My wife and I spent September in Australia. This essay, the first in a series, recounts our sun-drenched start before things took a turn for the worst.
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Australians, it seems, are utterly smitten with coffee. The beverage of choice appears to be the flat white, a silky yet buttoned-down cousin to the latte or cappuccino. We landed in Sydney at dawn, dragging two hefty bags from baggage claim. Our first order of business was to snag a flat white before leaving the terminal. Ever the minimalist, I settled for an espresso, watching the crowd in a bleary-eyed daze, squinting at the sun as if it were a new concept. My wife, meanwhile, sat busy photographing her artfully swirled toothpick masterpiece. Soon enough, we embraced the day and ventured out into the land of sculpted asses in Bondi Beach.
Bondi Beach feels like a slice of Los Angeles—blonde, gorgeous, and rich. With the sun blazing and temperature flirting with 90 degrees, we found it hardly spring by our Colorado standards, where one typically leans into driving snow. As we walked down to the beach, we were immediately struck by the number of bare asses on display.
Now, we’re no prudes, but I’d estimate that 80% of women at the beach sported thong bikinis. They strutted across the sand or posed down in front of selfie sticks, flicking back hair and puckering for some unseen audience. If they weren’t in thongs—not to be confused with Australian thongs, which are sandals—they wore yoga pants with cheek split seams that…well, let’s just say left little to the imagination.
We walked miles along the sun-soaked coast, contouring cliffs and pristine bays of a postcard-perfect sea. Amid the miles of tanned butts, I became acutely aware of the flat white in the back of my shorts—an unwelcome reminder of my love for wine and my disdain for squats.
The next morning, after nearly nodding off at the previous night’s dinner, we caught an early bus into Sydney. We visited the Opera House at the reasonable combined cost of AUD 90 (about $60)—well worth the price of admission. The rest of the day was a delightful blur: botanical gardens, city streets, and sushi rolls. A truly regrettable beer in a historic pub, and shimmering bays basking under a thinned-ozone sun. It was a wonderful way to adjust and recuperate before the climbing madness began, far from the sea on the Wimmera Plain.
Down and Out on the Wimmera Plain
The Wimmera Plain, with its endless fields of neon canola, might not seem like the prime spot for world-class climbing. But it turns out Mount Arapiles and the Grampians—an hour apart—are geological oddities rising from the flat expanse.
To call Arapiles a mountain feels generous. One visiting climber likened it to a scab, rather unflattering but oddly fitting. This elongated slug of a hill doesn’t inspire awe like the Rockies or the Alps. Yet, upon closer inspection, the labyrinth of gullies and towers reveals bullet-hard cliffs of the finest, gritty quartzite. Holds that seem they’ll surely snap but could serve to moor a battleship. Routes with the look that only a mother could love display a style and grace that remind us not to judge a book by its cover.
Imagine my dismay when 30,000 feet above the Australian countryside on our brief flight from Sydney to Melbourne, I felt an unsettling sensation developing in the back of my throat. Upon landing and renting our vehicle, we drove north through unremarkable scrub country to a farm town with a surprisingly vibrant mall—a mall!
We hadn’t intended to stop, but hunger and Google Maps conspired to lead us to a food court. I ordered an enticing breakfast burger but received a glorified hashbrown sandwich. It all made me question what I was doing here, so far from home. Somewhere between that and chewing my wife’s order of par-fried calamari, I realized I wasn’t experiencing a strange allergic reaction to Australia’s emerging spring. I was genuinely ill, and I could no longer deny it. I coughed into my elbow as the friendly townspeople ate with elbows on the table around me. I’m sorry, I thought.
With just one week to explore the wonders of Arapiles and the Grampians, time was not on my side. Even at my most fevered, climbing every day, this wouldn’t be enough time. But with an actual fever, all felt lost. There are lifetimes of climbing at both locations, and even a month wouldn’t scratch the surface. So, as I churned that night, caught between icy sweats and oppressive heat, I knew I’d be tempering my already tempered expectations.
The first day was a wash. My wife and I scrambled around, and I “soloed” the easy starts of several pitches, wishing I had my gear. Subsequent days passed in much the same way. A cup of coffee and some movement after hours of misery would trick me into thinking the worst had passed.
There’s something strangely isolating about being sick nearly 9,000 miles from home. And I’m not talking about a case of the sniffles. I experienced teeth-chattering chills and was soaked with sweat each morning. The fever lingered for days. All the while, the wind outside howled and everything dripped.
Fresh air and a breeze lifted my spirits each day. By nightfall, though, the fever and malaise would settle in like San Francisco fog. It went on like this all week. I mustered the energy to climb a grand total of six pitches at Arapiles and even fewer boulder problems at the Grampians.
Our home base in Natimuk, a town of about 500 farmers, artists, and climbers, resembled a smaller, flatter version of Lander, Wyoming. However, it had kangaroos and presumably fewer long guns. Fields of neon canola flowers stretched for miles in all directions. The locals were surprisingly welcoming, and I often found myself deep in conversation. Thirty minutes in, I’d be lost in discussions about climbing culture, American politics, guns, crops, housing costs, remote work, and the thorny line between social justice and virtue signaling. You know, the sorts of chats you might have with any climber in 2024, with only different accents and canvas pants.
With my fever abating and my wife’s ramping up, we left Natimuk. We turned the car south toward the ghosts of dead whalers on the Great Ocean Road.
(Stay tuned for more)