Roo bars
Time's up. I'm coming home. I leave Exmouth tonight on the twenty-hour Greyhound back to Perth, seats too small and kangaroo bars as thick as your arm. Come 100 kilometres an hour there isn't a roo in the world will bounce away from this collision. I've had enough. The heat, the flies, I can't think straight. I'm desperately aware that I'm off-track - the worst of which is that I still don't know which track is right.
I went climbing with Heiner in Cape Range yesterday; down five or ten kilometres of Shothole Canyon Road, clouds of red dust boiling up behind us. We were like kids in a candy store - the rock is everywhere, the lines glowing on every bluff and every boulder, the cracks, caves, natural bridges, stalatites, tumbled stones, slabs and overhangs. No amount of indoor climbing ever really readies you for the real deal. Most of the rock is rotten, loose but razor-sharp; erosion whittles down the sand and leaves the steel. We found some really good stuff - halfway up the Oh Yeah! crack, where a broken handhold spun me into the spinifex grass... I'm still picking the splinters from my hands. Another, fantastic slab climb of ten metres - the scariest top-out I've ever done at about grade 17, then hanging upside down on the natural window in my scummy sneakers. There is an unbelievable amount of virgin rock in Cape Range. The flies feasting on my blood, sticky and black around my skinned ankle. I also took a pebble to the face when another handhold came loose under the strain and catapulted into my chin... but if you're not bleeding, then you're not climbing. This slogan is going to rank alongside
BOULDERING: BECAUSE WHO NEEDS FINGERTIPS?
when I come to make a fortune selling t-shirts.
So what next? I'm going to fly home in a few days. I'll see Uncle Rich, Banks, Dancing Phil and maybe even that miserable hound Tim in London; then I suppose take the train north to Inverness to see Mum and Dad and the dog and the cats. I should really stop in Oxford, Chester, Stoke, Lancaster, Liverpool, Durham, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Abernethy and Aberdeen on the way; so if anyone can work out how, let me know.
I have no plan other than climbing outdoors once a week. I need a job. Any ideas welcomed. That's it. I hope it's raining.
I went climbing with Heiner in Cape Range yesterday; down five or ten kilometres of Shothole Canyon Road, clouds of red dust boiling up behind us. We were like kids in a candy store - the rock is everywhere, the lines glowing on every bluff and every boulder, the cracks, caves, natural bridges, stalatites, tumbled stones, slabs and overhangs. No amount of indoor climbing ever really readies you for the real deal. Most of the rock is rotten, loose but razor-sharp; erosion whittles down the sand and leaves the steel. We found some really good stuff - halfway up the Oh Yeah! crack, where a broken handhold spun me into the spinifex grass... I'm still picking the splinters from my hands. Another, fantastic slab climb of ten metres - the scariest top-out I've ever done at about grade 17, then hanging upside down on the natural window in my scummy sneakers. There is an unbelievable amount of virgin rock in Cape Range. The flies feasting on my blood, sticky and black around my skinned ankle. I also took a pebble to the face when another handhold came loose under the strain and catapulted into my chin... but if you're not bleeding, then you're not climbing. This slogan is going to rank alongside
BOULDERING: BECAUSE WHO NEEDS FINGERTIPS?
when I come to make a fortune selling t-shirts.
So what next? I'm going to fly home in a few days. I'll see Uncle Rich, Banks, Dancing Phil and maybe even that miserable hound Tim in London; then I suppose take the train north to Inverness to see Mum and Dad and the dog and the cats. I should really stop in Oxford, Chester, Stoke, Lancaster, Liverpool, Durham, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Abernethy and Aberdeen on the way; so if anyone can work out how, let me know.
I have no plan other than climbing outdoors once a week. I need a job. Any ideas welcomed. That's it. I hope it's raining.
posted by real sly shady at
9:15 PM
11 Comments:
It is raining, has been for a couple of weeks. Meant to stop by the weekend though, which i'm sure you'll be thrilled about.
Looking forward to seeing you big guy.
I'm looking forward to seeing you too!
You'll probably find a certain amount of rain with us in Inverness and it's usually 4 or 5 degrees cooler than London!!
Take care on the way home.
Much love
xx
get ready for a big hug and a knee to the balls, london style.
Why would you hug his balls?
If you don't know, then you're not meant to.
Right on buddy, looking forward to seeing you (on the wrong side of the track). Al's moving out of my place at the beginnig of june, and he has successfully created a 2nd bedroom of sorts so if you're looking for a place to stay for a bit, there's room enough, with a bit of climbing and cricket thrown in if you fancy. you will also receive a hug and a swift knee in the happysacks for your troubles!
Hey Sly, I can heartily encourage a trip to Liverpool, especially if you could arrange to be coming through on, ohhh, I don't know, the 23rd of May? That would guarantee a good night out watching the pinacle of football play AC Milan, with added Wall bonus!
Say it'll be so...
Well, I'm not sure. Do you plan on kneeing me in the ghoulies as well?
I always thought it was "goolies"? When do you fly back then sport?
I can confirm that I have not intention of kneeing you in either the 'goolies' or 'ghoulies'. To be quite frank, I'm slightly perplexed with this fascination with your nether regions. I can only assume that the next time I see you it will become apparant. Although I rather hope not.
You'd better make it sonny, it'll be acest.
I'm not sure the spelling matters a great deal when you're curled up on the ground and wishing, just for those few moments, that the world might end.
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