If there is one thing that I’ve learnt from my travels, it’s to pay attention to the subconscious messages that my senses send to my brain.  Every time I’ve been really sick with diarrhoea, I can remember the moment that I decided to eat the food that my “spidey sense” tried to tell me was dodgy.  As a matter of fact, when I think about all the times in my life that I have ignored that little voice inside of my head warning me of danger, I’ve ignored myself into some real character building situations.

When I was staying in Tarrazout, the deluded thought crossed my mind that it would be a good idea to try and hook up with some Tauregs and get on one their caravans to Timbuktu.  So I decided to catch a bus from Agadir to Goulimine.  As I was waiting for my bus, I went to get something to eat at one of those suspect roadside stalls.  I can remember looking at the filthy hands (people in that part of the world wipe their backsides with their bare left hands and there is not really enough water around to wash properly) of the food vendor and being repulsed, but I thought “what the heck, I am hungry” and I ate what I was given to me anyway.

The buses in Morocco at that time, were very similar to the school buses used in North America.  Very basic affairs, with no air conditioning or on-board toilets.  The trip from Agadir to Goulimine by bus was a long one and took about 24 hours during which time my bowels reminded me that I should listen to that little voice in my head next time I buy some food.  About eight hours into the trip I got the sensation that I was about to overcome the surly bonds of gravity due to the force of an explosion that was about to happen in my pants.  I was sitting in the back of the bus and as quick as a shot, I flew over the various pieces of luggage, chickens and goats to beg the driver of the bus in my broken French to stop and let me off.

The bus driver wasn’t having any of that and he just waved me away.  I tried conveying my sense of urgency as best as I could but he just wouldn’t listen. 

It wasn’t a merely call of nature I had to answer, it was more like a subpoena from the supreme court of all creation!

I was getting insanely desperate. My shame had already gotten off and I was left with no other option than to start taking my pants down to re-decorate the stairwell with a palette of earthy tones. As soon as I started to undo my pants and pull them down the bus driver just jammed on the brakes, and we skidded to a halt as the doors were flung open.  I ran as fast as I could to behind the back of the bus.

There is nothing to compare with the relief that one has in such situations when the levee breaks and the floodwaters are free to travel their natural course.

As soon as my immediate needs were met, it suddenly occurred to me, that I was out in the open on a flat treeless plain with my pants around my ankles. About 50 yards away was a young shepherd boy with his flock, who just stood there staring at me, as disgusted motorists zoomed past me.  Then, like some cosmic joke, I realised I didn’t have any toilet paper.  You know you’ve reached rock bottom when you’re wiping your backside with a bare left hand full of roadside dust as an audience watches.

To all you mothers out there, I think that I have come into contact with the slightest inkling of what it’s like to have people looking up your clacker as you helplessly convulse, giving birth. 

As the day wore on, we occasionally stopped in small towns, and I was able to get a modicum of relief in some very disgusting Third World latrines.  Night-time seemed to amplify my discomfort as there was no scenery to distract me from thinking about my stomach pains, or by being terrorised by my now spastic peristaltic bowel movements.

Shortly after dawn, we arrived in the fog shrouded town of Tiznit.  I was feeling so exhausted, dehydrated and disorientated that when I stepped off the bus, it was like I had landed on the moon.  I felt so disassociated from everything around me, and it was as though I was seeing everything for the very first time.  In the half hour I was in Tiznit, I took some of the best photographs of ever taken in my life.  Usually when I take a roll of film I only get about one picture per roll that I’d bother keeping.  The half roll of film that I shot that morning, were all keepers.

There have been a few times in my life where bodily discomfort has led me to new heights. 

Another time was when I used to rock climb. I had been to a big and very crazy “cocktail” party. The following morning, with a killer hangover and a few friends, I went climbing.  

There was one climb in particular, a classic called “Eternity“, that I always had a bit of trouble with because it scared me a bit.  It was not uncommon for me to put in up to about 10 pieces of protection (removable devices placed into faults in the rock, to hold the rope as a safety measure) whenever I led (climbed up first trailing the rope below me) Eternity. My friends used to rag on me because it was exhausting for them to take out so much protection on the way up after me. 

