The hospital rocks

...or so Climber Boy tells me, enthusiastically.

I'm thinking - why would a hospital rock, and why is CB waxing lyrical about it.

Hospital Rocks, Nowra.

Hospital Rocks, it turns out, is a smallish sandstone cliff right next to the Shoalhaven District Memorial Hospital in Nowra, NSW, along the banks of the Shoalhaven River. The hospital road runs alongside the top of the cliff and the river runs about 100m from the base of the cliff. The cliff itself is 10-15m high and near-vertical.

It's roughly on the way home from Point Perp and a good place to hang out when Point Perp is blowing a gale, as it has all weekend. There are a couple of routes that CB has decided should be within my capacity, and so that's where we head at the end of our weekend at Point Perp. Just when the menacing roar of the thousand-headed fire-breathing monster appeared to be diminishing as we departed Point Perp, I now find myself spying tell-tale plumes of rancid smoke emanating from the scrub below the road.

The vast majority of climbs around Nowra are sports climbs, meaning that steel bolts have been anchored into the rock wall for climbers to clip their rope into, instead of using the more traditional method of inserting protective gear themselves as they climb. There are distinct factions of "sports" versus "trad" climbers.

It's a 2 minute walk from the car to the base of the cliff. We're surrounded by lovely coastal scrub and the river glistens invitingly beyond and a little below us. The path along the base of the cliff is well worn - this is a popular crag for after-work and lunchtime visits by Nowrites.

A quickdraw clips a climbing rope to an anchor bolt while
allowing the rope to run freely.

The multitude of bolt lines tracking up the cliff face, which climbers have been installing here since the 1980s, is evidence of the richness of climbing potential that this rocky wall offers. CB identifies one of the few lower grade routes, which is a grade 11 called Uncle Udfuddy (...who knows!?) and 15m high. I watch him deftly placing hands and feet into the sandstone pockets as he climbs steadily up the wall, clipping the rope to each bolt via a quickdraw as I belay from ground level. At the top he loops the rope through the top bolts via some magical Chinese puzzle of slings and carabiners that enables him to untie the rope from his harness whilst remaining safely anchored, and I lower him to the ground.

Climbing shoes on, rope secured to harness, and this time I'm managing to avoid the need for a last-minute bolt into the scrub, toilet paper and trowel in hand. I step up to the base of the wall and look up. And up. And up. The vertical wall towers above me and blots out the sky beyond. All those crevices, ridges and pockets that seemed so obvious, and even inviting, when CB found purchase on them, have mysteriously vanished. Dragon scales - they lie flat when you're looking to haul on them, only to jut back out like knife blades when you want to pass over them.

A climber at Nowra shows how it's
done on a sandstone wall.

The mass of wall looms ominously and blankly in front of me, and I'm totally overwhelmed by the impossibility of the task at hand. How? Why, even?? One mighty roar from that dragon of doom and I'm straight back into ICDI land.

"Just give it a go, sweetheart!" CB encourages me.

I have no idea what to do with this goddam wall, except walk away from it as quickly as possible. It's vertical, blank, hard rock that isn't talking to me in any language that I can interpret, and I'm feeling more and more demoralised by the experience.

CB has a few more goes at pushing me into any kind of vertical action, and eventually decides that discretion is the better part of valour. I can see that he's unimpressed as much as bemused. It doesn't help.

To be fair, I'm as perplexed as he is. I have no idea why this climbing thing is so difficult for me, nor why my mind so readily goes into meltdown. The weather feels too hot, my brain feels too sleep deprived, I'm hypoglycemic and menopausal, and basically I just can't seem to get it happening.

I lie down on a big flat slab of sandstone at the base of the cliff and gaze incomprehensibly up at that 15m wall. CB has gone off to investigate other routes more suited to his skill level, as I doze off in the afternoon heat. I dream of a huge pair of dark-skinned arms that come out from either side of the rocky slab on which I'm lying and wrap me up in comfort and security. They hold me firmly as I sleep, and when I wake, I have a very vague sense of some huge rock spirit having come and given me its craggy blessings.

Point Perp

It's the Australia Day long weekend and my loving partner and I decide to head to the coast. I'm learning about the traditional milestones in the Canberra climber's calendar: long weekends are devoted to coastal trips (Point Perpendicular, Nowra and the like) while the Easter destination is typically the Blue Mountains, on account of the weather.

Australia Day (26 January) commemorates the establishment of the first European settlement at Port Jackson, now part of Sydney, in 1788. The Australian Indigenous folk refer to it as Invasion Day. For climbers, it's a rare opportunity to spend three nights camping (and three full days climbing rather than the usual two) at "The Point".

