It all started on a particularly crap day at work. With tasks backing up, projects not going to plan, and my boss giving me the sh!ts, my motivation for work was at an all time low. It was at that precise time that Damo and Ria popped up on MSN... "Cam, wana go to Nowra and Point perp?"... Does a bear crap in the woods and use bunnys for toilet paper!! HELL YESS!! :D The events that unfolded over the coming hours and days were beyond all comprehension!! Damo, Ria, Alan and I were all booked up that day! Pontus, Stacie, Timmy, Ange and Anth were not far behind. DanS was lucky enough to have leave from work and the wife so he booked too! Faz and her mates from Canberra were keen for adventure, as was Greg and his mates from Sydney, and even Pommy and co from Newcastle!! A small idea had grown into contingent of 19 ready to decend upon unsuspecting Nowra! It was insane, we usually have trouble getting more than 10 on a Brisbane trip!
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The Adventure begins...
The weeks passed by, and before we knew it we were packing for the flight. Let me tell you, climbers cant pack light!! With twin ropes, a generous trad rack, and the rest of my climbing gear all bundled up I was pushing 22kg and I hadnt packed tent or clothes!! But Virgin were most generous to accept the climbing bag as "sporting equipment" so checked it in as a 5kg bag!! HORRAY!! :D
On the flight down we were all so excited that we were hushed several times as we talked over the stewardess trying to tell us what to do in the event of a crash... it didnt help that Dan was explaining the aerodynamics of the plane relative to a brick hurtling toward the ground, and what good would life jackets be in a fiery inferno of death!! Shortly there after, when told we were off to Nowra, the stewardess decided that Dan, Alan and I must be Navy boys!! Ahoy!! ;)
After touchdown and a few coffees, Adam arrived like a white knight riding a shining ute!! HORRAY!!! 12 peoples climbing bags, tents and clothes and the ute was full!! No need to tie anything down whan the avarage bag weight was 15kg!! The rest of us jumped into a couple of hire cars and we were off! Convoy Kaos ensued, we all quickly lost each other!! Traffic in Sydney is CRAP! Streets dont go where you want them to, you cant turn where you want to! And to get to the best hamburger joint in the WORLD you have to cross 7 lanes of traffic like frogger!! (ps - chicken seasoned chips make me go a little crazy Whheeeeeeeeeeeeee). Finaly we arrived at Nowra and settled into the Animal Park for the night. It was no where near as cold as we expected!!
Day 1
Friday in Nowra started with coffee, baked goods and supplies in town before heading to Thompsons Point. We had 2 choices on arrival... grade 17 slab, or grade 24 inverted pumpfest!! Damo and Dan went straight for "Potato Junkies" 24 (roof), while the rest of us played on 15s and 17s (slab). After Alan did "Woderwick" and "Hang On", I decided that I didnt come to nowra to climb slab, so got on an amazing grade 20 bolted boulder problem "World According to Garf". Swing from a huge flake and launch for a monster jug at full extension and clip, move to another jug and clip, move to the next jug, and clip, reach up to the slopey top-out and ease up to the rings... it was all over in less than 2 minutes, and I was in heaven! :D Then the rain came. Steady, consistent drizzel. But we were dry, under a huge roof. This place is great! After watching the queue of flailing warriors flap about on Damo's 24 Alan, Anth and I headed for pocketed wall... where Anth did "Je Baise Ma Fraigne" the entry level 20 of the crag, we 3 could have played on the 23's, 24's and 25's here all day...
- cough-wheeze-laugh* :D
None of us complained about dinner!! theres a fantastic pub down the road from camp, with $10 meals everynight! 10 bucks includes steak or pasta or fish or chicken and veges AND BEER!!!
