Travelling Styles

Some people are commenting that I don’t write enough in my blog so i have promised to write more. This is kinda a hard thing to do case i pretty much bum about. Live here is pretty simple and mainly revolves around sleeping and eating. However I will try to give my readers a little more. One thing that has got more exciting is my cooking ability. I have finally got fed up with vegetables and pasta. Last night i went on a mission to cook pizza. This might sound an easy task but we are talking about camp fire pizza. We have bacon, pepper, sausage, Onion, tomatoes, broccoli, coriander and 5 hungry climbers. We spent hours deciding how this could best be done before descending on the task. My attempt 4 we had perfection. That not to say attempt 1, 2, and 3 went to waste. We eat what we could and feed the rest to a very grateful shiver. All very entertaining.
Saturday More climbing but nothing very exciting went down. Spent most of your time falling off the same two routes, but we had fun. As our pizza worked so well we decided o try chocolate brownies. As no one had a clue i made it up. Think i forgot something in the mixture. We had butter, chocolate, nuts, honey, and flower. We sat patiently or maybe not so patiently for 40 minutes waiting for it to cook. We all fiddled around adding more wood taking wood off the fire and so on. In the end we gave up waiting. We were close up not really. It tasted good but we had to eat it with a spoon. Better luck next time.
Sunday Guess what? More climbing. We went down to Centennial Glen and played on Jaws. (A,21). Which i managed after a lot of moaning, and down climbing to a big ledge so i could rest then try again. I then went to play on split wave (A,23) which is a classic. Did get to the top but not without resting on the rope so will have to try again. Returned to the camp pretty tired. We were greeted by a very happy shiver. We are all spoiling the dog now i think he gets better fed that we do. After i fry him up chicken (it was going off) i ate past and pesto.
Monday A day of rest. We take a trip into Blackheath to take shiver to the vet. It turns out he is micro chipped so he is taken off us so he could be reunited with his owners. Myself and Neal were not very keen to let him go but is for the best. It was not helped my he fact the lady in the vet was really grumpy. But when your living dirt bag style its hard enough to look after yourself never mind a dog. We chill in the coffee shop before returning to camp for breakfast. To make a change we had French toast. We decided to spend some time cleaning up camp. We have a large size shelter that has a picnic table and bench that could fit 6 people. This is what we refer to as the kitchen. It’s beginning to look a little like a bomb has hit it. We also go through the food boxes where most things are in a varied state of decomposing. We then go to Katoomba for a shower and a coffee and internet. Then a quick run round the shops before returning to camp and another large fire.
Tuesday. Back to work. I am up and ready by 9am. We are waiting for one of the part again. For once in my life i am not the last one up. For some reason on this trip i have been waking at 8 every morning. I have been getting up and stretching for an hour before hitting the crag. We head to the glen to see if we can tick some routes. We warm up on jaws a 21. This rout has been on my project list for some time it goes down after 2 attempts and loads of encouragement from my delayer. The plan is to try Wave word a full on 20meter 23. 2 attempts later i am left frustrated. All the boys give up working rubber lover (25) and we head up the hill to watch the sun set. All the tourists that walk pass us tell us how wonderful the sun set was last night from this spot, less could be said for tonight. We wonder back up the hill in the dark to the car. Back to camp we cook bangers and mash we scored 10kg’s of spuds a few days ago so it will be spuds for breakfast and dinner for the next week or 2. It’s really close to full moon so the nights are very bright which is cool. We spend another evening chilling round the camp fire.
Wednesday. Pretty sore this morning but we hit the glen again. The 23 goes on the 3 attempt. My 3rd 23 now. Its really cold today we spend the best part of our time jumping up and down to get warm. Chris gives up on rubber lover so we head to porters pass to seek some sun. I on-sight my first 21 Chasing Amy so was really pleased. We leave on a high. The wind is howling tonight so our fire is useless. So we head to bed at 10pm just before the rain kicks in.
Thursday. Steve comes to camp today so i head back to porters. Its so cold down here so we did one route and go in the search of sun. We get to Shipley Upper and play on hot flyer. Another 23. After a few attempts the sun is setting so we walk back to the car. We are now joined at camp with Chris the German. Really nice guy who speaks little English so communication is hard work. We eat more spuds but this time baked.
