly, then I traverse across the hillside to the bit of fireroad called Heartbreak Hill. I’m not going to be heartbroken by it. I completely expect to come off the bike before the top. I’m thrilled at each little section I make it through, getting to a less steep bit and attempting to still my racing heart in the tiny respite before the next. I’m not sure if it’s my head or my heart that gives up on the second last rise. My stubbornness isn’t quite as good at suffering on the bike as it is at suffering on the rock. 

The single track continues around the dam, undulating that seems to err on the side of up. I smash the derailer into a boulder and come off. So has the chain. And the derailler doesn’t look quite right. But by time I’ve faffed with it a bit, it all seems to be working again, so onward forth.

The descent is wild. The berms are massive, and tight, steep corners weave down, one after another after another. I fly (complete with the bike today) over jumps, launch down steep granite slabs and drop offs and I adore my bike. Seriously, I just point her at anything and as long as I can stay on the bike, she gets me down them. I skid to at stop at them bottom and have just exclaimed how mindblowing that descent was to absolutely no one when someone comes down the trail behind me and does exactly the same thing.

Somewhere in here, I realise that my improvised top tube bag has come undone and all my beautifully cut into bite size pieces of fruit bar have gone. Lack of food seems a good reason to bail off the extended loop back to the car. The climbing in it might have influenced me as well, I howl down Howler, and find myself riding through the Derby Tunnel. Caving on a bike is weird. I’m riding haunched low on the bike as I’m afraid I’ll bash my head on the ceiling and focus on riding towards the light at the other end. I’m really not fond of caving …

As I’m eating lunch by the car, I start chatting with a collection of guys besides me. They have a 5 bike shuttle and there are only 3 of them … It’s not hard to sweet talk your way into a ride back up to the top when you are one about only 3 women on the trails. I throw my stuff together for another run in a rush. As I roll out from the drop off, I feel trashed. Riding up the hill again seems a very distant possibility. But as I only have to roll down, life is good. The ongoing themes of massive berms, incredible flowy descent and techy rock gardens continue. I’m super excited every time I get through one, and again rather chuffed to roll past 2 people walking their bikes. I stagger back to camp where I contemplate yet another set of muddy shorts and realise that I don’t own enough bike shorts to ride in Tasmania.

The next day, Abby and I are meeting at Fingal to climb, but she has a few things to do on the road, so I think about getting another quick ride in. When I am offered company on the trails (via some therapeutic Tindering), the deal is set and Will and I do some sneaky shuttles up to the drop off point above town. The trails at Derby are never really giveaway downhills though, so even after shuttling, we have 3k of climbing track to the highest point on the trails. Will is a bit of a biking machine, so it’s good for me that his long travel bike is out of action and he’s riding his cross country bike. I’m still working at my limit to keep up with him. As we fly over rocks and whoop around beautifully cambered corners, it’s impossible to grin enough. Then we are back in the centre of town. Abby is happily slacklining at Aspley so we drive up for another run. After all the gnarly riding I’ve been doing, I’m a bit lax at concentrating on the final easy corner down to the river, loose my front tyre in gravel and peel off the side onto my shoulder. Shoulders have become the bane of my life in the past 8 years. We sit by the river and chat for half an hour and it seems ok to ride back down. To my great relief, I can still ride, although I feel it twinge when I pull myself forward on the bike. We retire to beer drinking. A bad news call to Abby reveals that she hurt her knee slacklining as well. Maybe we were both trying to do too much of a good thing. We decide resting at Derby for a day and trying an easy ride the next is the way forward.

In the way that Natimukians (or ex-Natimukians in this case) appear everywhere, I bumped into Callum and Kit at the trailhead. They hadn’t been able to get a shuttle space up Blue Tier, so I volunteer my rest day services as chauffeur, then settle in at the Weldborough pub to wait for them. The publican even insists I don’t have to pay for my latte. They rock up an hour and a half later with the expected jubilation. Callum had come off the bike a couple of times due to being more focussed on looking for fish in the streams then riding the bike. We stuff ourselves with food and beer and Kit is keen for the next leg back to Derby, so even though the voice of wisdom in Callum says he is climbing tomorrow and he’s already done 3 days riding, the voice of enthusiasm wins out and I drop them at the Atlas trailhead (that was 6k of uphill they missed out on at least) and tootle back to play games with Abby at camp. The back road from Atlas trail head to Derby passes through active logging areas, reminding me that Tasmania is still a battlefield of logging, environmentalists and ecotourism.