Trespassers will be blown up

Point Perpendicular is at the tip of the Beecroft Peninsula, which forms the northern headland of Jervis Bay in south-eastern Australia. A large part of the peninsula is under the administration of the Royal Australian Navy for use as a live-firing range. For this reason, access to this part of the peninsula is restricted at certain times: the gravel road leading to the Point is open only from the Friday night to the Sunday evening of normal weekends, and during NSW public/school holidays; the rest of the time it's closed to the public because of Naval gunnery training exercises.

During summer months, Point Perp is a popular weekend camping destination for Sydney-ites. There are two main camping areas on the Beecroft Peninsula and Climber Boy (CB) is aiming for the more picturesque of the two, which is right on the road to the lighthouse (which is where the climbs are) - Honeymoon Bay. Sounds suitably romantic to me!

Honeymoon Bay on the Beecroft Peninsula. Photo by Chris Grounds.

Unfortunately, on this long weekend, a multitude of city folk have had the same bright idea and by the time we get there on Friday night all the designated Honeymoon Bay campsites are taken. The security guard at the boom gate on the lighthouse road won't let us in at this late hour. He eyes our vehicle and quietly asks - "Would you be sleeping in your van?" We reply in the affirmative, not sure whether or not - in so doing - we might be dashing our hopes of some stealth camping somewhere nearby. Instead, he very kindly directs us to a small picnic ground near the beach, a small way back up the highway. "Be discrete!" he advises.

A narrow sandy track through the scrub leads from the highway into a small, secluded gravel car park surrounded by a treated pine log barrier, beyond which is a very tidy-looking grassy picnic ground with timber tables and bench seats. In the headlamps, we can see walking tracks leading off into the scrub and no doubt down to the ocean beach that's beyond the scrub. With windows unwound, we can just hear the surf over the sound of what is now quite a stiff ocean breeze, as it whooshes through the surrounding eucalypts and tea-tree. It's starting to drizzle.

Van life rocks

One of the joys of van life is that you can cook, eat, sleep and house all your worldly goods under cover no matter where or when you pull up. And so it is that we park the van in a flat corner of the car park, and I dive into bed while CB cooks and eats his dinner on the small camping stove, in the shelter of the raised tailgate. The wind is now roaring above the treetops and every now and then blows a gust-worth of drizzle into our shelter, but all is good in the world.

Soon enough we see headlights coming into the car park, and another van cruises in. The driver discreetly parks in another corner, at a van-approved distance away from us, and he and passenger follow much the same routine as we did - set up bed, cook dinner under shelter of tailgate.

CB is looking over to our van neighbour and suddenly exclaims - "Hey David!!" I am constantly amazed at the vastness of CB's network of friends and acquaintances. It's a climbing world thing, I'm quickly discovering. The other van, it turns out, contains friends of CB's (another "Climber Couple"), also looking to do some climbing at The Point over the long weekend. CB and his mate chinwag for a while and rumble on about the virtues of Van Life, Climbing Girlfriends, and Mont brand camping lanterns. The general consensus is that the weather is looking shite but hopefully will clear by tomorrow.

The wind, she did howl

Sunshine reigns supreme the next morning and there's a gale force easterly wind roaring over the peninsula. We break camp and head for The Point itself, at the southern-most tip of the peninsula, and where the historic lighthouse is located atop sheer sandstone cliffs that tower 60-80 metres above the ocean.

Point Perpendicular, Jervis Bay. Photo by Chris Grounds.

"Only" the top half of the cliff face is suitable for climbing, however, as the lower 40-50m is made up of "tottering choss stacks" that are impossible to get a solid hand or foot hold onto, or protective climbing gear into. The top half of the cliff, by contrast, is solid rock and is characterised by famed “Point Perp pockets” (formed from erosion of brachiopod fossils), which simply beg for hand, foot and gear placement.

There are hundreds of gazetted climbs on the Point Perp cliff face, all conveniently graded by level of difficulty so that you know (approximately) how much of a challenge you've committed to in climbing back up, once you've launched yourself over the edge via your abseil rope.

Climbers talk about the level of "exposure" that characterises a cliff - that's the empty space below a climber; usually the distance a climber is above the ground or large ledge, or the psychological sense of this distance due to being unprotected by climbing gear, or because the rock angles away due to climbing an arête (sharp outward facing corner on a steep rock face) or overhang. It turns out that one of the big attractions that Point Perp holds for climbers world-wide is its exposure levels, which have been described as somewhere between "plenty" and "totally mindblowing"! ...you don't say!!