On the morning of my hangover, I did the whole climb with only two pieces of protection.  My hangover was so bad that I thought my head was going to explode, and I just wanted to be sick.  I was in so much discomfort as I was climbing, that I didn’t think about the danger that much at all, and it was the best I climbing that I ever did.

The photograph below was taken in 1991 and it is of me at a camp fire with some friends firebreathing.

Ever since I was a little child, I have had a fascination with fire.  I suspect that my love affair with fire started before I was even old enough to talk.  One of my earliest memories is of my grandmother, lighting her wood-burning stove on a cold morning to get breakfast ready.  I can still see the image in my mind of the small flames growing as the kindle caught alight. Magic!

All through my childhood, I used to play with matches, and it was a constant worry to my mother.  One time, when I was about six she caught me early one morning, setting fire to toilet paper and tossing it out my third story window and watching it fall burning to the ground.  What made my mother particularly angry was that my sister was sleeping in the same room, and there was evidence that I had been lighting fires inside of the room as well. Mum was justifiably furious.

That day, when I went to school, my mother gave me an envelope with instructions not to open it and she said that I had to give it to my teacher and that it had to be signed by my teacher and brought back home that afternoon.  When I got to school I handed over the letter as I been told, and it came as quite a surprise to me when the teacher read out a description of what I’d been doing that morning, lighting fires in the bedroom while my sister was still asleep. I’m not sure but I think it was the first time my life that I was ever embarrassed.

My mother has had the school system here in Australia, punish me on other occasions as well.  One time she took me to my headmaster and told him that I had been truant and had him cane me (struck over the open palm with a cane several times).  We used to have corporal punishment in schools, here in Australia, up until the mid-70s.

Near where I used to live (from when I was 6 until about 8 years of age) was a bamboo grove and my friends and I used to make bows and arrows out of the bamboo.  We used to tear off large banana leaves and tuck them into our shorts and pretend we were Africans.  My friends and I used to hunt each other with our bows and arrows in the long grass of a big empty block of land (it was big enough for about 10 or more houses) close by.  

To make the arrows sharper, we used to melt hard plastic and wind it around the shaft tips, while it was still molten to make pointy arrow heads.

One day my sister, a few other friends and I were on the block and getting ready for another day’s safari by melting plastic for arrow heads over a small fire I had made.  One of the neighbours to the block of land saw what we were doing and started yelling at us and chased us off.  Unfortunately, our now untended fire got a bit out of control.  The spreading fire wasn’t that big when the neighbour noticed it spreading.  He ran back into his backyard and got his garden hose and tried to put it out.  The trouble was that the hose wasn’t long enough, the hot wind was blowing and there wasn’t much he could do before the whole block was up in flames. 

By the time the fire brigade turned up a few of the adjoining properties fences were well and truly on fire.  It’s true, criminals do return to the scene of the crime, and our little band stood on the sidewalk nearby, enjoying the show.  We were close enough to hear one of the policeman ask the sooty neighbour how the fire started.  He just pointed at us and said “those little bastards!”  We ran for our lives before anybody could get their hands on us.

Up until my midteens my pyromania was moderately slaked by fireworks.  When I was about six or seven (back in the early 60s), there used to be very large fireworks called “tuppenny bungers” that were like little sticks of dynamite.  Each year there would be stories in the paper how children had blown off fingers playing with tuppeny bungers.

In my childish eyes a tuppenny bunger was a thing of wonder. They were so versatile.  They easily blew up letterboxes, and if you put one in a metal garbage can and then put the lid on it, the resulting explosion would blow the lid over the telephone wires. They were awesome.  I can remember how angry and disappointed I was when the government eventually banned them.  As a kid, I just couldn’t understand it.

By the time I got to the eighth grade in high school, I didn’t need to buy fireworks as I could make my own.  As a matter of fact, I used to hang out with a bunch of guys who are also interested in very similar things. I was particularly interested in rockets, and I used to make little rocket powered cars.  

I used make my primitive homemade rocket engines by mixing my own solid fuel and packaging it into glass pill bottles that had a small hole in the plastic cap.  The little pill bottles were then strapped to a balsa wood car, and then ignited.  With a WHOOOOSH my little cars used to streak down the road.  Now when I look back on what I used to do, it’s amazing, I never had one of those glass pill bottles blow up in my face.