Day 2
Saturday, and the troops awoke early to a beautiful, dry sunny day. We quickly broke camp, and headed to Point Perpendicular (via the bakery for breaky of course!). As we rounded the lighthouse and stepped out to the top of the cliff where we were greeted with the most amazing view, the cliffs here tower some 85m above the ocean!! The wind howls in off the arctic, even on a calm day like today!! Faz, Dan and Anth cant stop yabbering... "Cam, youve gotta come do this awesome 16"... all I can say is "A-Hah"... "Cam, come see this awesome 14 arete, youve gotta try it"!!.... "A-Hah"... With a stoopid half smile plastered on my face, eyes bulging, I grabbed my baked goods and wandered off to find a quiet spot to stare off over the edge to the crashing waves way down below, pondering life and not realy wanting to do much more than chew my lumberjack slice... This place is mind-blowing!!! I didnt put my harness on for about an hour!! Finally Dan convinced me to seccond him on a short 15metre grade 10, hoping it might make me feel better about doing crazy stuff!! Throwing the rope down, it gets caught on a stumpy shrub 10m down... the wind is intense!! We rap in, and Dan climbs out placing about 3 bits of gear, its realy a wast of time this climb. So I decided to lead it, still feeling uneasy about the crashing waves of rocky death below... The wind was blowing me about and I stitched the bloody thing up. Screw this, I'm just gonna seccond today. Dan did a 15 shortly after that had a queue of people wanting a go. Ive never been so scared on top rope!! I did one more seccond behind Alan on a realy nice corner that was sheltered from the wind, afterwhich we all sat and watched the sunset. This place is beautiful.
That night we all headed to Currawong for fresh seafood and beer. Dan and I bought a carton to sell to the others a 2 bucks a beer... but proceeded to drink the proffits... we shouldnt go into business!! ;) That night most of the crew had an invite for sleeping on the floor of a house, but Dan, Alan and I chose to stay at Honeymoon bay with Faz, Dave and Sim. Its a realy nice campsite, sheltered from the wind, and there is suposed to be phospherescence in the water... but Faz just couldnt make it phospherescence.
Day 3
Sunday, after hackysack, super strong coffee alah Dan's $2 metho stove, and vegemite sandwhiches we were wired and needed to climb before our brains exploded from caffeen overdose!! Back to point perp, this time Windjammer Wall... WOW!! Adam describes it as God was lazy the day he made windjammer, it is so straight its almost unatural. 30m high and 100m long, its an intimidating site!! Alan and I looked at each other and said "screw that, lets top rope"!! Dan had other ideas, he wanted us to have the full Point-Perp experience, so off we went rapping the 85m to the waters edge. Climbing up from the ocean I started to think it was kinda cool... until I broke of a piece of rock the size of my fist!! The cliff was made up of long horizontal seams of solid rock, and sand!!! When I finaly reached the halfway belay ledge, I was greeted by some creative anchor placements by Dan... picture a horizontal slot big enough for a number 4 cam... then dig the sand out and fit in a number 5.... twas about then that I planted my ass on the belay ledge and pondered life and stuff!! Time passed and I got more used to it, Dan led up through the water seeping crux, and Alan shortly followed, and then the crazyest thing... a rock out of no where missed my helmet, bounced off my knee and smacked into my eye, holly crap, words cant realy explain but I curled up into the featal position and thought I was going to die!!! I couldnt stop the tears, couldnt see much of anything, and dont realy remember the rest of the climb. Wear sunnies climbing multipitches guys, youve only got 2 eyes!! The worst part was that we hadnt finnished the climb yet, still one pitch to go. Anyway, enough sobbing, the next pitch was awesome! I guess being reborn from the butthole of the earth realy makes you apreciate the awesome lines on the top half of the cliff!! Thanks for the tour Dan ;-) "Grey Mist" 17 was the final line, and its a mix of jamming, laybacks and face climbing. I cant believe Faz used face holds for the top out, the jams were fantastic!!! During our meandering expedition of carnage and joyous fun, the rest of the crew had been playing on some nice 19's, and Damo had led up an amazing 22 arette, you have to see the video to realy get an idea of the intimidation this crag has!! Respect!! :-S
