Rachel Grindlay

The remnants of Cyclone Alfred were forecast to make their way south bringing large amounts of rain. Tom ended up cancelling the club trip we were meant to do in Wollemi. That left us on Friday trying to work out a new plan. The rain wasn’t supposed to get to south of Sydney until Sunday so we decided on a day trip to Bungonia and then a home day while it poured on Sunday. By the time we went to bed on Friday night Alfred had stalled and at least the Saturday of the original trip probably could have gone ahead… but what can you do.

So early Saturday we headed out of Sydney with Jon & Caoimhin – in the rain. The rain sort of cleared but a short shower, as we were getting gear sorted at the car park, didn’t make us feel particularly enthusiastic. Ten minutes later there was sun and blue sky – complete mood swing –  excellent to be out here. Then we were back to dark clouds and wondering whether we’d made the right call. Fortunately those clouds didn’t eventuate to much and we ended up having a lovely day out.

With 3 ropes and 2 large-ish drops left we were trying to work out if we could speed things up. Tom optimistically used our shorter rope on the penultimate drop. We heard a large splash at the bottom and then some yelling. Eventually we worked out he was saying the ropes didn’t reach. Forget single-rope technique, we mastered triple-rope technique – where you use 3 ropes on one drop! We certainly got our rope handling quota for the day.

Despite what had happened on the penultimate abseil, Tom was keen to try and rig the short rope on the final abseil. So off he went… fortunately this time it did reach, so no jumping off ledges or prusiking required.

On the drive home we checked the weather again. Alfred had once again stalled and Sunday was due to be a lovely sunny day – d’oh. But none of us had brought overnight gear so back to Sydney it was.