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General Climbing Discussion

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22-Nov-2007 At 3:55:58 PM prb

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I should put my day with Henry last week on the record...

This was the day of Henry's Adelaide talk. He'd driven from Araps to Victor Harbor the day before to 1. see little (aka fairy) penguins - tick! and 2. climb at the (granite) Bluff because he liked seacliffs. The weather was typically South Australian - perfect.

We started on The Pleasure Dome, I would think the world's best 4m grade 14. You could boulder it but you wouldn't want to come off. Then down to Baudin which Henry ran out from the crack up to the slabby middle bit. He decided to clip a bolt and continue up the LHF (17). Over to Richard's Route (18), another crack/slab. He thought the runnout finish to the original route on slightly less-than-perfect granite was a little brash so opted for the bolt and the LHF, as most do in my experience. I pointed out the infamous slab climb just to the R, Hopes in Slopes (22), but Henry hadn't packed his skyhooks. In any event, my instructions were to not allow Henry on that one, at least not before he'd given his talk!

We finished down on Bandaid Wall, a place most avoid but the sight of all the cracks got Henry's moustache twitching. He onsighted Bandaid (20), a Col Reece wide-hands testpiece from the 70's which Henry described as technical. It was too technical for me, and I need to go back and practise some of Henry's tips. We finished on c--kles and Muscles (19) which Henry thought, if anything, was tougher than Bandaid.

Henry announced he'd only ever seen one koala, in '75, and was very keen to see another. Therefore, en route to the talk, we took a detour to Chambers Gully and walked 20m up the track. Henry saw his second koala. So it was a top day with a good bloke, quite a buzz actually.