Tuesday, May 14, 2013

same old John Dory

Grampians, Round II


We spent the from Wednesday til Monday on another awesome rock climbing camping trip with a great group of friends field lab for our rock climbing unit.

Unfortunately, the Grampians and outdoor Guru wrecked his shoulder while mountain biking a few weeks ago and wasn't able to accompany us on our trip, so we got a chance to meet the Outdoor Ed course coordinator: Coxy. Another grrrrrrrreat bloke. He seemed to be a little bit more up-tight and tough than Guru... until we got on the bus to find Skrillex along with other various dub-step and clubbing beats blasting from his iPod and heard stories about how he used to have dreadlocks and work in the craziest club in Melbourne. Since he is the course coordinator this time 'round our trip was a little more on task and focused on more educational aspects, which was a nice change and made for a different sort of experience all together!

Seeing as though our last trip in mid-March was frrrreeeeezing cold and left us hoping we didn't freeze overnight I didn't exactly pack lightly this time around. 4 pairs of pants, 4 pairs of wool socks, 3 sweaters, a jacket, hat, scarf, while laughing at the one pair of shorts I threw in "just in case"... only to find the weather to be unnaturally hot during the days along with mild nights that required stripping clothes off to avoid sweating. It was excellent!


This trip consisted of less climbing than the last, which is probably a good thing because we would have been absolutely knackered after 6 days of climbing at the same rate we did on the last trip. This time we did some climbing and abseiling along with learning how to set-up an anchor system to climb on, sleeping in a cave, creating our own path through a full grown bush to climb up and spend a rainy afternoon in a small cave that probably no one has ever been in, checking out an aboriginal cultural centre, making s'mores (courtesy of some good Canadian marshmellows sent over by my mumma), and countless games of mafia around the campfire! To wrap up the trip we wrote our exam in our camping chairs in a circle under the roof of our group tarp which later turned into our sleeping shelter... not quite the UWO examination standards we're accustomed to, let's just say that...

Here are some pictures to sum it all up:

















Another amazing experience to add to the list! I'm now into week 11 out of 12 of school and things are wrapping up pretty hectically... still have three assignments due, three tests next Wednesday, another test Thursday or Friday and my online exam the following week. Yikes? Nah... The most stressful thing is going to be saying goodbye to everyone.

The rock climbing gang have showed me a grouse time and I'm definitely going to miss them all. Cheers mates!



Sincerely,
AUS



No comments:

Post a Comment