Easter Climbing Festival 2007

Life is a moment in time; at least ‘most of the time’, but there are moments when time may ‘stand still’, ‘accelerates’ or ‘lasts forever’. Easter 2007 fits all of the above and here is the pictorial story.

Lariza Six-foot track	Kids Dinner	Gary Six foot action

This year’s residence was Avoca Cottage at Porters Pass and the venue was kindly sourced by Ute on the STAYZ website. This year was particularly interesting because of the Blue Mountains Climbing festival in Katoomba. The usual players included Gary, Ute, Lauren, Luke, Max, Mat, Lariza, Rafaela, Louise, Roman, Chris, Roman junior, Annette, Liam, Bryan, Nola and Bruce with several stars choosing various length of appearance.

Mat was first on the job and arrived with Rafaela on Thursday midday, followed by most of the players on Friday. Annette and Liam joined us for horse-riding on Saturday afternoon. The agenda included the 6-foot track for Lariza, Gary and Roman while Louise, Ute and the kids did a tour at the Jenolan Caves. We all met Saturday afternoon at the Backsaddler Horse-Riding place in the Megalong Valley. This years turn-around time was 5.5 hours. Starting at 10:00AM and finishing around 15:30. There was particularly lots of traffic on the track with motor bikes, 4 wheel drives and hikers. The Cox river was back in shape and it was nice to see lots of water on the trail. The trip was topped of with a fun horse ride by all the kids. Saturday culminated with a CURRY extravaganza with individual dishes provide by all the players.

Sunday morning was climbing festival day and most punters went to Katoomba to join the action. Gary and Max made a name for themselves in the slack rope competition while poor Roman minded his broken down car until the NRMA arrived. Luckily, Mat and Roman managed to sneak away at lunch for a quicky at CELEBRITY CRAG at Porters Pass. Mat’s first time on the rock after a long hiatus did not slow him down for long and he led the imposing JOHNNY’S JALOPIES (18) followed by Mr CHRISTMAS POO (20) and the hard RUDOLF THE BLOODY REINDEER (23). Racing back to give Lariza a hand he even managed to put Rafaela to sleep in the car “without” driving.

Monday morning it was time to tow the car to the garage in Katoomba. We had the bright idea to tow the car ourselves and while Mat and Gary did all the “hard” work, Roman watched guiltily how his car slowly disintegrated or at least the brakes. By the time we hit Katoomba the heat emanating from the brakes had molten through the hub cabs and the brakes where no more. Arriving at the garage Roman bowed his head in silence while the NRMA driver explained to him that the tow would have been for free anyway….

Life is a moment in time; and what a great time it was. Can’t wait to do it all again next year

Roman 18 April 2007