Attendees:
Lachlan Toohey, Thomas Roberts, James Sterney, Nelson Velazquez, Talitha Roberts, Kimvi Le, Daniel Ryan, Laura Ashton-Ross, Kim Corrans, James Griffin, Louise Kolff, Kike Gray, Kris Plain, Simon Lodowyk, Patrick Miller, Craig Wilmo plus many more.
With a special thanks to Tom M, Dave L, James B, Peter H, Jackie for all the help with making it such a smooth day.
It’s hard to explain how much fun this day was. We headed out for the short stroll from Thornleigh Station to the cliffs in Lane Cove National Park. Establishing some ground rules for the day and a bit of a run through the gear was the first order of the day. Following this everyone had a dry run or 2 on some not quite vertical cliffs before it was time to get our game faces on and head up to the top of the cliffs and get some real vertical in.
Now we were at the point of the day that we had come here for. Whether it was your first time abseiling or you just had a bit of vertigo that you needed to get over people took to it like ducks to water. There were a few little spills at the start of the day as people got used to hanging by a rope so far off the ground but with nothing more than a grazed elbow or 2 everyone was keen for more. While all this was going on Tom had fired up the BBQ and started cooking up a sausage sandwich feast the likes of which may never have been seen in this part of the Lane Cove National Park.
Not long after lunch, with people unstoppable on the cliffs now, it became apparent that it’s not only possible to go down the cliffs on the rope but to go up them too. Any of the leaders who brought along some prusik slings soon found themselves to be standing at the bottom of a rope with a beginner halfway up it and not looking like stopping till they got all the way up. It was fantastic to see that many people so keen to get into all facets of the sport.
After a good 6 hours of playing on cliffs, it was time to call it a day. We had a couple of beers while packing up all the gear and it was very safe to say that everyone appeared to have a great day.
Many thanks to all of you who came along on this trip. I hope to see you all at many of the events that we run throughout the year.
Some random photos from the trip.
– Craig (Wilmo)