Moonarie
Preamble:
The week before our whirlwind South Australian trip I climbed a 10 pitch 18 with Mikl and Chris and on pitch 7 I sprained my finger. Silly boulder problem start off the ledge and I refrained from using the small hold on my right because of my fucked right hand and chose to use the smaller hold on my left as I haven't hurt my left hand for a while now. I proceeded through a process of flailing to hurt my left hand. I was confused as there was no popping snapping or tearing sound and I could kind of still use my hand. This was very good as I could climb out, as opposed to walking 6 hours our across the valley after 5 yukky raps. Anyhoo, it turns out it was a sprain (I think) and not a rupture, so this week finds my finger almost back to its normal fucked state. Which is odd. I now understand all those people who ever said "I sort of hurt my finger" and I though "yeah right, if you'd hurt it you'd know about it - how can you sort of hurt it?" just because I had always had the full-monty injury. Well, it did hurt to pull on my finger then, but I could still use the rest of my fingers and pull quite hard - usually my hold hand is out of comission for months - I can't even brush my hair. Standing on the ledge with Chris and Mikl I totally held it together - so proud! I though I might have a breakdown having hurt my finger again and the not knowing was driving me insane, but I managed to remain positive. I think they both only got a very small dose of my anxiety on the car drive home, and I was trying so hard to be positive. Anyway, we went to Moonarie with the plan that if I couldn't climb, we could drink wine. Good plan. At this healing rate my hand should be back to its normal fucked state in another month or two.
Moonarie!
Flew down to Adelaide (South Australia) Tuesday afternoon and picked up the campervan, which was great! Not cheap, but awesome - fridge, bed, sink, beats the hell out of car camping.
The van at Moonarie
Tuesday
After packing the van with food for our trip, I met up with Mikl and after a spot of shopping (Adelaide isn't very big, but it has the best she store in the world) we went to dinner with Mikl's pipeline engineering group, which was very, very, very blokey. But they are all rich industry types so we ate at a very expensive restaurant at their expense and i had the best Tuna tataki I have ever eaten, followed by an awesome steak. Then I got pistachio creme brulee, just to top off the close to a bottle of wine.
Wednesday
After a night in the Adelaide Hills we drove through the Barossa Valley, an awesome Shraz specialising wine district, that happens to be on the way to Moonarie. All in all we collected a case of wine, which we posted back from there: the wineries have a deal that if you get a case you can send it anywhere is Australia for free. Wednesday everning we drove to Orraroo and spent the night on a windy hillock.
Thursday
Drive the remaining 2 hours to Moornarie and headed up the hill. The "hill" being the hour long walk in. We were lucky with the weather - it was only 25 degrees ! Apparently it had been almost 40 a few days before.
Start of the walk up
Hot at top camp!
Amongst our climbing today was Garden Refuge Removes Easily (13?), which was good.
Friday
Back up the hill again - weather was also great, not even 30 today!
Climbed Pagoda (15) today, which you can see in the above picture - the flake to the right of my shoulder
Me at the top of the flake
This afternoon I got lichen in my eye and scrathed it pretty bad, so I couldn't see out of it for the evening.
Saturday
My eye was better today! Yay!
Some people Mikl had planned to hook up with arrived today - one of them had driven across the nullabor from Western Australia, and oicked up a young German tourist - Cindy (a real German name she assured us) along the way.
After climbing Vortex (17, awesome!) and Hangover Layback (15, great, but a bit dirty), it started to get actually hot. Climbed a bit more, then took Cindy back to camp with us where we drove to Brachina gorge (an hour away) to see the amazing geology - a complete history of Australian rock formations all in the one area. Even more amazing is the Ediacara stone - containing the only links between pre and post Cambrian life forms.
Ediacaran fossils just behind us
Baby Emu !!
After a HUGE dinner with the crew we were sitting around the lantern watching the insects that were drawn to the light and this montrous wolf spider appeared and started hunting the insects. It lept into the air and scored this huge moth. I was facinated, but totally freaked out too.
Sunday
Left to head back to Adelaide - we had to return the car today, and it was actually a nice 4.5 hours drive.
The drive happened to go through the Clare Valley - awesome wine region! Had lunch there, and stopped off at a few of the little towns - all very nice and cute along the way. Free standing houses from circa early 1900's in mint condition for $100K. With what we are trying to spend in Sydney we could afford a few of these, and only two hours from Adelaide!
Monday
Plane left at 6.20am, our taxi that we booked for 5.10am didn't show up. We finally managed to get a cab at 6.05am after much hassle, and got to the airport at 6.14 thinking we'd missed it for sure, and there is only 1 flight a day, we both had to work too. Thankfully, the plane was delayed, and we were the last to board. Yay! Back to work...
