Arapiles

Filled the car with stuff and drove it 1200km south to Mount Arapiles for 10 days last week.


Sunshine and I slept comfortably in the van, and woke to a great view every morning.



Richard and Daemon spent their time climbing the harder grades...



while Sunshine and I spent our time on long day easy routes...

No climbing trip would be complete without an epic, and epics are my unfortunate middle name I'm afraid. I absent mindedly lead Sunshine up "Eskimo Nell" only 2 hours before dark. Seeing as its well over 120 meters high we did find ourselves descending in the dark. It was pretty scary for a bit there too, as neither of us brought a torch, we were abseiling big drops into pitch black, off slings around chocks set by tough alone!


Here's Sunshine happily seconding up the first pitch of Eskimo Nell, only a few hours before tears and fear would be gripping her...

Towards the end of the trip we met a nice couple, Rubin and Kristy who were just starting out with climbing. On one of our last days we invited them to come up "Tip Toe Ridge" with us, which made for a pleasant day out for us all.



An amazing coincidence to run into the guy who taught me to climb more than 10 years previously. Only this day he was taking his 6 year old son out for a 190 meter day!


I did go out with Richard and Daemon on one of their hard days. This day was to be "scorpion", a high up crack with a fearful start that steps out into thin air. I just made it, clawing my way up, blocking out everything around me!


On the drive back I clocked 100000kms on the van.