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Mt Alexander - Sat 29 March 31-Mar-2003 At 8:23:51 AM oweng

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Saturday saw Adrian and myself heading up to Bendigo for an engagement party, which provided an oportunity to check out the Bendigo local crag Mt Alexander. A group of four of us left Melbourne at about 1:15pm and got to Dog Rocks at about 3:00pm. We met Ben in the carpark and strolled in 100 metres to Dog Rocks (pretty sweet access!). Dog Rocks is a jumble of featured granite boulders and pinnicles up to about 15 metres high spread over a forested hillside. To start I lead Adrian (on only his second day climbing, and his first time on granite) up the grade 12 hand crack Rover, which was nice but felt a grade or two harder for mine. Di lead a short overhanging grade 16 crack Haggis, just around to the right, which Anton & Ben followed. We then chucked a toprope down a grade 18 route following a steep slab and seam just to the right of Fido, called Kilt. This route had a very boudery start that we all struggled on, but had fantastic moves the whole way up. After the start, the grade was very sustained at grade 18, but the start felt a couple of grades harder. Definitly worth a star as a toprope problem, but would be a bold lead on rp's.

Adrian entertained the crowd magnificently on this route, with the crux start being accomplished with the aid of myself pulling with the rope from above with all my might, one person pushing upwards on each buttock, and maddly bicycling feet scrabbling for purchase. Once established he did very well and continued onto the top unaided.

We then checked out the grade 15 sports route 'My Black Sheep', which Anton & Di climbed, and the grade 21 arete climb ' Little Bo Peep' which I lead. Little Bo Peep is described as a mini version of Peroxide Blonde at Mt Buffalo and involves climbing a steep slab by pinching and laying of a sharp arete on a freestanding pinnicle. I found the start difficult, but the middle section of laying of the artete fairly straightforward. The third bold has a reputation for being a difficult clip, but I found that by clipping from a low position, I was able to make this quite easily. I blew the onsight on the very last move, which was a bit disapointing.

We were just about to all run up the respective two routes on toprope when it started raining (yes thats right actual rain). We waited it out for 15 minutes but it refused to stop, so we pulled the plug and headed to Bendigo for fish & chips and onwards to the engagement party.

Thanks to Adrian, Anton & Di for a good trip, and especially to Ben for showing us aroud.
We then headed up