Whitewater Tasmania

During the past year I have lost nearly all of my motivation for climbing in Tasmania. I've done pretty much all of the climbs I wanted to do here and those that are left are leaving me uninspired. I did take two climbing vacations - one to climb routes on Spanish limestone, the other to boulder in Grampians (post yet to come) - but I can tick off all my Tasmanian climbing excursions for the year without running out of fingers.

That said, I've not been Idle. Not for a long shot. In addition to finalizing my PhD, I've been dedicating a lot of my free time over the past 6 or 7 months into exploring the excellent whitewater that Tasmania has to offer...when it rains at least, which luckily for me has been a lot this season.  Over the past 8 years I pretty much gave up kayaking for climbing, but last year I was able to get out on a couple trips which showed me how good the rivers were here, and this year I've just really immersed myself in it. It's been my new focus for outdoor adventure and I've probably gotten out on more trips this year that anyone else in the state. Somewhere around 70 runs of class IV/V whitewater on more than 12 different rivers, all of which I would highly recommend.  Rivers like:

The North Esk, a local Launceston classic

The Cataract Gorge section of the South Esk, which literally is a 5 min walk from my house. Big drops and sometimes a big flows. 

The Nile River, a steep low volume creek with clean cold water that runs down a steep sided ravine off Ben Lomond. 

The Lake River, a ridiculously steep creek with a two or three km section that's got an average radiant of more than 1 in 10

And the Leven Canyon, a super classic wilderness run with some beautiful high canyon walls, cool rapids and two waterfalls which are compulsory to run do to the steep rock walls of the canyon. Once you've started, there's no turning back. 

I've been taking the GoPro out quite a lot on these adventures. It took a good number of trips before I got the hang of getting some footage that was worth anything, but I was able to piece together a short video from some of the more recent stuff that I've done mainly within the last 3 or 4 weeks. Enjoy-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lR7SKhjjHHM

Spanish boots

So back in July Leanne and I went to Spain. You'd think it wouldn't have taken me three and a half months to post something about it....but it did.

Anyway, the story starts with me getting some funding to attend a international conference for fish and shellfish immunology in Vigo (which is in on the northwest coast of the country just above Portugal) to give a talk and present a poster, as well as visit immunology laboratory at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. The overall  venue and talks at the conference were actually really good, and I got to make a few new European connections as well.

Following the conference , we drove across the north coast and then down the western side of the Pyrenees to do some rock climbing near the province of Lleda - one of the best and most popular limestone sport climbing areas in the world. On our way we made a few tourist stops, the first being to see the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. It was a pretty cool building, but some of the construction work did detract a bit from my picture taking.

After that we spent an afternoon in  San Sebastian eating at some delicious Tapas and checking out the old fortress,

followed by a nice drive down along the foothills of the Pyrenees.

Once we reached Lleda, our fist (and longest) climbing stop was at a place called Rodellar. I had been looking at pictures of the climbing in Rodellar for the last 10 years in climbing magazines and on the internet, and had heard some pretty amazing stories about it so I had pretty high expectations. They were not disappointed. This place was absolutely amazing - really quite and relaxed atmosphere, lots of good quality limestone, and some super steep yet climbable rock features that I've been really missing since my move to Tasmania.

I was severely out of climbing shape as a result of a finger injury and a complete lack of motivation for the climbing in Tasmania. So was Leanne (minus the finger injury part), but we still managed to have a really good time and climbed a good number of things. Unfortunately, I don't actually have any pictures of either of the two of us on the rock, but in my defense I had tired to set up the gopro on multiple occasions only to have the memory card completely fail about halfway through our trip. A bit aggravating particularly because I'm pretty sure I had some nice footage of me doing a climb called El Delfin, which is one of the most iconic in Rodellar and for good reason. I've included a couple photos of some other dudes climbing it to give you an idea.

It's technically not that hard on the grand scheme of things (7c+, although most people would still find it difficult) and I've heard some complaints about the sharpness of the holds, but for me and I would assume others who enjoy this climb it's all about the position.


After our stay in Rodellar, we checked out two other climbing areas: Paret de les Bruixes in Terradets and the main area at Tres Ponts. Both were amazing.

Then we finished our trip off in Barcelona. My lab visit at the AUB took up a couple days, but we still had a day to tour around the city. As we were a bit short on time, we did a quick walk down La Rambla (a very turisty strip), hiked up to Montjuic castle, rambled through the Gothic quarter, and finished off at the monster cathedral of La Familia.

As neither Leanne or I are really that much into city tourist stuff, we took our last morning before our flight home to drive up a mountain (Monserrat) not far outside the city to have a look around (there is suppose to be some good climbing up there, although we didn't do any) and see the old Benedictine Abby.

