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General Climbing Discussion

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What got you started? 25-Feb-2011 At 12:34:03 PM gfdonc

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I was seconded (in form 4) to help on some school camps, that were being run at first by Ian Barr and later his older brother Neil. I was helping them launch form 1 and 2 kids down abseils, made more comfortable with the advent of CMI figure 8's. I still remember Neil showing me the hammer marks on the inside of an italian-made 8.

During some spare time we found some climbs near the abseil zone and top-roped them. Later the Barr Brothers ran an Arapiles trip for some members of the school bushwalking club, and I was in.

We drove to Arapiles one Friday via a stop for fish&chips at George's (do I remember correctly?) in Ballarat. When we got to Araps it was dark, and we pitched camp by the stars.
I had no idea of scale in the dark. I recall gazing at the Bluffs by starlight from my tent door, thinking "That's nice. A 70-foot cliff that's only a short stroll away". When the sun came up the next morning I was gobsmacked.