Mountain biking has really transformed Derby. We say that climbing saved Natimuk, and it did, but it didn’t do anything compared with the impact of mountain biking on Derby in less than 5 years. With a population of 173 in the 2016 census, it now has 2 pubs, 2 cafes, a pizza bar, a food caravan, 3 bike stores, a plethora of shuttle companies, multiple free camping areas with facilities, a general store and a few oddities like the school house museum and lapidary club. New buildings are all over the place, and whilst I expect that population has gone up, they seem to mostly be holiday accommodation. The town is in a pretty spot by the river and is generally rather nice to hang out in. Tasmania seems rather slow to catch on to meat free eating though, and whilst the food is pretty swish, the vego options are a bit like it was being vego in the 90s. Despite this dietary timewarp, everywhere is incredibly friendly. They claim the mountain biking attracts 30 000 visitors per year, each staying 4-5 days and brings $30 million dollars a year to Derby. $1000 per person seemed a little optimistic at first, but I guess those are my travelling standards. If you pay for accommodation, bike hire, shuttles, food and the inevitably large quantity of beer, I guess it gets to $1000 pretty easily. What climber spends $1000 per visit in Nati? 

My trip appears to have turned into an exclusively mountain biking trip, which is a first. I have to admit Simey was right - the trails at Derby are a step up from Forrest. I hate admitting when Simey is right, so it's fortunate he isn't right very often. Abby and I brave our injuries on a gentle ride around the lake, then commit to the trail up the hill. It’s all fine.

We grab some lunch and launch out on the trails again. It’s amazing what injury denial will do for you. Abby gets complimented on her retro bike. She bought it in 2002. That’s still 20 years more recent than her van.We end up eating rhubarb and custard calzone in the pizza bar playing speed scrabble.

We commit our broken bodies to the ride from Blue Tier back into Derby the next day. The start is in the cloud when we leave my van at the top. I make 3 false starts down the trail for things I’ve forgotten, like my phone that I left resting on a rock. Then we are off, and whilst the logs are still slippery, it is nothing like it was on Sunday. Although I’m kinda glad I had the Sunday experience. It was fun.

We stop for lunch at the Weldborough pub, along with a hoard of others. It must be the busiest pub lunch in rural Tasmania! Almost everybody is shuttling up to the start of Atlas from here. One of the guys on the shuttle tells us there’s heaps of space, we could just ask if we can get a lift, but we are committed to the suffering. We launch up the dirt road, and aside from waving flies out of my face constantly to avoid breathing them in, it’s fine, and I arrive at the trailhead 4 km up the road and lounge around waiting for Abby. It is supposed to be 6 km to the trailhead, but here we are. A logging truck drives by and considerately slows down to a crawl past me. A ute inconsiderately fangs past, sending dust everywhere.

The single track weaves steeply up the hill just out of the trailhead, then meanders back out of the forest onto another road. Hmm … The road becomes outrageously steep and as I spin up it at about 0.001kph, I am about to blow a foofer valve when I top out and find another trailhead. Sorry Callum and Kit, I left you climbing those hills too … Still Trailforks doesn’t even show a road going here, so who knows how to find it. 

Like all the “downhill” trails I’ve done here, Atlas doesn’t let you escape without a bit of climbing, and the trail undulates before a steep descent to join Dambusters. Sweeping berms alternate with gnarly rock gardens, and a few drops that are definitely not blue. Mountain biking needs some more grades. It’s a bit like early climbing grading systems. They don’t work so well. I’m voting for yellow, green, turquoise, blue, navy, grey, black. Double black seems a little like the climbing grades of Hard Very Severe or 5.10 a, b, c and d. Someone is going to ride something even more dire one day, just as someone is going to climb something even harder, so just move onto to the next step instead of pretending this is the end of the line! Try adding purple, rainbow or baby pink! We catch up with the group of guys who were the only others to ride up to Atlas. I ask if they are as trashed as I am. They are, but they are still riding the St Helens trail the next day. We aren’t. There is a couch in Derby with our name on it.

We stagger back to Abby’s van having survived 40km, with 600m up and 1500m down. Whilst driving back up to pick up my van, we admit we are not going to cook tonight and book at the pizza bar. Blue Tier is still in cloud when we get back to my van. At the pizza bar, we catch up with the other 3 girls out on the trail today – we were still well outnumbered by the 3 busloads or so of men on the trail as well, but there are a few other women out here. They too are riding to St Helens the next day. We are not diverted from our couch mission.