A sea squal came in with the best rainbow ever, so we headed back to Nowra AnimalPark for a 3 minute shower (read 2 beers...) and then off to dinner at the pub, where Dan and I got the last 2 lasagnes (they were half the size of the night before.... ummm). Anyway, beer filled the hole ;-)
Day 4
Monday, and we are not at work HOORAY!! The rain is heavy and un-relenting. Some of the crew head off to climb 25's with Pommy, others head off to climb 22's... anything thats overhung will be dry. Ria and Adam head off to find a dry motel, and Ange, Timmy, Dong, Stacie and I head off in search of ponchos and coffee, hoping that the rain will stop after lunch... no luck. I can safely say that Nowra has nothing other than Climbing. It is the butt hole of the earth, so after spending most of the day in town, I got a sudden urge to go touch rock. Off we trundled, through the rain, to find Damo and Dan playing on "Spinning Blades of Steel" 20... we had only dragged our climbinmg boots to the crag hoping to boulder, but we quickly borrow a harness and had a jump on the climb!! Timmy does a quick lap, and his forearms look ready to explode. With the day nearing an end, Damo jumps on "Bedtime Teddy" 21 and looks strong right up to the crux, and oh what a crux!! Its known as one of the biggest sandbags in Nowra!! Secconding Damo up these 2 climbs today have capped off the trip for me, so its off to the pub, after another 2 beer, 3 minute shower at the animal park!! :D Being the last night of the trip, and with rain looking to dampen the last chance of climbing tomorrow, drinking arround the fire seems the best option for the night. Stacie finaly got to toast marshmellows, and many wet things were dryed out, and in no time at all, our crew were dry too!! So, a quick call to the local pub sees the owner delivering a milkcrate of rum, vodca, port and mixers!! Many and much drinking and cards and arm wrestling other festivities followed late into the evening (morning) much to the joy of other campers :)
Day 5
Tuesday, 530am, Dan and I are off to the train with Stacie. We only just make it to the train! Excellent, the bakery is open, Im buying pies, but thats strange, Dan isnt... We get back to Camp, and I gather up Anth, Pontus and Dong, the sober few, and we head off in search of bouldering. Mud maps are great!! Im just glad we had Anth, the human bulldozer, to blade a trail through the lantenna!! We felt a little like intrepid exploreres in search of an Incan Temple!! :) And werent we happy campers when we happened upon the mecca that is CHEESDALE!!! "Thats a tastee gor-gon-zola gromit"!! WOW!! We were bouldering next to a 30... We couldnt stick on the starting holds!!! With midday fast aproaching we hurried back to camp, to find the tents still wet, Dan still under the weather, Alan still asleep, and Damo still in a bad way... The ute had already left, so we had to get creative and tetris all the bags into the 2 hire cars. The trip back was short, we had time to stop at the beach near the airport for Slovakia and Kababs. Damo must have been nearly dead, coz he stayed in the car and passed up the idea of food!! Poor little dude! We finaly checked into the airport and found that even with wet gear our bags werent overlimit, even though my climbing bag was now 27kg!! A few hours passed as we lazed in the flight lounge passing the time with hackysack, coffee, and entertaining the tourists with our sleeping on the floor. Arriving back in brisbane we had a bumpy landing, and were surprized to find when we disinbarked that the ground crew were jacking up the plane with a massive trolley jack to change one of the wheels!! :D
Thinking back, I didndt climb much, but Im not annoyed. Ive had the best holliday! Nowra is an intense sport climbing crag for power freaks!! And Point perp is a truly amazing trad paradise with mind blowing exposure thrown in for free!! And I couldnt think of a better way to get an intro to the area!! Thanks guys Ive had an absolute ball!! Cant wait to go again!!
Cheers,
Cam "post Nowra-Perp epic high" Sear