On this fine, sunny morning, CB and I venture out of the lighthouse car park and head towards the cliffs. Quaint little signs abound, warning ordinary folk of the surrounding dangers. But we're climbers, so we don't count.

Closer to the cliffs we find a tall cyclone fence and more warning signs. But we're climbers, and fences certainly won't stop us! The well-worn track winding its way past the signs and around  the fence is attest to that.

Now we're wandering along the top of the cliffs, with vast ocean views beyond what appears to be a perfect right-angle between the cliff top and face. I marvel at the confidence and assuredness with which CB strolls within inches of the edge. I keep myself well aback. Thankfully the massively strong wind is coming off the ocean and ripping up the cliff face, helping me to maintain a comfortable distance between myself and that sharp right-angled edge. All the same, it looks like a hairily spooky place altogether, and in between gusts of howling wind I start to hear the familiar echoes of the thousand-headed monster, taunting me from some place in the future.

Upward drafts can help climbers!

To my relief (obvious or otherwise), CB declares the day to be too windy for climbing. In fact at some stage we lie ourselves face down right at the cliff edge, surveying the ocean swell below. CB is pointing out some of the climbs he has done in the past, up some of the impossibly blank-looking walls that drop vertically from beneath our noses. I pick up a small rock and idly plop it over the edge ... it floats quiveringly out from the cliff edge but doesn't drop at all, held perfectly aloft by the raging updraft. After some seconds it floats gently back towards me, bumps into the cliff face, and bounces back over the void as if held aloft by an invisible string. I watch this small rock do a series of floats and bounces across the cliff face, level with my nose at the edge of the cliff, until gravity finally wins and the small rock sweeps off towards the ocean way below.

Quite fun, really! I've found a cliff-top version of skipping stones on flat water. The scientist in me now takes over and I start experimenting with different rock sizes and applying varying degrees of throwing force so that the rock falls further from the cliff face. I discover an optimum rock size / throwing force ratio that effects the "floating rock" phenomenon. CB ups the ante and picks up a dried out branch from the nearby scrub. He hurls it over the edge and the wind picks it up and hurls it back with even greater force, making it spin over our prostrate forms and land 10m or so behind us. Good one CB!

White-Bellied Sea Eagle

With climbing off the agenda, we head off looking for more "sedate" entertainment: a delightful bike ride to Currarong, on the western (ocean) side of the Beacroft Peninsula, some slack-line practice back at camp with CB's friends and a sociable German family travelling by van up and down the east Australian coast, and some lovely ocean swimming at our largely private beach. There's a photographer guy there (who also arrives in a van) taking pictures of the local sea eagle by throwing it fish and shooting it as it comes to claim its "prey".

PTS without the D

"Emotional anaesthesia" is known to be a common symptom of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and is typically characterised by a numbing of the positive feelings of joy and love, but not the anxious feelings of fear and dread.

My brain seems to have mastered, without any apparent effort on my part, the knack of experiencing a modified version of this symptom of Post-Traumatic Stress, thereby turning it into a useful phenomenon rather than it being a Disorder. PTS without the D, if you like. If I could bottle this sort of habit I'd likely be one rich gal. But I can't, so I'm not.

It's a very curious thing that, after any traumatic experience and no matter how earth-shatteringly terrified or upset I was, my brain tends to perform some sort of reverse emotional anaesthesia - I forget the traumatic side of the equation without necessarily losing the whole plot, enabling me to re-script an event to better serve me. And so it is that the thousand-headed monster that scares the daylights out of me on the rock face, disastrously compelling as it is at the time, simply vanishes no sooner am I completely safe from the possibility of any further trauma - generally this is when I'm either back in the car and on my way outa there, or if the weather turns foul, or when some vital piece of equipment has been forgotten, or there's been some irreparable injury to either me or my climbing buddy. 

This nifty little brain turn leaves me with a memory of events without a re-living of the trauma. And the happy consequence of this scenario is that my mind is now at liberty to analyse the activity and give my inner Problem Solver free reign to come up with pathways to better outcomes. My innate sense of Curiosity comes out to play, also. And my natural tendency towards Obsessive Thinking replays the event in its improved format, over and over, whether I want it to or not.

Windsurfing my way through boring lectures

Not me!! But close...

In my 20s I taught myself to windsurf in this way. After many a tiring, frustrating weekend session at the beach spent mostly pulling my arms out of their sockets whilst uphauling on the rig, on weekdays I'd sit through a boring University lecture looking for all the world as if I were intently listening, whereas I was actually visualising myself in the act of the perfect beach start followed by numerous exhilarating tacks across the waters interleaved with graceful jibe turns. Invariably, my next weekend session on the board would see my windsurfing skills (if not my capacity to pass end-of-year University exams) miraculously improved.