The week before our whirlwind South Australian trip I climbed a 10 pitch 18 with Mikl and Chris and on pitch 7 I sprained my finger. Silly boulder problem start off the ledge and I refrained from using the small hold on my right because of my fucked right hand and chose to use the smaller hold on my left as I haven't hurt my left hand for a while now. I proceeded through a process of flailing to hurt my left hand. I was confused as there was no popping snapping or tearing sound and I could kind of still use my hand. This was very good as I could climb out, as opposed to walking 6 hours our across the valley after 5 yukky raps. Anyhoo, it turns out it was a sprain (I think) and not a rupture, so this week finds my finger almost back to its normal fucked state. Which is odd. I now understand all those people who ever said "I sort of hurt my finger" and I though "yeah right, if you'd hurt it you'd know about it - how can you sort of hurt it?" just because I had always had the full-monty injury. Well, it did hurt to pull on my finger then, but I could still use the rest of my fingers and pull quite hard - usually my hold hand is out of comission for months - I can't even brush my hair. Standing on the ledge with Chris and Mikl I totally held it together - so proud! I though I might have a breakdown having hurt my finger again and the not knowing was driving me insane, but I managed to remain positive. I think they both only got a very small dose of my anxiety on the car drive home, and I was trying so hard to be positive. Anyway, we went to Moonarie with the plan that if I couldn't climb, we could drink wine. Good plan. At this healing rate my hand should be back to its normal fucked state in another month or two.
Moonarie!
Flew down to Adelaide (South Australia) Tuesday afternoon and picked up the campervan, which was great! Not cheap, but awesome - fridge, bed, sink, beats the hell out of car camping.
The van at Moonarie
Tuesday
After packing the van with food for our trip, I met up with Mikl and after a spot of shopping (Adelaide isn't very big, but it has the best she store in the world) we went to dinner with Mikl's pipeline engineering group, which was very, very, very blokey. But they are all rich industry types so we ate at a very expensive restaurant at their expense and i had the best Tuna tataki I have ever eaten, followed by an awesome steak. Then I got pistachio creme brulee, just to top off the close to a bottle of wine.
Wednesday
After a night in the Adelaide Hills we drove through the Barossa Valley, an awesome Shraz specialising wine district, that happens to be on the way to Moonarie. All in all we collected a case of wine, which we posted back from there: the wineries have a deal that if you get a case you can send it anywhere is Australia for free. Wednesday everning we drove to Orraroo and spent the night on a windy hillock.
Thursday
Drive the remaining 2 hours to Moornarie and headed up the hill. The "hill" being the hour long walk in. We were lucky with the weather - it was only 25 degrees ! Apparently it had been almost 40 a few days before.
Start of the walk up
Hot at top camp!
Amongst our climbing today was Garden Refuge Removes Easily (13?), which was good.
Friday
Back up the hill again - weather was also great, not even 30 today!
Climbed Pagoda (15) today, which you can see in the above picture - the flake to the right of my shoulder
Me at the top of the flake
This afternoon I got lichen in my eye and scrathed it pretty bad, so I couldn't see out of it for the evening.
Saturday
My eye was better today! Yay!
Some people Mikl had planned to hook up with arrived today - one of them had driven across the nullabor from Western Australia, and oicked up a young German tourist - Cindy (a real German name she assured us) along the way.
After climbing Vortex (17, awesome!) and Hangover Layback (15, great, but a bit dirty), it started to get actually hot. Climbed a bit more, then took Cindy back to camp with us where we drove to Brachina gorge (an hour away) to see the amazing geology - a complete history of Australian rock formations all in the one area. Even more amazing is the Ediacara stone - containing the only links between pre and post Cambrian life forms.
Ediacaran fossils just behind us
Baby Emu !!
After a HUGE dinner with the crew we were sitting around the lantern watching the insects that were drawn to the light and this montrous wolf spider appeared and started hunting the insects. It lept into the air and scored this huge moth. I was facinated, but totally freaked out too.
Sunday
Left to head back to Adelaide - we had to return the car today, and it was actually a nice 4.5 hours drive.
The drive happened to go through the Clare Valley - awesome wine region! Had lunch there, and stopped off at a few of the little towns - all very nice and cute along the way. Free standing houses from circa early 1900's in mint condition for $100K. With what we are trying to spend in Sydney we could afford a few of these, and only two hours from Adelaide!
Monday
Plane left at 6.20am, our taxi that we booked for 5.10am didn't show up. We finally managed to get a cab at 6.05am after much hassle, and got to the airport at 6.14 thinking we'd missed it for sure, and there is only 1 flight a day, we both had to work too. Thankfully, the plane was delayed, and we were the last to board. Yay! Back to work...
posted by Ness at 9:46 am
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