Friday. Another rest day. We have devised a true training schedule which means we have the same day off each week. We now rest on Monday and Friday every week. Its nice to have a plan for the week and having the same days off al the time is really helpful the only problem with it is that we have to climb 3 days in a row which is kinda hard on the body especially on the finger tips. The Blue Mountains are renowned for being hard on the skin. Come day three your tips are really sensitive and one day is not really sufficient for the skin to re-grow. Anyway enough moaning what are we doing today. The same as usual really spending an hour or two in the spa. It’s the only time in the week where we get to be really really warm. We are judging how cold the mornings are buy how long we have to hold the honey or chocolate spread over the fire before we can spread it on the bread. At the moment it takes about 5 minutes to loosen up. Once we have warmed up we hit the launder mat. It’s great to be clean and have clean clothes all in a space of an hour. Even with 4 of us we still only just manage to fill two washing machines even though we are pretty mush thing everything we own. The only thing that’s not making it to the wash is our down jackets. That’s not to say they don’t need it but we are all very attached to these and are not keen to let them go at any coast. We sit in the coffee shop for the next 3 hours chilling out and charging everything we on. Considering we are all backpacking we have a huge collection of technology. We have 2 laptops, 4 cameras, 2 batteries charges. 3 mobile phones, 3 I-pods, 1 MP3 player, 1 set of speakers, 2 back up hard drive, 1 memory tick and 1 solo charger which is not of mush use at the moment, so I’m pretty sure we run up their electricity bill more that that they make on our coffee’s. When all is charged and ready to go we go to Coles for groceries. Then to the best vegetable shop in New South Wales where we are remembered by the shop assistance who offers more cooking tips. We head back to Blackheath where we sit in the Ivanhoe and use their wireless internet and eat chips. I get to talk to Marc, Rob, Stu and Becky which was really cool. Back to camp another fire and tonight we have cookies.
One thing about living outside is you really notice the moon we have the night where everything is dark and you need your head torch to do everything but when it is full moon you can walk to the toilet without tripping over your own feet. We like the full moon because it saves on batteries. You also really notice the temperature change. It all seems nice and warm when you’re sat around the fire but move 2 inches away and you freeze. But the great thing is the mornings cause no matter how cold it is the sun always beams into the tent at 7am. It makes getting up easer.
Saturday. Off to Boronia point to day. We all have a great day at the office and tick at least one good route. We spend a good 10 minutes fouling about on “Creatures without a brain” making a very silly video. Kept us amused for ages and caused loads of giggling. We headed back to camp via the Glen so Chris could tick “rubber lover” which he did with style. Back to camp for hot chocolate and Thai green curry in front of yet another roaring fire.
Sunday. It’s cold this morning Chris managed to melt the plastic pot before the chocolate spread was melted, (oops) we all love Chris and his dopiness. Plan for the day. Spend the morning down at Barden’s lookout then the afternoon at Boronia. So we head for Barden’s and Goosebumps. I throw myself at the route 4 or 5 times. A few guys come over to show me how to do it and make an even bigger mess of it that i do. After my 4 attempt and very tired arms Neal and myself head back to camp. Where i chill out eat my body weight in pancakes while making vegetable soup. (Sweet potato, onion, carrots, pumpkin and potatoes. Seasoned with garlic marmite and herbs). Then its Neal’s go to through himself off his project. I take the wimps option and leave Chris to belay while i sit in the coffee shop with Shaun. We watch the forever playing base jumping move and drink hot chocolate. Then we are called to do the pickup so we have to drag ourselves off the comfortable sofa and away from the fire. We spend the rest of the evening in the Ivanhoe on the internet. As the plan is to move house tomorrow we are making the most of free net access. Back to camp where we have to light the fire again this time dinner is baked potatoes and corn on the cob. We make some attempt to clean up the kitchen (bus shelter which we have taken over). As we are moving house tomorrow.
Monday. We have broken the routine of having Monday and Friday’s off. As Neal and I have a project we want to tick before we leave we have decided to climb. Chris offered to belay me while Shaun went with Neal. We are both keen to tick this morning but both routes are in our absolute limit. Neal has only ticked one 29 before I have only ticked one 24 so even though there is such a big gap in the grades we are both in the same boat. Off we go in the hope of success.
Lunch time and we are both naked. We both gave our routes our best shot but didn’t succeed so we pack up and move house. We drive the 4 hours to Noura which is 2 hours south of Sydney. This time we are near the city and the beach so tomorrows rest day should be a little different. Chilling on the beach sounds so good at the moment. I am planning to take a vacation from work and have 2 or 3 days chilling on the beach eating ice cream.

