Bright Air - Barry Maitland [27]
One evening at the pub the others made plans to head out of the city for a weekend climbing in the Watagans National Park north of Sydney, and I found myself included in the arrangements, as if this was now a natural assumption. We set off early the next Saturday morning in two cars up the F3 freeway, me in the back of Marcus’s with Curtis and Owen, and the girls with Damien in a four-wheel drive he’d borrowed from his parents. Marcus’s driving was as erratic as his veering walk, and we were thrown about a bit on the ancient cracked leather seats. He revealed that one of his many areas of interest was old pubs, in one of which, a grandly verandaed Federation hotel in the Hunter Valley coalfields, he had booked us rooms.
We turned off the freeway into the bush, and as the road turned into a dirt track, winding higher and higher into thick forest, I became apprehensive. This was the first real climbing that I’d done with them all, and I hoped I was up to it. I wasn’t much comforted by Curtis and Owen’s assurances that, although we were heading for the largest crag in the park, the climbing would be moderate and the routes short at around only twenty metres. What was twenty metres, after all, compared with six hundred on the DNB? The equivalent of a six- or seven-storey building, that was all. I felt my palms go sweaty, and wondered if it wouldn’t be better to be a non-participant like Marcus, and spend the day with him drinking in the bar of the Hibernian Hotel. Curtis added that unfortunately most of the climbs had been assisted with permanent bolts fixed into the rock, which seemed an excellent idea to me but not to the others, who tended to be purists on this question. Moreover, many of the bolts weren’t the modern stainless steel sort glued into place, he said, but old mild steel types hammered into lead, and liable to pull out without warning. Also, I should be wary of the sandstone rock face itself, which could be a bit crumbly. I said thanks.
We reached the car park in thick bush at the base of the crag and tumbled out of the cars, taking in big lungfuls of the fresh forest air, the others loud and cheerful at the prospect of the day ahead. It seemed that Marcus wasn’t going to spend the time in the bar after all, but had brought a folding seat and table as well as a bag of gear, including a camera with tripod and assorted zoology field equipment. We got these out of the boot and set them up for him, then changed our shoes, strapped on our harnesses and helmets, and shared out the wedges, carabiners and slings that would secure us and our ropes to the rock face as we climbed. Then we took the track up the slope to the base of the cliff. Along the way we disturbed a wallaby, as black as the fire-charred tree ferns in the bush around us. It hurtled away down the hill, weaving and bounding among the rocks.
We came to the crag, and the others selected the pitch, three parallel routes to the top of a cliff creased with cracks and wrinkles like an ancient petrified brown face. I had hoped I might climb with Luce, but it quickly became apparent that I was to be paired with Damien, which I saw made sense, for we were about the same weight and strength.
He said he’d lead for the first half of the climb, and I took my stance as his second at the foot of the crag, paying out his rope while he worked his way steadily upward. After five metres or so he jammed a wedge into a crack in the rock,