Abby’s bike gets still more attention as I watch a guy checking it out from my van. My bike is locked in front of it, and he’s obviously trying to peer around it. Who cares about fancy modern bikes when  there’s an old school Santa Cruz around? Abby’s loving it, and swears it rides beautifully. We play a bunch of speed scrabble and 5 second rule. We are both crap at pop culture. Seriously, 3 Adele songs? Who the hell is Adele? By the end of the trip, we know every card in the deck, but we still don’t know a single Adele song.

The next day, Abby has to catch the evening ferry, and the retro van travels slowly, so we are up early (ish) to get a ride in before she has to leave. We ride up the usual trails, down to where they all converge at the mid point, then veer out east to the only non-black trail I hadn’t yet done here. I didn’t dare try the black trails, there were exciting enough bits on the blues. Derby seems to run hard grades. I chatted with one guy who had just done one of the double blacks about what the harder trails were like. He said he wouldn’t really call them fun. As the blue trails here are definitely the most fun you could ever have on 2 wheels, I didn’t feel like I was missing out too much.

Krushka’s is another awesome trail, equal parts climbing and descent, and I take the time to practice some techy sections whilst Abby caught up. I didn’t really expect to be waiting for Abby. Abby is a machine at everything she does, and she’d done a lot of riding previously. But she hadn’t been on the bike much since moving to Natimuk, which isn’t exactly the mountainbiking capital of Victoria. Plus the knee, plus she kept wanting to look at the views, and then of course, she had to identify some birds.

The trail whoops back down with typical sweeping berms for miles in between some exciting rock gardens. Rock gardens sound so gentle. Just like a few decorative pebbles. These are not decorative pebbles. They are chunky and convoluted piles of granite, with drops, jumps, wheel catching grooves and step ups. At the end of the trail, we whip down our usual way, until I spy a trail not marked on the map and figure I’ll go for an explore. It’s a divinely smooth series massive berms and roller coasters, in perfect condition and just made to hoon down. I hoon. Abby missed me disappearing down it, and we don’t find each other again until the trail head. Some food is scoffed and Abby has to hit the road. I hit the trail again, with another loop to the top and down my newly discovered hoonfest. Whilst dutifully scanning strava that evening, I am excited to discovered I am the third fastest down that trail. Some things are irresistible, you know. Of course I had to go back the next day.

Monday morning however started with a meltdown. Things just do their building up kinda thing and all my amazing coping I had been doing came to an end. Work were being shits. Centrelink were being shits. I’d been dumped by my boyfriend. Well, ok, we’d only been dating 3 weeks or so, but being dumped sucks anyway. There was Douglas stuff, house stuff, stuff stuff … I’d lined up some quality Tindering, but Will’s work meant that the distraction of wild riding and wild sex failed to eventuate. Well, at least there was still the wild riding. I had a comforting chat with my Mum (seriously, how do people cope without their Mum? I’ve just turned 46 and I still turn to her) and decided to head home. The weather was turning that afternoon anyway. I went out for the wild riding and made an attempt to emulate the sort of kilometres and climbing I’d be doing on the Otway Odyssey. Since the break up, I’d decided to abandon the Odyssey, then decided to do it anyway, then changed my mind back again more times than I care to count. So I was at least making an effort at training for the Odyssey whilst I vacillated. I rode the single track to the top, then the mixed trail down the far side, back up the dirt road, down to the mid point, up again then all the way down to the trailhead. 29k. 800m of climbing. Not a bad emulation. And I scored Queen of the Mountain on the hoonfest.

It’s starting to rain as I get back to the van. I throw the bike in still grotty, in fact, everything has really just been thrown in since my impromptu decision to go home tonight.

It’s always reassuring about your decision to leave to have the weather crap out at the right time. I’ve booked a cabin on the ferry for the first time in my life, and the first thing I do on board is jump in the shower. A shower and a bed. It’s unheard of luxury. Unfortunately, one of the other women in the cabin snored, and one of my ear plugs had fallen out and disappeared into the depth of the bedding. Still, it was the best ferry crossing I’ve ever had.