We have decided to do something that is not climbing. We are planning to take a road trip to the outback. We not have gained another crazy climber called Tee. So we have to squish 5 people and all our junk into a Ford Falcon.
We have 5 lots of climbing gear including 3 50m ropes,
6 tents and sleeping bags,
2 coolers,
3 food boxes,
all the electrical junk and who the hell knows what else. I’m sure someone keeps adding rocks to our sacks or something Not an easy task as we all seem to have gained more and more junk. But Neil manages it who know how. We set off in the end at 5pm. Was planning to leave earlier but we all got waylaid with playing hack sack, this has become a very entertaining cause Chris and myself have no control what so ever. But we have loads of fun and its good for our co=ordination. We have the fun of driving six hours to the outback. We take turns in driving so it’s not too bad. We amuse ourselves by playing spot the splats We arrive in broken hill in the early hours Shaun gets pulled over by the police (because you are not suppose to drive at night cause of the roo’s) which has been the main casualties in our splat game. At least 20 every half mile, and that’s only the dead ones. We can add another 20 kamikaze ones. Then we have the 300 we have seen on the side of the road chilling out. Once they have checked driving licence and car documents we are then escorted to the camping and caravan park. The park looks like a dive and is really expensive but we daren't leave to go somewhere else in case the police pull us again and question why we are driving again, the office is closed so we camp up. It’s 2am by now and we are all stiff. Up at 8 and spent time stretching the muscles before we hit the car again. When we look about the camp (you have to do this by doing a pull up on the tree) we realise that we are the youngest by at least 30 years and we are surrounded by a grave yard. So we make a quick exit.
We spend the morning drinking coffee and catching up with world news which we do with the aid of the news paper and time magazine. then we venture around broken hill. This includes a trip to an art gallery with a difference. The art exhibition is only 10 years old and covered artists from all over the world. The art is carvings on rocks. All very impressive. We spend a few hours here take loads of pictures and play hacky-sack again. Before heading to the outback. We drive till we run out of tarmac then keep going. We manage a few hours before our Falcon will go no further. (You need 4 by 4’s here) so we decide to camp where we are for the nigh. As you will be able to see from the pictures we had hours of fun. So in the middle of nowhere we set about building a fire. Cooking chicken soup for tomorrows lunch and spaghetti bolognese for tonight’s dinner plus hot chocolate. We have a very pleasant evening in the outback with the roo’s, cows and fox’s. We watched a wonderful sun set. Taking millions of pictures before warming our bones on the cow poo fire. (there was a shortage of fire wood.)
Woke really early and watched the sun set. Meet many of the locals who pulled over in their big posh 4 by 4’s. Most asked if we were ok. They thought we had broken down. When we explained what had happened and what we had done they all thought we were crazy. One guy did however offer us a spade so we could carry on the road then dig ourselves out when we got stuck. We declined politely thinking he was crazy. Took more pictures before hitting the road again, this time for the 14 hour drive up to the Blue Mountains. Chris managed to get pulled this time for speeding. He got a $230 fine oops. We changed drives and stopped regularly as 5 people and all our belonged was a little squished. But no one moaned because we were all excited. We also stopped to heat the chicken soup and play hacky again we will master the art one day but today is not that day. We arrived in the pouring rain at 2am another late night. I don’t understand what’s going on everywhere I go it’s raining. i thought it was always sunny in OZ how wrong was I. We set up camp quickly and went to bed grateful to be lying down. Monday 21st I think it was.
We all woke early and chilled out doing some stretches and read books till we ventured donw to the crag and climbed a few routes easy. I am for one very stiff after spending that amount of time in the car.
Wednesday 23rd
I get up to find a jack Russell cleaning up any scrap of food we have dropped on the table which I guess way quit a lot cause you get messy when you live in the woods and don’t have to hover or dust. I tell him to get own and he does. He then follows me to the bathroom (a very smelly and full long drop) then follows me back. He is clearly very hungry so we feed him some ham (a little past its best) which he loves. He follows us about for the rest of the day. We now have a real pet. The poor thing is always shivering so he has now been named as such. You now have 5 climbers doting on the newest member of the group with great passion.
Friday 25th
A rest day. A day in town chilling and eating cakes. The great thing about being so active is you can eat all the junk you like on rest days without worrying about it going to the hips. Shiver jumps into the car as we set off, he looks at us with big sorry eyes when we take him back out. We all feel guilty about leaving him and he’s not making it easy for us,We still have shiver when we get back which is cool cause we bought dog food while out. He is a raelly cool dog who does what he is told. We are all really keen to find him a new home.

