Thursday, October 31

Arapiles - trip 3!

Day one started out being very very cccccold.



For our first route, we decided on an easy, loong multi pitch route. As the total noob that I am, I carry everything with me:



I reckon this gear weighs about 10 kg (ok, maybe 5). Still, the advantage of leading means that on has a lot of photos of oneself while climbing, some of them accidentally cool.



One also keeps bumping ones head on the rocks, hence the ever always slanted helmet.


We got to the top of tip toe ridge and were met by beautiful views and flowers. Life is better with both.







We also met an echidna, Marian's first and my third!! Echidnas for president!!


Our next route was a more difficult 10, called Xena, which, as the name suggests, is a bit burly. Not a problem though, although to be fair the sight of the rock face is kinda intimidating:


After this we rewarded ourselves with steaks in hippie Natimuk.

We only had time for one route the next day, and this was Eagle's cleft, which, as the name suggests, is kinda airy and a bit runout. I was scared SHITLESS. This May or may not have been because Marian decided to make a super super strong coffee that morning... Anyway, no more coffee before lead climbing for me: to be fair, our last Thai adventures were suggesting this as well: my old heart cannot take both the climbing and the caffeine, sigh.

We got to the top of Eagle's cleft in four hours or so and had an adventurous retreat: you have to down climb through a cave, squeeze through a tiny hole in the wall and then downclimb a via feratta (
and then solo down a wall (beginners MUST rapel)















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