Araps Wow

Well what a way to spend my last few weeks of travelling.

This wonderful hulk of monolithic quartzite rock was spectacular. The last three weeks were great fun. I arrived at the pines camp ground, araps, mid afternoon on the 3rd of April, the wind was blowing but then I was to learn that the pines is always the windiest place to stay here, once 50 meters outside the shelter of these parasite ridden and dying pines the heat of the sun hits you. The rock is like a cross between granite and sandstone and placing gear is always fairly easy despite what the guidebook may say with regard to a few of the routes.

I was fortunate to meet many great people to climb with whilst in residency at the camp ground.
Banjo and Carrie, a young couple from Tasmania who had not been climbing very long were good fun to climb with as their friend Alec who later joined them over the Easter week,

Kumpy an American of Asian decent was really entertaining. having climbed for about as long as myself he has likewise acquired many anecdotes and met many people along his travels, and I have memories of him sat eating broccoli or pack choy for lunch and playing his ocarina which is a little whistle like musical instrument, and we subjected the camp site to renditions of happy birthday, Twinkle twinkle little star, a few nursery rhymes and ode to joy. Which used to come echoing out of the afternoon shade from the recess of some gully and probably drove people insane as we only knew the first 20 bars or so.

I later met another American by the name of Andrew, we were climbing in china around the same time and he knew Kumpy from his time in China also. There was also Parish from Melbourne. Matt a walking guidebook to araps was most helpful and I spent a fair amount of time picking his mind for good routes. A couple of Kiwis and many other who I met and climbed with. Gustav who liked anything involving crack climbing and Massa who's love of the crazy Asian card game was only second to that of his love for climbing.

It was a bit like 6 degrees of separation where everyone could be linked to everyone else stopping there. The atmosphere was great to be around and with having 3 weeks a laid back approach to climbing ensued. Basically getting up before 8am was uncommon. But normally breakfast was eaten, toilet ablutions attended to and climbing commenced around 10ish. I will have to read through a copy of the guidebook to recall al the routes I climbed but a few that stand out in my mind are, King Rat, Tannin, Astral Plane, Muldoon, Missing Link, Sphinx, Blue Hawaii, Running on empty, Claw, Jesus built my hotrod, A taste of Honey, Hertz. I even had a good play on have a nice flight but unfortunately couldn't get it clean, which Is a shame because its a great line which should be within my ability but for the lul in climbing and my body becoming out of shape.

Many of the poorer climbers or thoses who just had a phobia of spending money would go and check the supermarket bins when in town to see what delights had been thrown out. To my utter surprise such things as Brie which was still well in date and fresh fruit and veg were bread and milk which pursueded myself and Kumpy to make a point of checking out the bins whenever in town.
I even got myself an Easter bunny and Easter egg, along with many other items to supplement my shopping budget which just meant I spent the saved money on some beer.

Climbing every day on such rough rock cut my fingers to shreds and I should probably have taken more than a couple rest days but it was hard not to climb.

I arrived back in Melbourne on Friday after securing a lift with Francesca, a regular at the pines who was happy enough to save me the $30 bus fare. I will no doubt make it back this way at some point in the future but for now my travelling days need to take a back seat until I can earn enough money to go to all the places I heard about whilst trotting around for the past 20 months.

It will be strange to go back to a regular job but im sure I will manage for a short time until the joy of travelling calls me once again.

I didn't take many photos but a selection will end up on my flickr account.