That’s about it for now. Will write soon. Love to all

All is well here. I have not been up to mush in the last few days so not mush to write. I am still travelling with the 3 Irish guys which is nice. We all get on really well and spend the night’s talking rubbish around the camp fire. Last night was extra cool as many of the climbers from the Arapiles came to Stapleton so we had 10 of us talking rubbish around the camp. It really is a small community around here I keep bumping into the same people. I even bumped into Hannah on Sunday (I climbed with her in Spain in Feb). Not a lot else to say so bye for now. we are moving on soon cause yet again the weather has turned on us. inter really seams to have come. its kinda ok during the day but really cold at night. the plan is to move to Stapleton.

15/5/07 we have moved to Stapleton to have a leaving party for Carol. the plan is to drink hot choclate (with Balies addd) and beer till we run out of fire wood. very plsent evning with a whole group of people from all over the place. the eather is shit again so we leaving for the out back.

i have moved house will be in touch soon
I have moved further South now to the Grampians. We are back on the bolts. It’s really really hard stuff. All the routes are overhanging by a lot so your arms get really tired after 3 moves. I have achieved very little here but am enjoying the style of climbing at the moment.
Am now travelling with 3 Irish boys. Neal is 27 now. We celebrated his birthday this week, then went into town and realised we were celebrating a day late. We had lost all tracks of time and dates. We had a coffee and went to the movies to celebrate anyway. Shaun is 25 I think. Chris is 25 as well I think. Both boys climb hard core but are happy to belay me on the “Girly” routes. We now have a large collection of pets at the camp sight. We have 2 possums which visit us every evening. Tthey steal anything and everything. They help us with the left over’s and do our washing up all in one go. Then we have the kookaburras which steal your bread in the morning while you are making your lunch. They are so cheeky you can touch them while they steal your sandwiches. All very exciting. they are also the alarm call at 5am. not that i get up till 8.
The weather has kinda picked up again which is nice. We are also out of the fire restrictions so we can have open fires to warm our self’s up after a hard day. we hav eben rying our hand at camp fire cooking this has included Roo and and potatos and corn on the cob. the roo was not the best. Anyway have to go the swimming pool closes in half an hour and I need a swim, or more importantly i need a wash. the photo section on this Blog has gone mad not really sure why but will get it fixed soon then i will explain some of the pictures.

