I have been putting off writing anything for some time now because of the total dive my mood went through after I arrived in Tasmania. I got half a days climbing done in a week, spent most of my time remembering Billie and became pretty despondent. I guess I have moved on into a flagrant attitude of casting around for some sort of replacement intimacy with generally negative fallout on all fronts. Thankfully the weather has been better and I started a slightly more healthy approach to life with a good deal of climbing on local crags and then went to Hillwood where I had an amazing day of sport climbing and remembered again what it is to love climbing enough that everything else ceases to be important.
The grades in Tasmania, I have been discovering, are somewhat unbalanced! Broadly speaking they seem to be 1 grade harder than in Victoria but there are also a fair number of climbs that leave one wondering if the grade was chosen in the same kind of whimsical manner as the name.
As I write this, I have just arrived back from a trip to Freycinet, 3 days which have left me with a grin wide enough to wrap round my head. Beautiful granite sea cliffs and warm clear ocean were the order of the day and the group from the university that I went with were a lot of fun to climb with. I even ticked off swimming butt naked in the ocean amongst the fish (sadly no dolphins). With a pair of goggles, the view under the water was awesome and, while no coral reef, the fish, kelp and rock were more than enough to get me excited. By the time I finally decided it was time to get out I had a hard time of it and discovered I couldn't really walk any more and shivered uncontrollably for about half an hour in the bright sunshine!
The weather forecast shows wall to wall good conditions for the coming week so I hope to get plenty more climbing done before being forced back to a rude and bitter reunion with the tail end of the Scottish winter.
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