One day I was in the front yard at home, experimenting with my rocket fuel mixture.  I had a small metal plate, that I used to ignite my mixtures on to see how fast they would burn.  I noticed that a mixture that I had concocted made my metal plate extremely hot, and when I poured a little bit more mixture onto it,  it would ignite.  As I experimenting, a friend of mine passed my front yard and I yelled out to him “hey John watch this!” and I poured a small medicine glass of my rocket fuel onto the red hot metal. 

FWOOOP! 

A blinding flash, accompanied by a miniature mushroom cloud was the result. 

My hand was in the mushroom cloud, and as I instinctively pulled it out I saw that all the skin from my wrist to my fingertips was a saggy white bag hanging loosely off my hand and all my fingernails were totally burnt. 

Then the pain came.  To this day, I will ask any woman who says the childbirth is the most painful thing there is, why many women have more than one child.  There is no reason on earth, why I would willingly go through the kind of pain, I experienced on that day, ever again. 

I was kept waiting at the hospital for two hours screaming in agony before I was given a painkiller.  Nothing worked.  I was begging them to just put me to sleep.  Eventually some brainiac figured out that it would be a good idea to stick my hand in some ice cold water (which is the very first thing one should do). 

I had first, second and third degree burns plus I’d burnt my fingernails completely off. I spent three days in hospital, there was talk of cutting off my thumb and it was over a year before I could use my hand properly again.  All the new skin was tight, without wrinkles and I couldn’t close my hand. Because I develop keloid scars I had trouble using my thumb without tearing what little was left of the web between my thumb and index finger.  The trouble with my dexterity was overcome somewhat by plastic surgery performed on my hand about two years later.  The web of my hand was still cracking and splitting 20 years later. My fingernails did eventually grow back.

That year, some of my friends that shared a few of my interests had some pretty horrifying accidents.

Solly Voron opened up a  jar of caesium (which ignites on contact with the air) and it exploded in his face burning his corneas and setting his bedroom on fire. Luckily, Solly got his sight back. 

Alan Ritter, was making some rocket fuel when he blew up and badly burnt his upper arm and elbow.

Bernard Hegg (like all the rest of the group) had made a very powerful and extreamly unstable explosive called nitrogen triiodide. When it is wet it won’t explode, but when it’s dry, all one has to do is blow on it and it will explode. Bernard and I used to take the stuff to school and paint it on door knobs and seats so that it would make small explosions when the items were touched after they dried.  As long as the solution was dry it was safe. Unfortunately for Bernard he made a pill bottle of the compound and put it away in a wardrobe to forget about it. About a year later, he noticed the bottle and picked it up. The slight movement caused the bottle to blow up in his hand and the glass passed straight through his flesh like there was nothing there. He was so lucky not to lose loose his life, never mind the use of his hand. He came out of the experience with scars that were indentical on both sides of his hand.

Finally there was, our guru, Michael Biber (he was one of those guys who had a full beard in the 12th grade) who pretended to be a doctor and went into the local hospital and checked out some radium from one of the x-ray machines and had to be treated for radiation sickness.

So as you can see I’m a bit of a slow learner when it comes to fire. Even though I’ve been badly burnt, I still love being around fires. So much so, that in the summer I barbecue over burning charcoal about once or twice a week and in the colder months about once every two weeks. I actually enjoy the colder months, because I’m able to light up our chiminea. A perfect Sunday morning for me is to sit outside on a cold day with my wife as we read the papers while the chiminea keeps us warm.

Heaven.

My mother sent me the following E-mail as a comment to this post.

When you blew up your hand, I heard you screaming, so I and ran out and you were running around the front yard holding on to your hand. One of the other tenants rang a taxi, but I just ran into the road and flagged one and we went straight to the emergency (The cabbie didn’t even charge me!) I just sat quietly in the cab and held your arm out, away from any contact with anything.

They took you immediately and I filled in the forms. When I was taken to you, you were being wheeled, in a wheelchair with your hand in a bowl of ice water as doctor was asking you what chemicals you had mixed together. As you were telling him, he looked at me and laughingly said, “you’ve got quite a handful haven’t you?….But he will be alright and so will his hand.”

 Poor old mum and the things she had to put up with when I was a kid, and this wasn’t the half of it.

