A Bit of Monkeying Around

Three days in the City was more than enough for Fred to be all rested up and itching to get his hands on some rock. Unfortunately, Susy was called on at the last minute to work Saturday night and I was then left to manage the Fred show solo for a couple of days. Both anxious to get out of the City, and with some of his vagueness rubbing off on me, I just chucked a bunch of stuff in the van and we hit the road. We drove most of the way to the Grampians before pulling off the highway to bivy on a small dirt road amidst the canola fields. Having done so at least a few times before, Fred rolled out the door into the grass and was asleep before I could make my bed in the back of the van.

The next morning we spun over to Summerday Valley, on the northern edge of the Grampians, and did a couple of pitches of climbing. Fred hasn't done any rock climbing since he fell off a horse a few months back and was a bit nervous about how he was going to feel but was looking plenty solid on the steep 5.6 that we did and totally stoked to be back out moving around in the vertical.

"Australia!"

"Some of these guys are doing all this 5.12, Moonlight Buttress stuff and I just can't keep up with them. And you know, I don't want to either."

Susy came out on Monday morning with our friend Tom, a motorcycle racing engineer in country for the Grand Prix. Before they showed up, Fred and I got three more pitches in; one of which he led, feeling a bit more confident.

Next up: some monkeying at "Mt." Arapiles to find out what Fred likes better and what he wants to do some more of. We'd like to head up to Moonarie in South Australia but it could be getting a bit hot up that way so might just hang out here for awhile and then over to Mt. Buffalo for a granite fix.