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climbing general

mr stumpy

The next day it stopped raining and all the Stumpy Tailed lizards (a.k.a. Shinglebacks) came out to play in the sun.

 

 

And so we climbed a long climb, which was all good until on the second pitch Pete started complaining about how it was difficult to think over the noise of the bees. Then he realised there was a beehive a metre from his head, so he rapidly chose another course. It’s generally unpleasant coming up against creepy crawlies on a cliff face – you invariably have very few escape options available to you.

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climbing general trip reports

minions to carry the cowbells

A warm sunny weekend was spent at Arapiles, as we took out a heap of beginners to play on the rock, and come multi-pitching.

Nothing quite like sleeping outside in the Pines campground, watching satellites before you fall asleep, listening to the guys in the campsite next door talk about their epics on past climbs, and having possums run all over the campsite, and over you in your sleeping bag, as they hunt around for food. And then getting woken up by the rising moon, before falling asleep again, and getting woken by the sun the second time around.

Clear blue skies, and noone fell to their deaths while rapelling. Not a bad weekend.

Categories
climbing general trip reports

easter trip report

climbs completed: six

climb of the trip: probably seconding kachoong (21). according to the guide book, it’s “the most dreamed of, photographed and fallen off route at arapiles”. alas, the photographers ledge was getting too warm, so our photographer had escaped into the shade when i was climbing. the roof was absolutely awesome – huge jugs, that were also good as foot jams (well, leg jams for val, she could have got a hands free rest there). feeling very pumped afterwards, lots of napping in the hammock for the rest of the day. a very lazy trip overall.

possums sighted: nil – they must have been scared off by
the hoards of people in the campsite. that, or the pickings were so good they didn’t need to come down for more than a few minutes each day.

half-price easter eggs consumed: one white chocolate lindt bunny (courtesy of val), one m & m egg with m & m’s inside, and a box of crunchie eggs – but no crunchie bunnies this year!

favourite film of the easter holidays: both simon mentz’s ‘rams to the slaughter’ and a new bouldering movie ‘a colarado daydream’ were shown at natimuk town hall on sunday night. ‘rams to the slaughter’ wins hands down. it was excellent. ‘a colarado daydream’ was boring. there was minimal bouldering footage, an excess of gimmicky shots, overuse of graphics/filler footage, and far too much time spent setting up the ‘daydream’ concept. nice idea but it just didn’t work for me (and the others i saw it with). (plus i couldn’t stand the music)