During my sister’s recent visit from Canada, I took her and her friend up to the Blue Mountains (110km or about 70miles west of Sydney) to see the various sights. The most photographed attraction in the Blue Mountains is a rock formation known as the Three Sisters. Although the guide books like to say that the Three Sisters are 920m (almost 3000ft) tall (as in above sea level), they only rise about 200m (about 600ft) from the surrounding bush.

Up until about 10 years ago it was possible to climb the Three Sisters (usualy up the middle sister) but that activity has been banned because too many people were doing it and causing rock to be dislodged which was a danger to walkers on the tracks below.

I climbed the Three Sisters many times back in the early 1990s when I belonged to an outdoors club called SPAN. Other outdoors clubs that I’d come across in the past were fairly staid affairs that I only ever visited but never joined. SPAN on the other hand was populated with very vibrant members full of life doing a wide range of outdoor activities. Every weekend there was at least 3 or 4 different things to do, such as, caving, climbing, bushwalking and white water kayaking. Most of the trips were quite challenging and the majority of SPAN’s members were very fit and capable. Best of all, the SPAN members loved to party and have a great time were ever they went. My years in SPAN were probably the most social of my life.

When I was showing my sister the Three Sisters I told her how I’d climbed them many times and I even did it naked once. I could see by the look on my sister’s friend’s face that she didn’t know whether to believe me or not  (my sister knows me and knows I’d do something stupid like that). 

Later that day we bumped into an old friend of mine, Colin who I used to go climbing with, in a pub. When I told him that I’d been showing my sister and her friend the Three Sisters he asked me if I’d told them about our naked climb up them together. It was priceless to see my sister’s friend’s face when my story was corroborated without any prompting by me.

Back in 1993, Colin, myself and two other friends, Mark and Peter climbed the Three Sisters naked together. We put the climb in the club programme and invited any other member to come with us. Strangely enough there were no other takers so just the four of us did the climb.

After the climb I wrote the poem below to put in the December 1993 SPAN club magazine, “Bushed”.

Of a shameless night I would like to sing,
A night where we four did a silly thing.
The members had done it all and were jaded,
So after some discussion in various bars,
I came up with the “Night of the Chocolate Stars”.
 
Those of you with minds less than keen,
Will be wondering what the heck do I mean?
Well, I’m talking of the Three Sisters West Wall,
A climb done so often it’s starting to pall,
How could we make the climb perverse and bent?
Something so wild and stupidly different?
The sort of thing to which people would probably say:
“You can’t possibly be serious - no way!”
 
How about we give the members reason to chuckle with delight,
And put in the programme a climb to be done at night,
Adding a twist to make it much more interesting,
I’ll suggest it is climbed without wearing a thing.
 
Some of you will think I am stark mad raving,
But I say it’ll be like stark naked caving!
So into the programme the climb was submitted,
Against more sensible things it was pitted.
 
At the meeting before the infamous weekend,
A concerned member my ear did bend,
For the sake of the others she took me to task,
“Isn’t it irresponsible to go at night?” she did ask.
I tried to get her climbing with us to come,
But she didn’t care for us to see her cute bare bum.
 
So, what more can I say?
Eventually it came, that infamous day.
 
At 9pm we undressed and started to climb,
And the honour of leading, it was all mine.
My trusty companion and second was Mark,
Luckily for him my pimply butt was kept in the dark.
Following us was Colin leading with nothing covering his behind,
Following was Peter, but naked? - he was not inclined.
 
It was a balmy night with a full moon rising,
The climbing was so comfortable it was surprising,
With only a head lamp for bright light,
One couldn’t see down far enough to get a fright.
Usually belaying your second is boring,
But with lamps off, the view was rewarding.
Sitting while belaying, naked and warm in the dark,
I enjoyed the starry beauty as I waited for Mark.
 
We all found the climbing to be so easy,
On such a night with the air warm and breezy.
So on we climbed without clothes to rip and tear,
Over the stone we went, bottoms in the air,
Until we came to the chimney that causes concern,
Back into his clothes Colin did return.
But it’s to nakedness Mark and I were betrothed,
Up the chimney we went, fully unclothed.
Together we vowed to the last pitch,
To keep climbing without a stitch.
 
