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General Climbing Discussion

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Snakes on rock 26-Sep-2006 At 6:39:57 PM The Keeper

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One has to contribute some liveliness! - as the Nati pub had gone into a deep sleep when I was there - nice wall pics but other than a couple of non-climbers it was slim pickings. Would be grim if the starch from Queen'sland seeped in and took hold and the only thing happening was bible readings by vacationing Jehovah Witnesses ( I actually met one further west in Cunderdin- when they latch onto fresh meat it can be a prolongued extraction exercise.) In at least one case the starch appears to derive from a cloistured, outback upbringing and way, way too much time teaching in private religious schools in the State whose tourist slogan was " Larger than Life." Ironically our little jurisdiction, up over, has seen fit to salvage this expression for our own tourism marketing - so at every turn this Aussie is latching on to us! I can't imagine why the tag was abandoned by Queen'sland - there are some climbing legends there that are resplendent in that category! Lots of humor there too I might add and I aim to dredge it out of the starch dunes around Boonah!

My experience with Aussie snakes is limited but I have absorbed enough on sight beta (Australia Zoo, a few museums and a poignant Gold Coast shopping mall demonstration) to know anything brown is pretty much bad news!! Excepting the red bellied nasty which even an innocent and introverted Canuck can recognize for what it is. My experience with Queen'sland climbing vixens is a bit more robust but I have a heightened awareness of characteristic elevated starch levels. I am still working on various antidotes - free hair salon passes , engaging humor and kevlar shorts promise more upstanding results in the future. We lads from the great white north can hold a focus and are "up" to the challenge. Summit or plumit! A tough job but someone has to do it.

As for the "matildas" - I think it fits! It has a particularly wholesome ring to it and as I recall there is some Aussie sporting team of the opposite gender - I am not aware they were naming their team after some some old moth- eaten and mouldy bedding or maybe there was more subtle meaning embedded! As a general rule I do not use 'sheila" - even though one of the gnarly vixens of my past experience was known to use it liberally herself ( a clue I obviously didn't pick up on in that little engagement!)- there is a bit of a disrespectful attribute to it and whilst I definitely will hold a few of this surly mob highly accountable - it is always wrapped in appropriate respect. I always disengage the individual from the behavior in any case. The Aussies have retooled some lingo from the motherland so a few re-tooling of some Aussie utterings should be acceptable by the fair-minded (the Kiwis are all for it!).

In any case, we Canucks are not totally babes in the woods when comes to slithery things - we have a few nasties in the Aussie- like wilds of interior BC ( No doubt contributed to John Fantini feeling right at home and hunkering down at Skaha) , and in
southern Ontario. I once spent a week at a large Boy Scout Jamboree near Penticton where the aggregated mob made a pretty serious dent in the local rattlesnake population! Teenage male testosterone may be more fateful and hoary than blood- solidifying venom of a Taipan!

In sum there is much to be said for a good old Canadian ice hockey stick as part of one's climbing gear aggregate - makes a good stick clip, good for roasting a damper or two to accompany some cold brew over a Nully roadside fire, a good wand to clear golden orb webs from the approach track and a convenient tool for relocating out of harms way - rampaging slithery things, or even a grave marker after a Queen'sland vixen has had their way with you! You can use it as a pole vaulting mechanism as well when you inadvertently stumble into the path of a wildly careening Amazonian on the Mt. French road as she makes her way to a life and death hair salon appointment or scriptures reading in Boonah. A multifaceted and multidimensional little rippa it is.
Will have to donate one, appropriately autographed for the wall of the Nati pub - before that wall gets baptized with various items of All Blacks momentos.

Keep cranking on the routes and humor down there and in the words of one WW2 general - I just have to return!!!