I am still here in the Arapiles. The weather is not so good now. It’s a little like being at home. Cold and wet. At least it means I can have more rest day’s rather than working so hard. It also means I smell less cause we get free showers every other day. There are loads of new people in the camp site now. Many of which are English.
I spent last weekend in the village bar and drank a little too much. I then spent Sunday feeling very sorry for myself. The advantage was I meet Simon again (the writer of the Arapiles guide book) this meant Carol and I spent Monday climbing the routes he need pictures of. So we might be in the new guide book.
Nothing else has changed so nothing else to say. I will keep you up to date if anything exciting happens.

REST DAY
Having another day off work (climing) decided i need good food and mellow day. so woundered into town with Dan did a spot of shopping ( the usuall shopp cheese, veg, rice, juice) then chilling at the coffee shop again. All the people here now know me by name. the weather has warmed up a little and the rain has stoped so will be working hard tomorrow.

PROJECT

My project for the weekend is "have a nice flight" nambed because it is a fun filled fall when yopu miss that all important crimp. it's graded 25 which is more than tuff. should keep me amused fo at least three day's. i give up

I have arrived back in the Arapiles. it's pouring with rain. can't complain to much about it as Horsham has suffered 11 years of drought. It took us 15 hours of driving yesterday before we stopped and camped the night. Then another 3 today before arriving at the pines, so it's really cool to be standing up again. The two rest day's will be good for the fingers. All the stuff we stored from last time is still here so we have loads of posh stuff. We have chairs and plates and even a frying pan. Carol has meet up with some of her Irish mates from home so she is happy. Rich has meet up with some of his friend's so he is happy too. All we need now is ths sun so we can climb.

Think we will be spending the next few days in coffee shop's and the pub, and eating junk food.

I've have had trouble loading the pictures from the "Blues" so hold fire will do ASAP. Love to all

I am now leaving the Blue Mountains after weeks of fun and games. I have climbed and fell off a number of really hard and cool routes. The grade will mean nothing to most of you I know but here they are anyway. I pink pointed my first 24 oz grade (7a+ English). Followed by pink pointing 2, 23's (7a English). These grades are the hardest I have ever managed to do. They took me a minimum of 5 attempts and a maximum of 9. So feeling really happy and proud of my efforts. cCimbing full time is paying off.
Have uploaded some more pictures so here goes the explanation of the people in the Blueís. Hope you have fun trying to match the explanations to the pictures.
The group photo is of Chad, Mickey, Amber and I. Meet these guys in the YHA youth hostel in Katumba on Monday 9th April. It was pouring with rain, we had all taken refuge in the warmth and comfort of a brick building. We got talking very quickly and before long we were at the crag climbing together. Due to the rain we spent the day in a cave climbing on silly hard boulder problems till our fingers hurt (which didnít take long). Chad is a chief by trade so we went back to the house where he cooked Thai curry, very nice.
I am to climb with these guys again Tuesday. A day at Shipley upper was really busy as the rain had stopped. And due to the climbing festival the world and itís wife where in the area. We were climbing with some of the best climbers in the world. These included Peter Croft (known for being a crazy soloist) there was also Simon Carter (the most amazing photographer).
Mick and Amber then went different ways and I was dropped off at Mt York camp site where I meet up with Carol again. I am to see loads more of Chad.
We then have a picture of Chad and Martian Pitcher. Martian is the man responsible for bolting loads of the sports routs in the area. He was also the author of the Blue Mountains guide book. Very odd character that would drive you nuts if you spent to much time with him. However he was a really useful guy to know as he gave us some invaluable information on routes and camping spots.
We meet Richard a know it all Oz from Brisbane. He has only been climbing a year or two and never on ìTradî but thinks he knows everything about the sport. He has read all the books and can repeat them word for word but has no experience to back up his knowledge. He have tried to teach him a thing or two but heís not interested. He is going to by ride back down to the Arpiles so not planning to upset him too much. I can climb harder than him which is funny.
Some pictures of camp at Mt York. You can see the new improved hobbit tent. The ìMacî has room for me and all my junk. A great improvement.
Zorba was a new addition to the group on Monday the 23rd of April. Zorba was my climbing partner for two day during which I ticked my 3 projects. He was a very mellow guy who believed very strongly in mental preparation and focusing. Something must have worked because I succeeded.
Chad gets a house so we spend the evening drinking and eating pizza. A great rest and well needed shower.
Have learnt one important thing this week. Donít belay without your shoes on. Hence the horrible picture of my foot.

