Cragging at Wanaka

September 30th-October 2nd



Friday evening I cooked up a dinner to go, and enjoyed it on the road in Steve’s huge old 4-wheel-drive SUV packed between Dan (NZ climber from the gym, real mechanic sort of guy) and Tim (German guy who just arrived to NZ) in back, with Steve and Paul in the front. We were headed to Wanaka-a popular climbing area that has some crags next to the road to provide enjoyment for even the laziest sport climber (basically like Rumney, minus the lines of people-NZ doesn’t have a big enough population for that); with views of Aspiring National Park to soak in as you enjoy your victory atop some of the crags.

We arrived at the camp ground probably around 9:00. There we met up with Debbie (Otago PhD student who studied Keas for her masters and now ducks; pretty awesome and hilarious woman who soon became my workout partner at the gyms), Tim (Debbie’s fiancé-well now husband as of December 10th, been climbing since he was like 5 or 10 years old-needless to say, a strong climber), Dave (once a very strong climber who’s decided to take a more relaxed approach to climbing, while taking up fishing; I’m now in a race with him to lead a 25 (5.12aish) clean-he’s climbed it before, but not since his changed approach to climbing and his scale reading 10kg higher), and Anni Ka (Dave’s partner who was from Germany but is determined to live in NZ).

Next morning, after a slow start (everyone must have their stove-top made coffee before anything happens) we headed to the crags with eyes to the forbidding clouds above. We managed to sneak in 4 climbs before the sky started to fall lightly. We thought it would pass, so waited down the road at an overhanging rock. While the others brewed themselves some fresh coffee, Dan and I had fun working an overhanging boulder problem before it was completely soaked. By then we accepted the fact that climbing outdoors was not going to happen that afternoon and headed back into town. We made a short stop at this recycle shop, an indoor climbing gym (too expensive for most of us, and too touristy, so we only left Dan and Paul behind there), and then headed to The pub. It’s actually one of the oldest pubs in NZ (not saying too much, compared to US or Europe), from the gold rush days, and a classic place to go. There we enjoyed a couple of drinks in a dim, candlelit corner (kind of LOTR’s feeling) before heading to back to pick up Paul and Dan, and then back to the site for dinner. There we set up a tarp to eat under and brewed up some mulled wine (I wouldn’t recommend using gara masala as your spice of choice for this; Paul was in a bit of a rush when he packed it).

Next day was another slow start, but early in the morning, fog and drizzle are not a huge motivator to get out of bed on a climbing trip; an hour or two later I woke with a start to find the sun breaking up the clouds and blue skies making an appearance. We enjoyed a lovely day in the sun on the crags before heading back home in the evening.

We had a slight delay on the way back-stopped at about 8:00 in a small town for gas with the indicator on empty (in a diesel car), only to find that gas station had closed at like 7:00. Luckily in small towns everyone knows everyone, so from the pub we called up the gas station owner who reopened the gas station for a fee. We decided then to just enjoy dinner there and watch the All Blacks rugby game at the pub before we continued our way home.

October 7-9th

Another climbing trip to Wanaka that was far more successful on the climbing front-weather was basically perfect the whole time. Two full days of climbing-quite satisfying, despite having homework to work on in the evenings. Finally managed to get on some hard sport climbs and lead the hardest I’ve ever led clean (first try too! beautiful flash). Led an easier climb too that had its own excitement-it was a chimney and about half way up I almost grabbed a bird’s nest with a very big and very live baby chick-I became a wee-bit afraid that it was a hawk’s baby and I’d have the parents dive-bombing me. Luckily it turned out to be just a wood pigeon. The parents just squawked at us a bit and flew by.

The week following I lived at the computer finishing my 2 big English papers-one on setting up a large scale composting program for the Otago University’s housing (fingers crossed it actually makes a difference), and another on why people do high risked activities like mountaineering (there’s actually so much information on the subject and I’m afraid I didn’t have the space or time to cover nearly as much as I would have liked. But if you think I’m crazy for what I do and want to know what could possibly be the rationale behind why people do these things, I’ll happily send you the paper).