Part Three: Climbing in Oz

Part Three:  Climbing in Nowra

It turned out that we did not take the most direct route to Nowra, which would have been about 12 hours.  Our route took two days. 

Day one included the packing and the saying goodbye’s, which took most of the day.   We also stopped to get a guidebook from the local climbing store, which didn’t open until 1:30 and so we had some lunch while we waited.  We technically didn’t leave Arapiles until after 2:00 by which time the skies had cleared, though I still believe it was going to be very bad weather all week.

Ant had suggested we drive down the Great Ocean Road so that I would be able to see the coastline – which was very beautiful.  We stopped the first night at the top of the Great Ocean Road, spent the night there and then drove the road in the morning.  We still managed to somehow miss the most photographed spot, which I blame on poor signage and the fact it was raining.

At this point, my driving skills had improved immeasurably.  Ant had helped me figure out the roundabout business, which involves a complex set of turning signal maneuvers it turns out.  Mostly I just turned my blinker on and off in both directions while in the roundabouts to make sure other drivers have no idea where I am going and so won’t try to enter the roundabout in front of me.

Our GPS had for reasons not clear to me, taken us along some pretty rural roads, including one where you only got to drive with one wheel on pavement when cars were approaching you, to get to the Great Ocean Road.  The next day was all driving and it wasn’t until the third day that we arrived in Nowra, got our bearings and drove out to the climbing area.

We stopped at a cool waterfall on the way.

These are best approach shoes ever, though I would not have chosen green if there had been other options besides purple.

 

Unlike Arapiles, Nowra is a sandstone sport climbing area, meaning that there are pre-placed bolts in the rock and everything is a single pitch (less than ½ a rope length).   It makes things easier to set up and take down and you don’t have to figure out how to get off the rock you just climbed because sport routes don’t go all the way to the top.  The Nowra rock overlooks the river and is surrounded by trees.  It is kinda a mixture of the Red River Gorge in Kentucky and the New River Gorge in West Virginia, except with eucalyptus trees.

Our first day was getting our bearings and trying some of the easier climbs again, though I hoped that this time we would be able to move beyond the introductory day without it raining on us.  Since we started in the early afternoon, we only got a few climbs in before we decided to head out, figure out the camping situation, and get everything set up. 

The campground turned out to be directly across the river from where we were climbing but you had to go all the way back into town, past the local kangaroo population, across the river, then out the other side.  Everyone else is very blasé about kangaroos and considers them to be stupid and pests, but I still think they are pretty cool. 

As we entered the campground for the first time, I saw my first and only wombat – which was sort of scuffling away in the bushes.  I didn’t get to see it very close.  They are very shy it turns out.

This picture of darkness includes a wombat, which you can't really see but is the only picture I got.

The campground was a step up from the one in Arapiles in the sense that it had flushing toilets and you could pay for a shower if you wanted one, but the “amenities block” as it was called didn’t have any heat so there was still a pretty heavy disincentive to get your head wet.  The temperatures were not that cold – ranging from 10 to 14 degrees Celsius.  I actually have no idea what that means, but I think it was around 40-50 degrees Fahrenheit. 

A Kookaburra that was not at all afraid of us

Mel trying to feed it -- but it didn't want bread only meat

The Germans taking a picture of the Kookaburra

We were still in primitive camping mode, so were cooking over a white gas/open flame stove and using our climbing packs as chairs.  The amenities for the campers didn’t extend to picnic tables.  This situation was generally fine except the night there was a spider next to me, at which point I did the spider dance, which involves a lot of jumping up and down and arm flailing.  We then spent a lot of time tracking down the spider and killing it while I worried it had managed to leap into the tent. 

Given I am under the impression that all spiders and snakes in Australia are deadly poisonous, and I don’t like crawly things sneaking up on me in the dark, the spider did not survive long enough to be identified as harmless or poisonous. 