Still in the blue's climbing hard. meet a collection of people of all ages. The most crazy has to be a 58 year old french man and his 60 year old side kick. They had us laughing all night.

Due to popular demand i have now loaded up some more photo's in the Arapiles folder. they are mainly of me climbing or just pulling faces. these pictures are thanks to Carol who is up here with me at the moment.

Have not run into any more scary spiders in the last few days which is really plesent.

Spent the day in town. managed to score a shower at a friend's of a friend's house in exchange for helping them tidy up the house. we defently got the better deal. we then had the fun of helping Clair look for a wedding outfit. like i know what to buy. Now chilling in the coffee shop. feeling better for being clean and tidy again. better go as running out of time. love to everyone.

Left the city for the cool air of the Blue Mountains. Took the train up okatumba with Leah and her friend Karen. Spent the day walking around the town then took the cable car across to the three sisters. Would have looked totally amazing but the clouds were down stopping us from seeing too much. We took one of the tourist’s tracks back down some very rickety steps into a cave of the first sister. In the cave there were about 20 tourists trying to shelter form the wind and rain which was not really effective. We hid for about 20 minutes talking to everyone. It was the normal conversation. Where you from? How long you here for? Do you like Oz? And so on. Once again managed to meet someone from close to home so we talked about British weather.

We then headed back up the steep steps to view the sisters again. The sun came out a little so we got some cool views. Leah and Karen left me about 6pm. spent a cold wet night in the hobbit tent which chose today to leak. I then headed up to the climbing festival. Watched a number of competitors including the men’s final and the junior dyno competition. All very impressive. Meet back up with Toby. A guy I climbed within the Arapiles. We wondered about watching some climbing videos, and listening to some speakers. Timmy O’Neil has to be the funniest person ever.

Monday. Another wet night in Bag End so checked into the YHA to dry out. At $26 I was expecting posh but this one was very impressive. Even had its own TV room which was border lining on a cinema. Met up with Chad, Amber, and Chris and went off climbing in the rain. Found somewhere that was protected from the wet stuff and clamed hard. Returned to the YHA and Chris cooked us a Thai curry very nice. It was vegetarian but made a change from pasta and veg.

Climbing again with the group. Until they dropped me off at Mt York camping sight. I met up with Carol who I also know from climbing in the Arapiles. Chose a nice camping stop 5km from anywhere. All you can hear is the parrots and possum’s. Great place until we need food or water. Then we have to walk the 5k out which is ok but the walk back is not so much fun. All was going well till Scott and Andy joined us and brought the bugs. First we found the spider. Andy sent a picture of it to his girlfriend (to find out what is) a mail funnel web. (Will kill you in two hours) then they found the snake another photo sent and guess what, its piousness too.

Not a lot else going on still living off pasta and veg. climbing well but in a very chilled manner. Having fun and enjoying the stress free life of travelling.

Love to you all.

To those of you that know Granny Mac she had a fall in the week and broke her hip. Once admitted to hospital she was found to have a blocked hart valve. Both have been operated on during the weekend. She is said to be doing well.