As I reached the summit a gust of wind blew past my ear,
Of protective magpies I was in the dark and in fear.
“Oh gremlins of the air, spirits of sky,
Please don’t let a magpie peck out my eye!”
 
Sitting at the apex, a victim of my own imagination,
I guessed my fears were just a wind blown hallucination.
Eventually the others joined me at the top,
A camera was produced and the flash did pop.
We had done what we had aimed.
Just to get down was all that remained.
 
So down two pitches, 50 metres we abseiled.
Over loose rock and bushes, we were nearly impaled.
Then on to the Grade 7 tourist traverse.
We had completed our climb twisted and perverse.

As I have mentioned in several posts previously I have spent quite a bit of time in the USA.  Lived there for two years during the early 1980s, and I have been back there four times since on various holidays. 

One of the things that really gets my backup is when people automatically dismiss America as a travel destination because of its foreign policy or the fool who is currently in power over there.  Although it could be argued that American foreign policy and politics are a manifestation of the national will, most Americans I’ve met don’t support Bush’s deranged and rapacious ways.  Sure, Bush stole the election fair and square, but the majority of Americans did not vote for him. 

As a matter of fact, a majority of Americans don’t vote at all because they have no interest in the candidates. The two party political system has left a great deal of the population feeling they aren’t being represented by either the Republicans or the Democrats, so they just don’t participate in the election process. 

Americans that my wife and I met were very concerned about foreigner’s opinions of America.  So often, the people that we spoke to (without us instigating any conversation about politics) actually apologised for Bush and made a point of telling us that they did not vote for him. 

The average American that I’ve ever encountered is a very polite and friendly person who is happy to meet people from overseas.  I was treated with nothing but courtesy and decency (with a few notable exceptions), in all the times that I have visited the States.

Some other people seem to think that because America has the largest economy in the world that it must be some big industrial wasteland and there are a quite few places like New Jersey (the “Garden State”, what a joke!), that do fit the bill, but on the whole it is an incredibly beautiful country.  I particularly like the south-western states, but there is beauty to be found across the whole country.  I have been to about 45 of the states and I feel that I can say this with some authority.

My favourite place in the US is the Grand Canyon (I’ve been there three times), but my second favourite place is Yosemite.  

Because of its beauty, Yosemite is usually very crowded for most warmer months of the year.  My wife and I visited Yosemite in the late summer, early autumn of 2006 and the park was almost empty. 

Apparently, most people go to Yosemite in the late spring or early summer, because the melting snow creates numerous waterfalls, off the steep rock faces of the valley.  There were no waterfalls when we visited Yosemite but it was still amazingly spectacular.  When I was younger and I used to rock climb, I used to fantasize about climbing at Yosemite and after visiting there, I found it easy to understand why the place was such a rock climbing mecca. The whole place is just stunning.

Over the Easter long weekend my wife and I with our friend Peter went down to my in-law’s holiday home at Tallong (it’s about a two and a half hour drive south of Sydney).

It’s a beautiful house on a hundred acres of mostly wild bushland over looking the cliffs that run along the Shoalhaven river. It’s quite the view in the morning. My in-laws even have a spotting scope set up at the window for watching the kangaroos and wallabies that often come by to graze.

On Saturday we went to Canberra to the folk festival and had a good time checking out the various acts and the people that they attract. 

Although the folk festival has many traditional activities such as morris dancing and fiddling workshops there quite a few acts that are taking folk music into new territory.  

The best acts I saw were the very entertaining Wheeze and Suck Band (check out the amazing song “The Flash Lad” on their website), Skirl and the very talented Spooky Men’s Chorale (good crazy fun). 

On Sunday we intended to fly our kite but there wasn’t enough wind so we tried out our new water propelled rocket.

The pump that came with the rocket was a little too small and fragile to give what we thought was enough pressure so we hooked it up to an air compressor. 

Much faster. Much better!

This was written 1993 for a club magazine.

Ever since I saw the video, “BASE Climb“ (where a couple of guys jumped off the Great Trango Tower in Pakistan), by Leo Dickinson, back in 1993, I had wanted to climb Cornerstone Rib in the Warrumbungles. In the video there was footage of the base jumpers training on Cornerstone Rib.  At first the climbing shots didn’t look so hot, but when the camera just kept on pulling back on the zoom, and the climbers were reduced to little specks on this amazing looking volcanic plug, it just looked so utterly spectacular. 