In general, I spent a lot more time thinking about poisonous spiders and snakes climbing in Australia than I do elsewhere – spiderwebs on climbs added an additional element of excitement.  Ant assured us that as long as we stayed away from the tunnel webs, the other spiders wouldn’t kill us outright, but that is small comfort, really.  It helps to climb in the winter because snakes are not so active then.  The only snake I saw outside the wildlife preserve, where they were carefully enclosed behind glass, was a dead brown snake (poisonous) that I drove over in the car.  I didn’t drive over it on purpose and it wasn’t me that killed it, it had already been well flattened before I drove over it.  Ant saw it while I was looking elsewhere and so I had to stop the car and take a picture of it.  

This snake is not alive

There were some other climbers also staying at the campground and they invited us over to share their campfire.  When we first arrived, there were quite a few Canadians and two Germans.  The Canadians slowly left over the week we were there until there were two left – Mel and Rob.  The German numbers went from two to one when Jakob left to go do something else and Fabian stayed to climb with the Canadians. 

View from campground of one of the main Nowra walls

The week spent in Nowra followed a pattern something like this:

Get up in the morning and make tea/coffee.

Have breakfast.

Wait for the sun to be up a little to warm things up.

Go climbing.

Come back at dark.

Make dinner.

Hang out at the campfire.

Sleep.

Do over.

I won’t go into detail about the sport climbing. Unlike multi-pitch climbing and mountaineering, sport climbing does not lend itself to getting lost or stuck on a route.  At the worst, you might have to leave a biner if you can’t finish the route.  Sport climbing tends to be about getting the moves and trying to climb your hardest possible route without falling.  If you do fall, then you should try the route again to get the “redpoint,” which means having already climbed the route but now trying to do it without falling.  Falling is assumed in sport climbing, though you still have to consider the implications of a fall, especially if taken near the ground.

Most sport climbing conversations go something like this imaginary conversation between two climbers:

“Dude, that route was totally awesome, man.”

“Cool – I might give it a go.”

“You totally should, like, the move by the second bolt is super positive – but you have to throw to that jug.”

“Is that crimper good? Cause I will need a intermediate.”

“It is bomber, dude, but like, just throw for the ledge and stick that.”

“Are you going to go for the redpoint after this?”

“Yeah, I’ll go for the redpoint but then I’m done – I am so thrashed.”

“OK, I might fall around that second bolt where it looks thin.”

“Yeah, but after that, the climb is really rad – go for the onsight, man.”

You get the picture – mostly you describe a series of moves that are hard and it helps if you do it like you are a mid-twenties dude, because this is, after all, the bulk of the sport climbing world. 

One of the harder climbs I did -- a 23 that involved some big and reachey moves.

Mel Climbing a 21 or something like that -- very thin and cheese gratery

I took this picture primarily to demonstrate the size of the eucalyptus tree which was very large

Ant and I were well over the average age hanging out at Nowra.  Obviously, by this time in life we are all supposed to have settled down, had kids, and gotten real jobs that don’t give you enough time off to travel around Australia climbing.  Clearly I have not followed this path, which is why many people consider me to be a failure. 

This turned out to be a really fun climb despite the requirement that I use a heel hook.  Despite its overhanging angle, it is only a 20 (5.10aish) -- I flashed it.  This was Fabian's attempt.

Rob climbing a 24 I probably should have done -- looked really fun. However, it is hard to trust the beta of someone over 6 feet tall on how easy something is.

For example, if you are 5.8 -- how do you clip that?  On the one 24 I did that he set the draws on, it took me three extra moves to get to the ledge he just threw for.

 

 

 

 

I did generate some level of respect from the 20-something German who hoped he would be climbing as hard as I do when he is my age.  Oh, the days when I thought people in their 40’s were old too!  Of course, back then I couldn’t lift my own body weight or climb 5.12a, so as I told my 20-something German buddy, I never want to be the person who lives in some past where I was better than I am now or where the real adventure was.  My philosophy is to figure out what is next, keep learning, and work to master what I want to accomplish. There is still way too much to do in this world and my only regret is that I didn’t start soon enough – in my 20s. 

