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Cathedral Ranges April 2011 22-Jul-2011 At 6:39:10 PM croxbu01

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Okay so it happened I while ago but here is a recount of a spur of the monent climbing trip to the North Jawbone of the Cathedral ranges in VIC, Australia.

at 5:05pm on a tuesday afternoon one of my Uni mates and regular climbing partner approached me with a proposition of going down to Arapiles for the rest of the week to which i said wow, um... sure! Bubbling with excitement we used the 45 minutes of daylight we had left to get maps, route info and plans for our trip. in doing so I stumbled on a shopping reciept i had thrown on the ground which had the words "speigals overhang, 125m 10" I tried to remeber what it was that i had scribbled and rembered that i had heard about this climb at the Cathedral ranges from a climber i met at the local gym and this must have been the only sheet of paper on me at the time.

Now we where still in Albury at 5:25pm and looking at the looming 8 hour drive I bravely brought up the idea of us going for a look at the Cathedral ranges (only 3.5 hours away) having never been there (or anywhere near there) we had a quick look. it took us 5 minutes to check how to get there and some possible climbs and then quickly drove down town to get some food for a 4 day trip.
at 5:50pm we set off for our trip (how says adventures arent planned on the back of a napkin at the pub!) using google maps we got to the camp ground and realising that it was a ground we had to pay for we decided to find a car park and slept by the car.

The next morning we were still shocked from the shear excitment of leaving for a camping trip 1 hour after getting the idea for one. our excitment was then put on steroids when we woke up to the site of the North jawbone a 150m block glistening above the landscape. we didnt even stop for breakfast as we jumped in the car my buddy was stuffing his face with last nights pizza as we walked along the approach.

we eventually got to the base of the cliff and found the foot of speigals overhang. we thought it best to eat prior to beginning the climb and eventually my buddy led the first pitch. for some stupid reason (due to the effort required getting up the approach) we started without shirts because it was hot,

As brendan got within site of the first belay ledge it began to cloud over and got quite cold. the calls from the belay ledge went as follows "safe", "can you tie my jumper on as you come up!" blocked by the cliff we couldnt see what was developing on the other side. we continued up and about 90m up it began to rain.

lucky it was only grade 10 stuff. annoyed that our gear was getting wet we quickly scurryed up so that we could get under our tarp. drenched and cold with wet feet and wet ropes we went back down to the campsite. we invaded the toilet block at the campsite to hang up our gear, the locals didn't mind the next day we woke up to rain and spent half a day driving around neighbouring towns till it bacame sunny at about lunch time, we were going back to the North Jawbone only to find parklands working on the track.
having walked around the work the day before we thought it might be rude to step over them working so we headed up to a location called the suger loaf and spent the afternoon doing easy leads and taking great photos.

we had a drier night that night and used the oppurtunity to merge our camp with some nice travellers (hot ones) and talk to them and drink Jim and John.
we woke the next day wanting to climb at the north jawbone again and with sunny weather it looked possible when we got to the cliff we set up to climb Junglescope, a 13 that sounded like fun as i clipped my first peice it gradually got gloomier.
i bravely decided to bail whiched turned out to be the correct option as it proceeded to rain 5 minutes after doing so. we decided to sit and wait to see if it cleared. after 20 minutes of waiting it didnt look like clearing up so we headed back for camp thinking that we may as well pack up and go home.
As we got through all the spikey trees and down the wet track getting drenched we got to our car as we put the gear in the car we turned and looked back at the cliff to see it glistening in shiney sunlight (i know right!)

we still decided that due to the weather we had been having we went home. for a trip that began an hour after it was thought up it provided 3 days of adventure that will lead to many more visits to a previously unvisited area.

Cheers