Christmas at Hartley Vale

We went up the hill for the festive season:

Xmas eve I belayed Mikl on a few things at Logan Brae (overhanging, but very cool and relatively fly free), before we headed to a BBQ at Moss and Coke's (and their dughter Jemma's) place in Katoomba. We ate (all organic of course) BBQ'd lamb sausages, lamb chops, chicken wings, roasted vege salad, noodle salad, and finished it off with a pavlova Moss and I had thirds of the pavlova.

Moss with "the Pav". Also note: what is he drinking?

There was also a variety of "Xmassy beverages" to be had. They all had bubbles, but some of them had strawberry flavours instead of chanpagne, and some were red, some were pink, and some were classic white. Very good. Mmmmm. That evening we drove down to Hartley Vale where af friend of ours own the old school house, and has refurbished some of it so it had a bathroom, sleeping and lounge room, and functional kitchen. We had a few beverages there with Jeanie McBeanie (the owner - Jean is her real name, the rest someone made up), Kevan (real name Kevin), and this other really nice sailor dude. Not sailor, as in the army, but sailor, as in lives in the Whitsundays (really cool islands) and sails yachts. Late bedtime.

Xmas morning! yay! I made gluten free all organic pancakes, with maple syrup and a mango salad made by Jean. We had chanpagne and orange juice, and ate outside on a broken but sufficient table with a cloth. Under huge blue skies with cliffs all around, and flocks of screeching cockatoos.

Afterwards, Mikl whip-a-snipped, while i cooked a roast chicken luinch (mikl had made HUGE spinnach and cheese pie also). We ate lunch, once again, outside, this time with our other friends Chris and Sue (from melbourne), and Penny Cooper, who I had met one although she was living in Squamish BC until recently. Kevs been spending a lot of time at her place recently, and we got a Xmas confession out of him that he is actually dating Penny's flatmate, Catherine (Katherine?). We were all really offended that he didn't tell us sooner, of his own free will. Ate too much too. More champange. Flies, flies, flies, flies, flies. Really annoying, biting flies. In our food, hair, ears, eyes, pissing me right off, actually. In the afternoon we went for a walk, driving at first up to the top of a nearby big hill (that is also a climbing area - Mt York), and then descending along a windy track that used to be the main thoroughfare through the area - great for mountainbikers and hikers now. We walked to the base which, incidently, finished at the schoolhouse. Chris is quite sick with many cancers, and is slow to walk, so the outing took nearly an hour and a half. After that we all went our separate ways. Jeanie and her sailing friend went off to town to prepare for the Sydney to Hobart yacht race the next day (quite a big event - jeanie is safety officer on one of the smaller yachts - but still a big one!). Mikl and I ate leftovers and read books, and i had fights with the mozzies.

Boxing day (the day after Xmas)
Woke late and prepared to go for a short hike with Chris, Sue, Moss, and Coke. Mikl said we'd be about 2 or 3 hours, so i allowed 4 and arranged to meet my friends Shaz at 3pm for a bike ride. Well, the "short hike" was really an event. Way to hard for chris, i don't know what mikl was thinking, and Moss had just had a shoulder operation and shouldn't have been walking that far either. 7 hours later we found ourselves at the bottom of the Grose valley, and thankfully, the creek was full to the brim with fresh water.

Chris, then Sue, then me, then Moss (Mikl taking photo) Bluegum forest, Grose valley, blue mountains.

We bathed there for a while, and the group looked like they would stay there for an hour, so I pannicked and sprinted up the nearest exit to gain height, and hopefully get recention and call Shaz, who was now waiting over an hour and a half. I killed myself on the run up the hill. Seriously was a BAD idea. It was stinking hot and I nearly collapsed. i didn't find reception, but I did remember that there was a creek nearby the top I could drink from, as i didn't have any water with me (I'd been done over an hour). It was about this time that I thought Chris might need water, too (the hill was CRAZY), so I headed from the top back down to intercept someone with an empty bottle, which turned out to be Moss and Coke. I left them there, and took the refilled bottle down further to Chris, who was really struggling, and had advanced 50m in the last hour. We were all really worried. At this time, I remember that I left my Oakleys (expensive) at the river. After much swaering, I bolted doen the hill again, thinking that if i didn't leave now I wouldn't go. It was a LONG way back down. Still no water, and you can't drink the river water, only the stream at the top. On the way back up, i think I may have gotten heat exhaustion, as I started collapsing ans was really sick a few times. After another hour Mikl came down the hill again top see if i was OK, and met me almost at the top, where I had expired, mostly, and needed to be pushed the final 20 mins. Sandbagged again. I felt terrible about Shaz, calling her eventually whjen we got reception back at the car, at about 7.30pm. She was at home, and has since forgiven me, although she is yet to read and hear the story. On the way back to Moss and Cokes we got Indian take-away and I ate so much so quickly I burnt the roof of my mouth.

The day after Boxing day:

Slept in, as best we could given that the cockatoos come a screeching at 6am. Ate breakfast, the headed out climbing. Did a scary 3-pitch grade 15 offwidth (5-8), in the sun that Mikl had an epic on when he was 12. To gain access to this area (narrowneck) you rap in until you raech some old ladders on the side of a cliff - the council put them in as it allows access to the main water supply pipes for the Blur Mountains. You follow thease ladders all the was to the base, the bash around on a good track to get to the climbing. By the time we did this, the sun was ablazing, and the bloody biting flies were out. I sworw my way up the first pitch, which was a poorly protected start with grit and sun and flies. very exposed, a bit loose, and crumble in spots. made a belay, swore a bit more. Mikl came up after me, and headed up the next pitch, which looked horrible - I didn't realize it was an offwidth when I started up, until it was starring me in the face. Any way, we both got up it, I was carrying on the whole way - "watch me", a few "help-help"s, and a bit of crying too, the flies were really bugging me, I was exhausted from yesterday, and we'd run out of water (again). Anyway, the last pitch is a chimney and i said no fucking way, so we climbing a bit of random rock nearby to get out. At the top we found some othetr climbers and I nicked their gatorade, which was awesome. Had dinner with chris and Sue, and saw the best painting in the world, was already sole, for $3400. I might have bought it.