The management of the ferry seem to think we need a lot of time to get up in the morning, and they give a wake up announcement at 6. I groan, and decided more sleep is not going to happen, throw my stuff together and hunt out coffee. They are doing a roaring trade. Sometime in the midst of killing time queuing for the ferry and getting pizza, I’d done some more therapeutic online dating. Thus I headed straight off the ferry to have breakfast with yet another mountain biker. Certainly, I have picked a good obsession for meeting men in. We grab brekky, talk bikes and riding a lot then Charles heads on a riding trip to Thredbo, whilst I head off to ride the Odyssey course. I have decided to toughen up, heart break is not a good reason to abandon a race you have been intending to do for 6 months.

It is a bit triggering, rocking up at the rec reserve. The other time I’d ridden the course had been training with Andrew. Although, that was more me training than him training, as he would ride laps up and down the hills whilst I spun on in granny gear. But if there’s any way to get emotional bullshit out of your system, it’s heading straight into 3.8k up a hill. It in fact fuelled me to my fastest time up that hill. By the time I’m on the glorious flowing descent, I’m not thinking about Andrew. I’m have a raucous time flying downhill. Sometimes I wonder if all those years of climbing have given me a skewed sense of fear. But I love fast downhill.  Occasionally I think about how much it would hurt to come off at this speed, but that is a fleeting thought amidst wild grins. There’s a woman in the track just after the final jump and I yell “excuse me” as I come round, and she zips out of the way in time for me to launch out of the track and back into boring dirt road slogging. Have I mentioned dirt roads are not my favourite riding? But the last bit back down to the rec reserve is gloriously fast … again not thinking too closely about coming off at 50kph.

I have a second bidon on the van to swap over on the way back through the reserve, in good practice for racing, but I’ve barely touched my first one. I take a big swig and grab the second anyway, because it seems sensible, and head over to the Yaugher forest.  More dirt road slogging gives way to the Super Loop, which despite it’s super status, I still manage to miss a turn and have a brief back track. I thought I had the route here sussed, but maybe not. I motor down Foxtail, go the wrong way back on the Super loop (that is the actual race route, not my mistake this time, but I was hoping no one would come riding in the other direction at a great pace) then my least favourite section of the race takes these horrible chunky gravel roads through pine plantation. This was part of the changes to the course this year to eliminate some of the climb up Kangalang Rd. I would much rather climb up Kangalang and do more of Red Carpet down, but here we are, bouncing away on fist sized gravel that is both uncomfortable and a little scary that your front wheel will slide out when one moves unexpectedly under you.

There’s a great mystery in the course about how it regains the Super Loop. I’ve tried to find it 4 times now. Twice, I just carried my bike through the scrub. Who said this was adventure racing? The other, I took a fire trail that regains the loop further on. I do that again, but miss the point where it regains the loop. But as the course regains the firetrail a few hundred metres later, I just keep going. After this fire road, it heads down Vista, which has a steep, straight single track heading down for what seems like ages. It’s really just a matter of the size of your stupidity gland how fast you go down it. My stupidity gland seems fairly large. What goes down must come up however, and Vista does it with a horrible sandy climb that surely no one will actually be able to ride. Certainly I won’t. I jump off and start pushing as soon as it seems like the more efficient means of upwards progress.

The next section of Vista is the crux of the race. Do rides have cruxes? Am I confabulating my obsessions? It’s a long climb that starts with some techy steps over tree roots that I am thrilled to get over, but then it just goes and goes and goes and …. still goes. I knew it did that, but nevertheless, I would get sucked into to thinking this rise or that corner was the last. It’s cruel stuff near the end of a race. And it’s at the 5k from the end mark for both the 30 and 50k races. Granny gear is fully engaged until I am going so slowly that it’s hard to maintain balance. Plus I’m about to blow that foofer valve again. Seriously, I need to train this foofer valve a bit more. I give in and walk a couple of metres and jump back on in a slight slackening of the angle. Again I’m not sure when it’s my mind or my body giving up. I haven’t done enough riding to know when it’s the “fuck it, just get off the bike” winning out yet.

Vista weaves tightly through grass trees on the descent, and it’s one of those times I’m glad that I’m short and on an extra small bike. Somewhere I come across council workers with a broken down ride on mower in the middle of the trail. I push around them then my bike breaks down. I’ve knocked the chain off. I throw it back on again with no care for how greasy my gloves get and get to the final bit of inglorious slogging before the final descent into the rec reserve.  I pull up by the van after 2 hrs and 14 minutes of riding. I’m pretty ecstatic with that. Strava thinks I’ve done 1.5k and 187m more climbing than the course should be. I ducked the bike under a gate, got lost once, walked the bike around a mower, threw a chain and I’m still within 15 minutes of the winning times in previous years. There’s a pretty big grin on my face as I start the drive home.