All in all it was a really good trip. Since I've been back, I've been trying to finish this damn dissertation but also have found a good bit of time to get out paddling on some of the really incredible rivers that Tasmania has to offer (at least when it rains, which it's been doing a fair bit of). I've taken out the Gopro a fair bit on thise excursions, so maybe that will be my next post. Till then-

Tenth Island Seal Dive

In the last post I has mentioned that I was hopefully going out to the dive at a seal colony on Tenth Island, a small spike of rock off the North Coast of Tasmania. Well, I went...twice...and they were both great dives. So good in fact that I would say they were probably the best (most enjoyable) dives I've ever done.

I think what ultimately puts these dives a notch above all the others for me was the interaction. The engagement rather than typical observation. Normally when I go out diving its more of like an underwater nature hike, maybe try and grab a lobster or abalone, but for the most part it's like looking through a window into a world that could care less about your existence. However the seals genuinely reciprocation the curiosity and offer some really amazing interactions.

They remind me a lot of well socialized terrestrial dogs in many of there mannerisms; which i found somewhat surprising considering they are totally wild creatures which could understandably be a lot less gentle or trusting. I did run into one grumpy bull that let me know I wasn't welcome in his personal space and I'd have to say a was fairly intimidated when he barked and mustered his 400 lbs or so into a charge. But even then it was a message rather than actual aggression as he simply stopped after giving me a good eyeing.

There was also a surprising amount of fish in the area as well,  including Port Jackson Sharks

Leather jackets and wrasse,

many more fish species I don't know the names of, and a really nice kelp forest on the east side of the island which I thoroughly enjoyed as I haven't ever had much experience with it before.

I of course took the gopro to shoot some video (which is also where most of the still images came from) and put together a short clip from the first trip we did.

I didn't bother doing the same for the second trip as it would have been somewhat redundant, but some of the other guys on that trip put clips together from their own footage that you can see here if your interested:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGSUd5fsMWM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbCI8sCP-bE


Additionally, Jon Bryan, who also went with us on these dive and was ultimately responsible for telling me about the place and organizing the trips, has an excellent underwater photography website with many great seal photos from this island as well as all over the world and can be seen here:

http://www.seanature.southcom.com.au/furseals1.htm#Sea


Until next time-

The Southwest

Hot and dry has been the theme of things around here lately. Some rumors of hottest and driest on record, certainly a lot of bush fires. Personally I haven't lived here long enough to really know what an average summer is like in these parts so its hard for me to comment one way or the other.

I like to think I can tolerate the heat all right, but I'm not exactly fond of it either. Truth be told, its kind of a kryptonite for me really - climbing feels hard, running feels hard, water sports would be alright....except for the dry part. So in such drastic circumstances I needed someplace to go for relief. I went to the Southwest.

In general, the soutwestern part of Tasmania boasts the most rugged and wettest country in the state and probably the country. The mountains provide a bit of respite from the heat and with a yearly rainfall tally well above the 2 meter mark (Yeah, that's right, I said between 6.5-9 feet of a rain a year) 'dry' becomes a more relative term. 

 So in the end of February I did a trip down to Mt. Fields with Leanne. We'd been to this national park previously to check out some of tall lowland trees and the waterfalls, but this time we headed up to the top of the mountain. There are some nice trails up there if you get good conditions. I understand a lot of the time you'd just be hiking around in a big cloud, but Leanne and I had some really nice weather and were able to get some great views of the surrounding landscape.

The next day we drove out toward the town of Strathgorden through more really nice country, 

went for a very short walk through some thick rain forest vegetation, 

found a nice swimming whole next to a pretty impressive log bridge, 

Saw where some of this Leatherwood honey comes from that's somewhat of a trademark down here,

and then drove out to check out a potential climbing area called Adamfield, aptly named for it's location in the Adamsfield conservation area on the eastern side of lake Gordon. I'd read a little about the place before and had been intrigued  There was suppose to be some hard climbs there that were really steep (always a plus), but the long drive, finicky weather, and potential for a locked gate at the start of the access road had always dissuaded me from having a look. However, as we were in the area, I figured I'd do some reconnaissance  and was not disappointed.  The place looked really good, some of the best stuff I'd seen in the state in fact, so I knew I'd have to make another tip back down to do some actual climbing. 

Two weeks later I'd russelled up a few climbing partners for a long weekend and back down I went, this time to climb. It ended up being really humid, still kinda hot, and I was a bit out of shape from not touching rock since late November, but we still managed to do a bunch of good moderate climbing in the 7a+ to 7b+ range. 

The area is really beautiful (if it's not raining) and I did give a couple harder things a few tries and would be quite excited to get back down there again to have a real crack. Unfortunately, its moving into a rainier season, so I'll just have to see how the weather plays out, but hopefully I might get one more tip in before winter. Still getting used to the gopro and editing software, but it's coming along I think. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNw5p58Oo-Y

Tomorrow morning  if the wind doesn't kick up to badly, Leanne and I have made plans to go and do a dive  at the 10th Island seal colony off the north coast. Its said to be really spectacular, so fingers crossed it will be a good trip and I'll get some good stuff for the next post. Till then-