After each day of climbing, and from the relative safety of distance from the crag, my inner Problem Solver takes my inner Curiosity by the hand and starts weaving new and interesting threads. My mind focuses on and replays bodily sensations that worked in my favour on the rock face - the sense of balance and body tension between contact points on the rock, the grippiness of my climbing shoes and chalked fingers, fingers and toes working the rock topography, flexing leg and arm muscles as I move from one hold to the next. The fearsome dragon is safely ensconced in its cave, and I'm free to dance a merry tune.

And so it is that within a few days of my first tentative little climb, my close encounter with the thousand-headed monster of fear and subsequent melt-down, I'm actually looking forward to having another go, and then another, and then another...

There's a dragon following me, Auntie

As if it's not enough to have terrified me to a trembling mass on the face of a boulder 15m above ground, I find the dragon is now flapping about my head all the way home from The Cloisters.

CB would like me to climb some more but all I can hear, see, smell, taste is the fire-breathing dragon of fear. CB patiently packs up all the climbing gear and we head back up the lovely bush track to the car park. My head is buzzing. Flap flap flap goes that dragon, its wings buffeting my head. An all-too familiar chant starts in my mind, like an old mantra, in time with my foot fall:

"I can't do it"
"I'm not good enough"
"I can't do it"
"I'm not good enough"
"I'm not good enough"
"I'm not good enough"
...

It's such a well-worn mental path of mine that I've abbreviated it to a pair of acronyms - ICDI and INGE. Cousin Icdi - "I Can't Do It" and Auntie Inge - "I'm Not Good Enough" occupy my brain waves each and every time my Inner Critic gets an upper hand and reminds me of my pervasive perceived failings.

Cousin Icdi and Auntie Inge came with the cows

Summer 1966, Alpi Marittime - the alps that border Italy and France in the Piemonte region of north-western Italy. Just short of my third birthday, my parents and I are enjoying a walk in a high mountain field full of daisies, lush pasture and ... cows. Piemontese dairy cows.

My babbo is a passionate photographer. He sees photo opportunities absolutely everywhere. He sees big, fat dairy cows peacefully standing around or lying in a high mountain pasture, chewing cud or happily grazing. He thinks it would be cute to snap his lovely little daughter patting a lying down cow while it munches lazily.

I see an enormous mass that's heaving, stinking and glaring at me as I approach. Its reclining form all but obliterates the sky.

Babbo's instruction is clear: "Go and pat that cow while I take your picture."

I'll do anything for my babbo.

I creep towards a recumbent cow. It peers at me. I inch closer. The cow is now glaring at me. I inch a bit further. Suddenly the cow is up and out of there.

"Try another one!" calls my babbo.

I look around, find another suitably reclining cow. Inch my way across. Carefully. A bit unsure, this time.

The cows have me figured out by now - this one jumps up and wanders off when I'm only half way to it, leaving me standing alone in the lush pasture and staring at its departing creamy-coloured, angular, grass-stained rump.

Babbo is starting to get impatient.

"Come on, it's not that hard. Try that one over there. Hurry up."

I have another go, this time only halfheartedly. I know the drill by now and so do the cows. I creep over, cow stands up and is gone, babbo grouches at me more firmly.

I'm now in tears, and my babbo gives up on his photo opportunity. He's exasperated. I'm three years old and I'm shattered.

Hello Cousin ICDI and Auntie INGE.

Smooth Dancer

Dragon eyes are peering at me and hot breath is wafting my way. My nose wrinkles and I'm starting to sweat.

My beloved's well-meaning friends have dug out a spare pair of old climbing shoes for me - this time they almost fit - and He himself presents me with his spare harness. I'm wondering how many other (more worthily adept) womanly hips these straps have hugged, and what fate might have befallen their owners.

I'm stalling. The dragon breathes slowly, patiently awaiting its prey. The weather is too hot for much vigorous outdoor activity.

The hills are much cooler, He assures me. Let's go!

Rabbit-Ear Rocks on Orroral Ridge.

We head to Orroral Ridge. The bush-walk to The Cloisters is lovely - bird twitters almost obliterate the panting dragon in the back of my mind as I follow Himself along the windy bush track. Walking pleasantly past granite boulders that tower 20-30m above our heads. Great monoliths peacefully resting their gigantic weight atop the ridge. Dinosaur eggs. Dragon eggs ...