All the other campers have already figured out that you need to start exploring early.  They were all on extensive year-long trips that involved working when they could and climbing as much as possible.  The Canadians, Mel and Rob, had started on what they had thought would be a one-year trip which had now become a three-year trip, but they are still going.  They think they will end up back in B.C. at some point, but who knows?

Ant and I climbed for six days straight and the hardest climbs I led were a few 23s and one 24.  If I got the translations correct, these equate to 11.b/c and 11.d/12a respectively.  The climbing was really fun and surprisingly, it didn’t rain much at all.  I didn’t go for the redpoint on anything hard because I wanted to climb more routes instead of work specific ones.  I wish I had been able to climb more, though.

Incredibly fun climb that goes to the right of the hueco and then up and out the top -- 19 I think.

A 23 -- one of my harder climbs.  It goes straight up from the left of the flake to some pretty thin moves at the top.  I was close to the onsight when my foot came off and I fell having almost completed the crux.  I was not so happy about that.  Then it took me a few more tries to get the entire climb -- really fun though.

Also fun and amazing was the campfire nights.  Ant had brought his guitar with him from Arapiles but it had a broken string and so it took a few nights to get the string and everything in order, but once it was all working again, he provided us with music. Another Australian joined us a few nights – Andy – who seemed to be living in his RV and traveling for work.  He also played the guitar and the two of them did some awesome campfire entertaining.

Germans sitting around the campfire

It is hard to think of a better way to spend your evening than to sit around the campfire with amazing music staring at the Southern Cross and the Milky Way as seen from the Southern Hemisphere.  My first time seeing the Southern Cross. 

All this time, I continued my efforts to see another wombat.  Everyone else saw them everywhere.  Ant would say, “oh, I just saw three of them over by the amenities block,” or Mel would say, “I chased one down by the river last night.”  Alas, I did not see another wombat.  Mel even took me wombat hunting one evening where we wandered around the trailer park section of the campground to places she had seen them.  Then, we went over to the “bush,” meaning forest section, where Mel initiated me into the finer aspects of wombat investigation by clapping her hands loudly and listening to all the rustling in the bushes.  We did hear lots of rustling, but no wombats came running out.  Sadly, I never did get to see another one.

Our last day in Nowra was fairly short.  We packed up the tent and stuff, climbed a few last climbs then headed into Sydney.  Plan G was to spend the night in Sydney and then perhaps head out to the Blue Mountains for another day of climbing there.  However, this plan got derailed and I ended up heading to the Blue Mountains solo, which meant the end of the climbing section of the trip. 

Plan H, then, involved lots of hiking in a fantastically beautiful place.  I took way more pictures of the hiking than I did of the climbing, in part because I was by myself and also the scenery was really amazing.  The first day simply involved me getting there, getting a hotel room, and wandering about a bit.  I picked a totally random hike, which was fairly unappealing, but a bit of exercise. 

The next day I asked at the National Park Visitors center what hikes I should do and the woman gave me two.  Both involved significant elevation changes as you hiked into the canyons and back out, saw waterfalls, streams, and pretty vegetation.  They both required 3-4 hours to complete, but given this assessment was for normal visitors, I did both of them in an hour and ½ each.  

I think I saw a lyrebird, but I am not sure.  It was totally uninterested in looking at me or moving into a position where I could get an appealing photo of it.  

Possible Lyrebird being very uncooperative about getting photographed.

I like hikes that include really dark tunnels and doors in the middle of the wilderness

The other side of the Blue Mountains -- going down

To state the obvious, there are lots of waterfalls -- this is at the top of one.

 

My final day back in Sydney included some walking around the central district, having lunch with a colleague, trying to figure out how to return the rental car to the airport in massive rush hour traffic, and spending my last few hours drinking some Australian wine at the airport bar.

Given that it is winter, I feel lucky that I was able to climb as much as I did.  I now have a better idea of what traveling in Australia is like and it no longer scares me to drive on the opposite side of the road.

I bought a climbing guidebook for the Blue Mountains because there is much to climb there and I want to return to do some of the climbing I wasn’t able to do this trip. 

Besides, I really want to see another wombat.