The Warrumbungles are a series of volcanic remnants in a national park near Coonabarabran, which is about 8 hours drive, N.-west of Sydney.

The BASE Climb, video was much discussed by those I know, who climb.  A friend, Colin Skinner, had on various times in the past tried to climb at the Warrumbungles but had been rained out on each occasion over the October long weekend and felt that he was cursed.  Obviously it was not a power place for him, but he said he’d like to try one more time to overcome this spot on earth where he felt the dark forces of nature held sway over him. Another climbing friend of mine at the time, Peter Butler, with the physique of a greyhound knew he wanted to thrash himself on such a massive block of stone.  The pain!  The agony!  The ecstasy!  Pete was just chomping at the bit to give Cornerstone Rib a try.

My regular climbing partner at the time was Tim Allen.  Tim’s father is Bryden Allen, one of the heroes from the dark ages of Australian climbing, back in the 60s, and who was the first to climb Cornerstone Rib 30 years previously. The Warrumbungles had piqued Tim’s curiosity, as he knew his father had been one of the people to open up many of the climbs in the area.  One of the first guys to climb in the Warrumbungles was called Dr Dark; great name eh?

I knew that the climb would be a great place to use all my shiny bits of pro (the temporary pieces of protection that one places as one is climbing) and thereby justifying their purchase! 

 
This picture taken about a year before this story shows a typical “protection rack”.

I’ve always been a bit of the gadget freak.  Plus there was the added of attraction of doing what I consider to be a “real” climb. A climb with multiple pitches, and exposure (great height), that is.

The October long weekend (Labour Day), is an opportunity for many families to go camping and as a consequence, the main camp grounds at the Warrumbungles were fully infested with families in caravans and 10 room mansion’s disguised tents with the ubiquitous early rising and screaming children (It’s no wonder why my mother hated me in the mornings when I was a child).  After the long drive in, we were so tired and we were disappointed that we didn’t get the chance to sleep in.

The walk-in up to the top where the climbs are was up a well-maintained track and it would have been an easy walk if we didn’t have to take all the climbing gear plus camping gear as well as extra water.    There was no water to be had at the designated campsites inside the park.. Our packs were very heavy, and this brought to my attention the amount of fitness, one would need to do mountaineering.  Our walk-in was only about 4 km and not much above sea level and on firm ground, never mind being at 8000m (26,000ft) trudging through snow during a blizzard with frostbite and lugging heavy pack!

Colin and Peter had managed to arrive a day earlier than us, and had arranged to meet us at the smaller camp ground at the top (known as Grand High Tops).  When we reached the campground, we set up our tents next to our friend’s tents, and then we went looking for them.  We found some high ground and looked across at Cornerstone Rib with binoculars, to see two little specks, which were Colin and Peter.  They seemed to be having a bit of trouble figuring out which way to go and were spending a lot of time in one place.  They were on about the fourth pitch. Each pitch is about 25 m long, and the climb up on Cornerstone Rib was about 8 pitches.

Cornerstone Rib is part of a volcanic dyke that makes up the “Butter Knife” which goes across from Grand High Tops down a valley to “Crater Bluff”, an old volcanic plug.  When you look at Crater Bluff, Cornerstone Rib looks like the most obvious route to climb.

I didn’t take this photograph but I’m using it to show the
“Cornerstone Rib” climbing route up Crater Bluff.

About 2 1/2 hours later, when it was quite dark, our friends turned up at the campground.  Of course, we were very keen to hear how the climb went and what we heard was a bit disturbing.  The guys said that they would never do it again as it was on loose rock and the protection (protection is were one places various safety devices in cracks in the rock, and then attach their rope to) was insecure and the long and short of it, was that it was a scary, windy and exposed climb, even if it was only a grade 14 (US 5.8, UK 4b, French 5b+).  Whenever I had been climbing with Peter and Colin in the past and I had seen them having trouble with a climb, I knew that I was going to have a lot of trouble and probably wouldn’t be able to do it, so I was quite concerned.

