After weeks of itching to get out of school and
go climbing, I finally found myself sitting on a plane between two
friends, who by the time we took off were possibly already regretting the
seating arrangements.Our destination: Mount Arapiles, Australia. One plane ride
later, consisting of me bouncing up and down making sure my friends on either
side had througroughly read through the "in an emergency" sheet, and postively
annoying them with my endless discussions of nothing in particular, I found
myself driven into silence as my friends Wiz and Irmak decided the best idea was
to put in their headphones and turn the other way. After almost a day of taxis,
trains, buses and shuttles, we finally arrived at "the Pines" campground which
would be our home for the next few weeks, and I was immediatly drawn to the
spectacular orange walls of Mount Arapiles. Luckily, we meet the right people at
the right time, inherited an awesome tarp set up complete with lazy boy chair
and plenty of left over food and settled in.
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| Our Home at the Pines |
The first thing anyone warned us about before
we left was that it was the wet season this time of year over at Arapiles, and
us being the keen climbers that we are, decided they were being stupid and went
anyway. The weather was not in our favour at all and caused us to spend a lot
more time in Horsham Library than we would have liked. But when we got to climb,
it was amazing. This was the first time I had ever been around trad climbers and
trad routes, so it was all a bit of a revelation to me, and a bit threatening.
We did a few trad climbs in the early days of our stay, and obviously with any
trad climb, there were endless amounts of cracks! Again, I had never cracked
climbed before, and found it both mentally and physically challenging, as I just
wasnt used to it. So after a few days of having a go at some cracks, we began to
seek out the few sport climbing routes. I was still struggling with climbing
though, everything was so different, the style completely new to me. But after
finding a few good sport routes, I began to feel comfortable.
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| Me on Ergonomics (26) Photo: Irmak Thompson |
I then discovered a wall just up from the
campgroud, called the Flight Deck. This wall was completely different from the
rest of the climbing in Arapiles which consisted of cracks, slopery holds and
lots of smearing. This wall was completely vertical and full of sharp, crystally
crimps. I was in heaven, even through the agonising pain of reluctantly crimping
down hard after a few attempts on the climbs. We got pointed in the direction of
a grade 25 called Have a Good flight, and I managed to do it on my second go.
With about a week to go, and still not feeling the satisfaction of having
climbed enough, I gave the direct start to Have A Good Flight a go, graded 27.
With 3 days to go, I sent it, acheiving my goal of climbing a 27 in Arapiles.
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| Bouldering on a rainy day |
So after nearly 3 weeks of braving the weather,
eating luxurious meals all consisting of food out of the bin (also including my
sneaky snacks of chocolate biscuits I just couldnt resist), climbing in a way I
have never done before, learning a whole lot of new things including how best to
ignore Wizs snoring in the night and sharing the campground with a great bunch
of people and kangaroos, I found myself back on the plane between my two
friends, and as they already knew the instructions on the "in the emergency"
sheet, I had nothing left to do but sit and think about where my next adventure
would take me!
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| The Crew |
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