Cam

A weekend at Brooyar was just what the doctor ordered. It is an old favourite of mine. The huge campsite quickly filled with little dome tents. Cars of people arrived every so often with more little dome tents, and more camp chairs to huddle close to our Monster Fire in the crisp cold Winter night air. Friday night was spectacular. Big clear sky overflowing with stars and a big, bright and full moon. We all warmed up a little with some night time frisbee. Its hard gripping the frosty grass in ugg boots, and its even harder catching the bright red glowing frizby with drunken hands. But Alan and Neil are bigger targets, and easy to tackle when they're concentrating on catching the frisbee!!  ;-)

The mornings saw us enjoy sleeping in, for once. No point hurrying down to the crag at 6am when you cant feel your fingers. Much better to sleep till the sun breaks above the tree line to warm the campsite, making the morning coffee ritual a little more bearable. Jaffles were a popular breaky hit.

10am was a respectable hour to grace the crag for a days climbing. We were out numbered 2 leaders to a seconder which is new, and impressive given we had 26 people there!! Everyone is climbing so well. You are all challenging yourselves, learning new skills, while practicing safe climbing and good crag etiquette!! I felt most happy just soaking up everyone's enthusiasm and watching the self evolving group.

It took a while for me to gather my sh*te into neat piles on the 17 just right of Looking For The Sun. So I followed that with cleaning a 19 that An led up, spectacular technical start with varied chossyness to the top. An is a machine by the way!! Spectacular to watch!! Now that we've warmed up, onto Blinky Bill. I've nearly got it clean!! Next time. Such a beautiful climb, though with all the grunting I did, you wouldn't think so!!  ;-) The climb to the left of Blinky is DAMN HARD!! An and Damo touched the sloppy mother of a topout!! Maybe next time they'll get it. The last hour of daylight was spent at the glorious Raincave. Trust me when I say that your fingers will toughen up. So many pockets in the roof, its a fantastic feeling to find a good sequence. I've never seen so many people in the cave before just quietly...

Sunday saw Herbs in the Fernery (as enjoyable as ever), and Oozies on Speed was (abb-saa-cranking-takular)!! With my fingers curling out of monster pockets, my forearms throbbing with acid, and bellows of "I AM NOT THE JELL-O MAN" I cranked on through to the top, clean and proud of it!! My body, now crumpled and lifeless, like an empty toothpaste tube, had had enough.

Homeward bound, and everyman for himself, Neil and I met up at a traffic jam just after Gympie. Keen for adventure, we bailed off down a side road, stopping momentarily to ask directions from a drunken local drinking from something in a paperbag!! Classy!! =) Anyway, his directions were good, and we were soon back on the highway, past the carnage, and homeward bound.

For Colleen and I our weekend was topped off with a kick ass curry and pappadum experience. A spectacular end to a spectacular weekend.

Thanks to all that came. You are what makes Brooyar the great social crag that it is.

Cheers,

Cameron Sear

Brek

Brooyar Weekend, The Trip that Rocked (pun intended)

The weekend started early on a friday afternoon, I managed to get off work a couple of hours early but spent this time mucking around packing my gear and then playing Tetris in the Feroza (henceforth called Blue earth because she is blue and is still covered in Earth of the red variant, and for those that have watched Techno Man cartoons it's a kewl ship).

Packing the car done Heather and I headed up to Brooyar to to start the weekend. The trip was eventful but still quite enjoyable. We of course got stuck in 5 o'clock traffic but this was not a problem when you're in a 4wd and can see far ahead. Once past the Morayfield exit on the highway I was able to engage the cruise control and just sit back to stear all the way to Gympie. Now for the joys of finding the back way into Brooyar at night. I proceeded to turn left at the Big Pineapple and go by the showgrounds, but instead of following my own written directions I for whatever reason missed the first turnoff and proceeded to waste about 15 minutes of very enjoyable roads before deciding to turn around and try again. Second time through I found the turn off and we were on our way to the camp site.

Once we hit the dirt road I had to pull over and lock the 4wd hubs in because I had a new toy and I wanted to see if I could break it. About 15 minutes later we pull into camp with a very dusty car and a warm roaring fire (much thanks to Cam S) to keep us warm and tempt us away from setting up our tent. 15 Minutes later and the house work was done we got down to business. Eating dinner and generally keeping the rest of the camp awake with our loud drinking and jelly baby roasting (ask Anthony about the Chernobal baby!!!!!). Then it was off to bed for some much needed sleep.

Saturday morning comes around and we all eventually rise except Neil and Yoko who was comfortably asleep in their palace of a tent housing a double innerspring matress!!!!! We proceeded to have breakfast and leave without waking Neil knowing he will follow us in his new toy Midnight Black (that's 2 4wd's named, wonder what I'll call Cam's). We proceeded to Eagles Nest with a boot full of static ropes and all the club's lead gear. Why all the lead gear you ask??? becuase we all ended up leading or seconding and only used one static rope as an absail line. Walking to the bottom of the cliffs is boring when you can fly down an absail line.

The day was spent with Me seconding Alan up anything he could find, the general chatting and encouraging that goes on when someone was on a crux and chuckling whenever Ria wandered by with her Harem of Seconders. Ria played Mother goose all day saturday teaching even the newest members of our club about the joys of lead climbing.

When the day was over and Neil had finally caught up we packed up and headed to Rain Cave. This is a weathered rock wall creating a kind of cave of great bouldering problems for a warm down. An managed to amaze us all with his dynoing ability and sheer hand strength, there was furious competition from Fook (hope I spelled your name correctly) who hasn't really climbed for a couple of years. Then Cam S hit the around the world problem and amazed us all with his stamina.

Back to camp for a much warmer night due to the cloud cover and again Cam S's fire stoking ability. But how he manages to make a roaring fire direct all the heat his way and leaves us in the cold I'll never know....... actually I think that's pure skill and I'll have to learn it from him for next trip. There was much drinking with our late comers who recieved the same warm reception that I recieved the night before.

Sunday morning we got up late again and again left Neil and Yoko to their comfy palace while we packed up camp and took off to Point pure for another day of climbing. For me Sunday was the best day of the weekend because thanks to Stef's and An's patience I finally did my frist Lead climb. It was a nice 10m 15 climb and I got to use my nice shiny quick draws I'd bought too. We set up another absail line because that's what we do and 3 top ropes because we had a couple of beginner climbers and one experienced Pepsi Max Extremist with a broken foot (I believe her doctor knows she climbed too!!! lol)

After a great day of climbing we packed up around 3pm and headed home only to get lost again trying to avoid a traffic jam, I think everyone else did fine but there's always got to be a straggler and it was Heather and I this trip.

For all of you who didn't come I recommend it as a great place to learns the joys of climbing away from KP. And for those of you who enjoyed Brooyar for the first time you can appreciate shoes and climbing tape!!! All in all we had a great weekend which I think everyone enjoyed immensely.

Breck out and I'll see you all tonight at KP!!!

PS: As both Heather and I found out on the same corner, you can still loose control of a 4WD if you take it too fast. But hey it's all part of the fun.