I had seen Colin lead climb (leading is where you are climbing up past your last place of protection and place protection as you climb), grade 23 (US 5.11d, UK 5b E2, French 7a) and I also knew people who had seen him in Thailand on grade 27  (US 5.12d, UK 6c, French 7c) sports climbs. Peter Butler was also a much better climber than me, and the best I could manage at the time was to grovel and fall up grade 21  (US 5.11b, UK 5b E2, French 6 c) leads.  So naturally I respected what they had to say about climbing, I must admit though, that I was shocked by their shaken state and I found it hard to understand why these guys at such a time with a lowly grade 14  climb (US 5.8, UK 4b, French 5b+), which they should have found easy to do.  When I asked Colin for advice about the climb, he said, put in as much pro as possible and make sure you don’t fall on it. Peter nodded in agreement.  Usually after a climb there is an air of exhilaration, but on this night there was a pall of doubt hanging over the rest of us.

The next morning, Tim Allen and I got an early start and on the way to the climb we saw a koala, which is pretty rare because they are so quiet and keep still.  The first two pitches of the climb were quite easy and we quickly soloed (climbed without protection) them.  It was more scrambling than climbing.  The third pitch was also not so bad, but of course, we definitely felt the need to use our safety gear.  Tim and I had been arguing the day before about whether or not we should use single rope or double rope.  I was for single and Tim was for double.  Double is considered safer, but I was concerned with the weight.  I eventually capitulated, and we used two 11 mm ropes instead of the normal 9 mm ropes that are customarily used in tandem.  Double rope technique also requires a fair bit more communication between the lead in the second, which is hampered by strong winds.Another unpleasantness about climbing in strong winds is that one tends to brace against the wind to prevent being blown off, but of course, winds usually come in gusts and when one is bracing against the wind and it suddenly stops, there is a tendency to suddenly fall in the direction that the wind was coming from.  It is very disconcerting!

As we headed up the climb, the conditions got worse, as the wind picked up.  It was at this stage that I was thinking about what mountaineers have to go through again.  By the time we got to the fourth pitch it was easy to see why Colin and Peter had taken so long.  About 8 m (26ft) from the belay point there is a bulge in the rock that requires a committing move to get over.  Normally that sort of move is not so bad, but the height (exposure) was starting to get unnerving and stuff that is easy to do on one pitch climbs, take on a different hue when they are attempted a few pitches up.

While I was messing around looking to for a way up over the bulge, there was another two guys climbing off to the right of us up a manky looking corner.  They were only about 10 m away (about 32 ft), and we were able to talk to each other.  They said they were climbing up that route, to keep out of the wind.  They had long beards, and looked as though they’ve been climbing for years, and their choice to climb on the corner showed the experience they had.  It was fascinating to watch them climb.  They only had one piece of protection and it was a large hex about the size of a fist attached to a sling about a metre long (about a yard).  They just raced up the climb, and quite often they didn’t even use their one piece of protection, and they were climbing the full-length and 50 m of rope at a time.  They were amazing, and absolutely fearless.

I finally overcame the bulge by going around it to the left into the wind.  The fifth pitch looked much harder and is seemed to be to be ever so slightly overhanging with milk crate to refrigerator sized blocks of loose rock.  All the angles on the rock were sloping down and it was impossible to mantle over them.  Every time I put in the protection, it didn’t feel positive.  I could hear the words of Colin ringing in my ears, “put in plenty of pro-make sure you don’t fall”.  He wasn’t kidding!

To add to the drama, the wind was really starting to pick up and the gusts were constantly pushing me off balance.  The first couple of pitches were relatively easy and I couldn’t understand why Colin and Peter were so shook up the day before.  Now, I understood!  Things were at that stage where I started asking myself how far I want to take this climbing lark.

Whenever I’m in “a predicament”, I find it helpful to tell myself to calm down and concentrate and it was this aspect of climbing that was one of its main attractions for me.  It is very satisfying to delve into oneself and find those hidden reserves that we hoped might be there.  It is even more satisfying to overcome a daunting situation through relaxation and concentration.  I find that climbing has put a lot of things into perspective for me, especially when it comes to what is to be feared or not.