I'm just as happy to keep on walking, walking, walking. My backpack, however, holds a 50m 9.5mm climbing rope and various sturdy slings, plus "my" harness, rather than provisions for a lengthy amble through the forest. I'm "the second" - the rope bitch. Dragon's intestines.

Aspiration more than actuality.

I'm now also the shakily proud owner of my own set of climbing shoes! Scarpa Thunders, no less.They're purple. They're so tight, they hurt. They're meant to hurt. My beloved picked them out carefully at the outdoor adventure store and expertly supervised the fitting process. He also paid for them, the loving soul!

Climbing shoes are so grippy they'll stick to the most unbelievably steep rock slope and still hold your weight. So they're an essential part of the climber's kit.

My beloved Climber Boy - CB for short - has led us down to the base of a granite slab that slopes gracefully away from where we stand, for about 20m. Two rocky edges are discernible on either side, and it's the left one of these that my beloved focuses his attention on. It's a popular beginner's route known as Smooth Dancer.

I'm feeling neither smooth nor dance-like. There be dragons up there, I'm positive.

So the idea is to steadily walk up the face of this big Mother Fcuker of a boulder whilst bending forward and jamming your fingers under the edge of the left side flake. This onward pressure, I'm told, helps your feet to stick. Oh, and while you're doing that, you have to stop every now and then and remove the protective gear (...dragon scales...) that the lead climber (CB) has placed under the edge of the big flake, and through which the rope passes and is thereby anchored to the rock. That's the rope that my harness is tied to and on which my life depends if I skid off.

My first rock climb since the 80s: Smooth Dancer, along the left crack to the apex and then a bit beyond.

CB hangs a plethora of protective gear from his harness and knots one end of the rope to his harness' centre loop. He shows me how to belay him - perhaps in some later post I'll describe the set-up, but basically it's a way of me (his second) holding him aloft, anchored off the topmost piece of protective gear that he has placed into the rock, in the event of him taking a fall. Which is hardly likely given that this is a Grade 9 climb and he customarily climbs Grade 18 and above. Anyhow, you never know your bad luck and I need to learn how to belay.

CB pads up, smoothly, like a dancer, while I feed out the rope, and then he briefly disappears from view at the top. After a while he calls down to me and, on command, I lower him back to the ground via the rope.

My turn. The thousand-headed dragon of fear towers above me, exhaling scorching flames and putrid smoke. It glares at me with its blood-shot eyes and licks me with its slimy forked tongue. I'm trembling trembling trembling. I have a sudden need to evacuate my bowels. CB is looking at me somewhat perplexed as I undo my harness and beat a hasty retreat with trowel and toilet paper in hand.

Back again, feeling gutted. Harness back on. Climbing shoes done up tight. Feet throbbing painfully. I place my hands against the rock and it feels warmish in the late afternoon sun. Dragon's belly. Way above, a wedge-tailed eagle soars past, just visible beyond the apex of the granite slab. For what it's worth, I'm taking this as a good omen. Then I'm deafened by a dragon's ear-splitting roar. No, wait, that's my heartbeat.

Fingers under the rocky flake edge, feet on the slab. Pad up a little way. Hand over hand. Pad up some more. Left hand firmly against the flake, right hand fumbles with the first piece of climbing gear. Legs are starting to shake. The dragon has me by the feet, inexorably pulling me ground-wards. I hang on tight, hook the climbing piece into my harness, then pad up some more. The ground is getting further and further away from me and I'm keenly feeling the ever-increasing distance between body and apparent safety. Padding, padding, padding up, hand over hand on the flake, more gear out of the crack and onto my harness, dragon jaws snapping at my heels and tearing shreds from the backs of my calves. My muscles are screaming at me and I'm sure I'm bleeding all over the slab.

I've reached the apex. 15m or so above ground. I'm stuck. I dare not let go of the flake. CB's instructions are to follow the line of the flake to the apex, and then keep following the crack off to the left if I feel up to it. At the apex I meet the thousand-headed dragon in a full frontal; face-to-face combat on the slab, 15m plus above terra ferma, with both hands and feet glued to the rock. It opens its massive jaws and swallows me whole.

"Let me down!!!" I cry.

CB doesn't argue; he lowers me back to the ground and I back-step stiffly down the slab, returning to the horizontal plane in about 5 seconds. Then I'm sobbing and shaking and burying my face deep into CB's shoulder. For a full 20 minutes. The dragon burps, satisfied with its morsel, and twitches its scaly tail.

"Well done, sweetie!" Climber Boy is full of encouragement. "Great job, honey." I'm still sobbing and trembling. And I've totally had enough for the day.