"Mountain" climbing

I use the term "mountain" cautiously because there is nothing on this island continent that we Canadians would classify as a mountain. Mt Arapiles is 370m high - to give you some perspective, the Grouse Grind is 853m. However, to get to the top of Grouse, you don't need to be strapped into a harness that cuts of the circulation to your lower extremities. Nor do you need to stick your fingers into tiny, spider web filled rock cracks and use previously undiscovered arm muscles to haul yourself up a sheer sandstone face.
But I digress...

After glamping with mobs of kangaroos at the base of Lake Bellfield in the Grampians,

Our campsite was in the little green patch right under the dam. Geological events and/or James Bond-esque explosions were often on my mind.

we headed to Mt. Arapiles to meet up with our friends, Tim, Andrea and Ella. We would be arriving first so Tim instructed us to head to the sites on the right because that's where all the serious climbers camp.

Yeah. Serious climber. That's me, alright. Watch me go all Edmund Hilary on your ass.

We chose a spot in the Upper Gums campsite, close to a fire pit and not too far from the long drops (translation: pit toilets). Over in The Pines, the less serious climbers got flush toilets, soap and running water. I know this because I frequently made the trek over to their facilities rather than use our own.

The view from my perch at the bottom of our first climb - you can barely see them, but there are more than a dozen climbers over there.

Arapiles looks like it has been dropped out of the sky, smack dab into hundreds of flat acres of sheep paddocks. The rock itself is stunning - acres and acres of beautiful craggy sandstone. There are over 2000 climbs ranging from grades 1 to 32, which means you could do four climbs a day for five years and still not run out of new routes to take.

Ready for a day on the hill

Tim, our fearless leader, has been climbing at Arapiles for more than thirty years.

The action around camp is really interesting. Throughout the day, climbers come back to their sites to refuel. Everyone has at least twenty pounds of ropes, carabiners, descenders, nuts, and cams dangling from their belts and harnesses.You can hear their approach from a long way off - imagine Gunslinger swaggering into camp with dozens of marimba resonators attached to his belt. After you've been there for a few days, you can identify who is coming through the bush by the timbre of their equipment.

You can't see, but underneath Rob's fingers there are spider webs in every handhold and poo on every ledge.

Sophie, guided by Andrea

I was surprised by the amount of young children at Arapiles. Not only were they frolicking all over the boldering rocks at the base of the cliffs, but there were just as many kids on the climbs as there were adults. Happy Harry, a five year old with a perma-grin, spent quite a bit of time at our campfire and told us it was the third time he had been climbing at Arapiles. The place is truly a breeding ground for adrenaline junkies.

With all that gear, Tim makes music wherever he goes.

Preparing for the 30m abseil

If you look really carefully, you can see Sophie and me abseiling down.

Rob and Isabelle did this climb with Tim - that's them in the red circle.

Helluh, Huhlow?, Halloey

Now that we've been here for six months, I feel I have enough experience to discuss something I find quite fascinating.

Accents.

I have no professional qualifications beyond one first year university linguistics course, but the topic is just too intriguing to ignore. Because I have now had the pleasure of living in both England and Australia, I've gathered enough aural data to compare their accents to my native Canadian one. The differences can really be heard in the way each accent treats its vowels.

For purposes of illustration, I'll use the common greeting,"Hello"

Canadians keep their vowels in the middle of the mouth, lying flat on the tongue. When saying "hello", the first syllable comes out sounding like "hell". As in, "Oh hell, I was hoping they wouldn't notice me." The second syllable sounds like "uh",  tending to get left on the middle of the tongue, neither too forward nor too reticent, for fear of offending.

The English keep their vowels tucked up in the roof of their mouth. They start their greeting with a "huh", a sigh of breath with a slightly disapproving inflection. The "low?" moves to the back of the tongue, unwilling to be too brash, and tips up into a question at the very end.

Australians like to savour their vowels by rolling them around their mouths for a while before letting them loose. "Hello" begins with a jovial "ha!", laughing and ready for a good time, followed by "lloey", moving the vowels gently forward on the tongue before ending in a slight lip pucker. As if to say "Welcome to the party, now give us a kiss."

Interesting how accents reflect the national stereotypes, don't you think?

Heading to the Lake

When I was a kid, our family would always head to Shuswap Lake for the last week of August. Granny and Grandpa had a time share at St Ives and we would join them for a week of fun on the lake.

This was in 2009 - the last time we went to Shuswap

There was no tv, and if anyone wanted to make a call, they had to go to the pay phone down by the resort office. Needless to say, the closest decent grocery store was an hours drive away so we had to bring most of our food. Granny would bake up a storm for ages beforehand and come laden with homemade bread, cookies, pies and cakes.

Granny and her crew - Sean is missing because I don't think he was even a twinkle yet

I have become my grandmother.
We are going to Lakes Entrance for a few days of tech-free adventuring and I have just spent the last 5 hours in the kitchen mixing, rolling and baking. I've made tortillas, muffins, cookies, croissants and lemon curd. (BTW, where had lemon curd been all my life? Only 4 ingredients and you can whip it up in no time. I could eat it by the bucketful).
I have no idea how we are going to fit all the food, coolers, backpacks, wetsuits and four humans into the Echo. We're trying to pack for all eventualities because you never know what the weather might bring in these parts. Yesterday was gorgeous and sunny but the day before gave us gale force winds, hail and flash floods. I'm sure the plague of frogs and storm of locusts will be coming soon.

Monday night on Victoria Street up in the city (photo credit: The Age)