All that remained to do after that fifth pitch navel gazing was to marshal my forces and “just do it”!  And so I continued placing dodgy pro after dodgy pro. I guess I was concentrating on the task at hand so much that I missed the start of the sixth pitch, and I continued to climb off route and onto the sheer face of the wall, away from the arête (the corner ridge).  As I climbed, I noticed that the rope was not coming after me so easily and I started to yell down to Tim to give me some more slack.  The wind was blowing so hard that all I could hear was a muffled unintelligible reply.  The ropes still seemed tight, so I yelled for more slack!!  Muffled reply.

F#$&ing SLACK!!!

Not so muffled reply.

IT’S F#$&ing ROPE F#$&ing DRAG!!!
(translation: the tension was caused by the weight of the two 50m lengths of 11mm rope dragging over the rock).

It was not the place to be having to struggle up, with trying to hang on; placing pro and having to drag out what felt like a dead body on the end of the rope, moving over loose overhanging rock, while being buffeted by the wind and placing dodgy pro on what is an awesome wall of stone, 140 m up (about 450 ft)!

Through the gusts of wind, I could hear a thin voice of Tim calling out for me to look out for a belay point as I was running out of rope (I’d never done that before)!  At this point I was beginning to wonder if I’d been wrong in doubting the existence of God.  As I looked around, I couldn’t see any place to belay from so I just kept on climbing hoping that there was enough rope left.  There was one other problem, I was running out a quick draws (clips that connect the protection to the rope) and pro.  Just when things were bleakest I managed to get over yet another bit of manky loose rock to a point I could belay from.

Ask anyone who has been climbing with me and they will take you how paranoid I am about setting up belays.  I usually put in at least three to five bits of pro-making sure everything is mega safe.  Since I had so little pro-left and the rope wasn’t long enough to reach a better belay point, I had to content myself with a sling around a boulder that in fact probably weighed about the same as myself and placed a nut (a small piece of protection) in a movable crack as a belay.  The area I had to sit on was loose and in no way did I feel good about things.  Anyhow, in the circumstances, I had no choice.

Luckily, Tim didn’t fall and we didn’t have to test the belay.  When Tim, who is a bit of a Luddite, saw the belay his face lit up with glee to see how shonky the belay point was that I had set up.  It gave Tim, a warm inner feeling to see how uncomfortable I had been, having to belay off so little gear.

All that remained was for one more pitch and then the descent.  Tim led the last pitch in fine form (we found out later that we just could’ve walked to the side to get to the top).  Just as I got to the top, I said to Tim “scary, wasn’t it?” and he agreed.

At the top we savoured the moment and flicked through the notebook that was left at the top, under a cairn of stones to help people get over the need to spray paint their initials with “I was here” all over the rock.  As we were looking through the book we came across quite a few names of friends and people who we recognized and of course we had to leave our little scribbles of drivel to prove that we too had climbed up Cornerstone Rib.

We descended down a route called the “Green Glacier” sharing our ropes, with the old hippies who we had been climbing next to.  They were nice guys and we made good time down.

We got back to our camp before dark, and as we walked into camp, I said to Colin and Peter with mock bravado.  “What was all a fuss about it was a piece of piss”.  “Oh yeah!” They replied in chorus, “how come you said to Tim that it was scary”?  Apparently they could hear everything that was said between Tim and I, quite clearly across the valley. The valley acted as an amphitheatre, amplifying and carrying the sound with great efficiency.  They had watched throughout the day and heard little bleat and profane curse we made.

When Tim Allen and I first went rock climbing at Arapiles in 1993 the climb “Eurydice” just stood out from the wall of stone known a Bards buttress and called to us. Eurydice is a 100m (about 300ft) classic grade 18 (US 5.10a; UK E1; Fr 6a+) that follows a strong line with plenty of exposure. It’s not that it’s a particularly difficult climb, it’s just a beautiful climb on hard rock with lots of good places for protection. As a matter of fact it’s probably in my top five favorite climbs that I’ve ever done. It’s just about got every type of climbing you could ask for. The only thing missing is “smearing”, but hey, it’s not sloping granite, it’s vertical quartzite, a hard metamorphosed sandstone. Tim led and I seconded. The first photo is of Tim leading half way up the first pitch

In the next photo you can play “spot the climbers”.

Tim and I are in the top right corner. I’m belaying whilst sitting as Tim leads up the little over hanging crux. If you can’t locate us I’ve put a close up below.