What's wrong with working with the Lib Dems anyway? Where do I start ....

I’m hearing some concern that I am letting my political position get in the way of working with the Liberal Democrats to fight the Grampians bans; that we can work with the Lib Dems on this without supporting their other policies. I don't think it's that simple. I disagree with the National Party on many things as well, but I think working with the local National Party member on the Grampians bans is a good idea. What is different about the Lib Dems?

Firstly, the Liberal Democrats are hardly well regarded politicians. They have almost no political clout or standing. They are laughed at (quite possibly because they deserve it).

Secondly, they are raising a motion in the upper house, which is for all intents and purposes, useless. It’s grandstanding. If you pay attention to politics at all, you’ll see plenty of radical (at both ends of the spectrum) motions raised in the upper houses of our parliaments and they have a brief moment of talking about this for before they are swept aside. Passing such a motion does not affect any actual change. The Legislative Council is a house of review. Changes to legislation happen in the Legislative Assembly.  People are asking what this means now – in terms of practical change, it means diddly squat. We got some publicity, and we got associated with the Lib Dems.

Thirdly, these guys are anathema to any green leaning person or politician. Look at their policies. They want to break down National Parks, deny climate change is a problem, reject the value of the environment outside of commercial ones, deny the extinction crisis exists and I expect if they ever develop a policy about cultural heritage, they’d say that had no value either. Then they cover their arses by saying if these things ever really turned out to be a problem, they would be resolved by market forces if we just reduced regulation and commercialised stuff. Hunting saves endangered species. Forestry saves old growth forests. I’m not joking, this is in their policies. I hear a lot of people criticising PV for the Peaks Trail, the impact of that and accusing them of using these bans to push climbers out in the process of making money off parks. Go have a look at what the Liberal Democrats advocate about commercialising natural assets and contemplate that future. Ecotourism is nothing compared to what they want for our parks.

Fourthly, they have added their agenda of breaking up National Parks to the motion. Their edited down motion is an improvement, but note the last point on it still. As long as this happens (and I suspect they realise it’s not most climber's position, because it seems to be discussed as an aside, as if we might not notice it), we can’t accept their support for our position without being entangled in theirs.

Working with these guys is an almost instant refusal of involvement by all environmental and left wing politicians. When we collaborate with these guys, people looking on are going to tar us with this brush. We already have a bunch of media, bureaucrats and politicians saying we damage the environment and destroy cultural heritage and then we sign up with a party with horrendous environmental credentials. How do we argue that we care for the environment and respect cultural heritage whilst standing with a party that thinks we should allow land clearing, whale hunting, logging of old growth forests and clearly state that individual freedom, private property and prosperity are more important that the environment? What is the risk that this just reinforces an image of climbers as selfish hedonists wanting to just do what they always have done?

Addendum: I wrote this yesterday, and this morning I have read the proofs of the discussion on line. https://beta.parliament.vic.gov.au/parliamentary-debates/Hansard/HANSARD-974425065-2354/?fbclid=IwAR1exkYNCWuffthPi9vgZdgt_l-2rmCvzBYpabXBv5IGe8mW6cCntBO_QkM. Please take the time to read the context in which Tim Quilty is raising this. His speech begins with a rant about totalitarian regimes and how one couldn’t have a fishing club in Russia or China. His next point lumps us in with loggers, hunters, four wheel drivers and fishers. He goes on to an extensive spiel about the need to curtail government and spruiks his point about breaking down national parks. He sounds ignorant rabbiting on about Parks being managed from Melbourne by people who don’t know or care about the park, when we know that the Grampians have a regional land manager in Halls Gap and Arapiles has one in Wail and local staff who are devoted to land management. It's also worth noting other member’s statements of support for the concerns, but being unable to vote with the motion due to fundamental disagreements with aspects of the motion and Liberal Democrat policies.

The language the Lib Dems have chosen – lockouts – has been freely adopted by climbers around the discussion, and I wonder about that as well. Because people are hurt and angry, are they picking up on these extreme voices and running with them? Falling in with their language also suggests to others we are falling in with their positions and values as well. Can we stick to using bans please?

Have a read of that speech and consider if you really want that to be what represents you.