cracking autumn weekends...

Well, my favourite season is coming through with the goods! After a week of huge surf, it settled down enough for me to sneak in a few sessions in the still warm water, cranking surf on sweet sandbanks. Perfect.
On Friday I bottled my latest brew, an Indian Pale Ale. It's looking pretty good and has really cleared up in the last week & smells very hoppy - I think I've hit the mark! Perfect.

So, I'm now sitting on 20 odd litres of nice beer, this time I've put a fair bit of it into stubbies so it'll be easy to share around... 

Saturday dawned on me too early as I rushed to pick up Eric from Newtown, from where we headed to Blackheath to meet Rod & John. After fuelling up on coffee and pastries we decided on Zig Zag Crag, just across from Piddo and in the sun all day... which was needed as the temp didn't hit 15 all day, but the searing sunshine kept us in shirts. Perfect.

Eric & I started off with 'Honey Dip' (13***) for a warm up, after cranking through the overhang at the start (13!) it was a lovely corner to a nice traverse and you can see the lovely belay above. It's kind of reminiscent of 'The Phantom' at piddo but far less 'exciting'. A great climb!

Next, I led 'Just For Fun' (15**) right next door, sharing the same start as Honey Dip, it then goes up a well bolted headwall before a nice airy step across the void and up to the belay. 

Rod on 'Shakes & Flakes' (21**)

We then pulled the rope and Eric had a crack at leading 'Just for Fun', which he dispatched in good style.

Eric on 'Just for Fun'

After a cup of tea & a sandwich we headed around the corner and had a go at the lovely 'Dress Rehearsal Rag' (17**) (pitch 1), which, as far as slabs go, is stellar! A nice combination of bolts and desperate balancy moves up to a great belay leaving you sweating with satisfaction... 

These are the kind of faces you have to pull to get up this one!

Rod belaying John up 'Bum Flute' 

After I battled up the very odd 'Fairy Tails' (16**) we packed up and headed for the pub. Unfortunately I'm a moron and went to the wrong pub so we stayed split up and I had a beer with Eric before heading back to Sydney where I met the crew for a beer and dinner at Prague. Perfect.

Have I mentioned that I love Autumn in Sydney?! :D