Abseiling trip (Boars head and Maletia point) 28 May 2011
Have a look at the movie we made! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57DS2_ZqMNs&feature=channel_video_title . DO IT! DO IT! Do it now…
On Saturday, the 28th of May, three awesome people- Scott Mcoy, Martin Londe and Chantal Bronkhorst- awoke at 6am to complete the most epic challenge of all epic challenges. The challenge was to abseil down Boars head and Malatia point without a rope. Were they successful? Yes, they were! (Note: When looking at the video of this trip, you will notice that there is a rope, BUT that is because rope was edited in afterwards. In addition, any references made to ropes in this trip report should not be commented on by anyone since I cannot think of a valid excuse as to why ropes are mentioned. If you comment on this your memory will be erased, so it is advised not to point it out.)
We met in Scott’s dark alley at 7am and this is where our adventure officially started. Martin (who is from France and was our driver for the day) tried to get into the left side of the car. (Is the previous nights partying to blame?) For those who are not aware, in France they drive on the right side of the road. What weirdo’s! As I am sure you all understand this made Chantal and Scott very nervous, with Chantal already preparing her speech as to why she is returning the car home… dented.
Just to put us even more at ease Scott’s morning facebook status update read: “SUBW regulations: minimum 80% survival rate on group trips. Today’s group: 3 people. So what is 60% of a person considered?” I think it is safe to say our trip was off to a great start.
We were on the road by 7:10am. The drive there consisted mainly of radio channel hopping, since the song choices by the radio stations were disapproved of.
We reached Boars head, may I add without the use of a GPS or a map? Yezza! We are cool like that. (I say that now, but please continue reading to hear about our epic navigational fails.) We got our gear ready and just as we were about to head off the ambulance drove past us. Did they know we were a troubled group from the start?
*Chariots of fire theme song starts playing.*. After years (2days) of hard work and preparation the trio finally reached the top of boars head. They could not believe it! THEY DID IT! They actually did it. They reached the starting point of their challenge. After admiring the view, Scott took a deep breath, opened his back pack and presented us with a rope (remember what I said about commenting on ropes). The ropes were set up and Scott, our awesome trip leader (just getting some brownie points) started our first 25m abseil into the rainforest gully at 9:00. Martin was next. He took 5 steps back and then started running, when he reached the cliff he jumped up and did a triple back flip and landed on his feet. (Why don’t you believe me?). Then it was Chantal’s turn, not wanting to steal Martin’s lime light she just did an ordinary but sufficient abseil.
This is where our navigational challenge started. We were faced with two options- left or right. Scott, being the awesome trip leader that he is, told Martin and Chantal to go right, down a massively steep hill. What was he thinking? And get this, he did not immediately follow. Sneaky little bastard! It was the wrong way! As a result Martin and Chantal had to climb back the massively dodgy and steep hill.
We trekked on and found our traverse, with the help of a fellow abseiler who had done Boars head before. The traverse was Chantal’s favourite. She did not tell anyone this, but she pretended to do this without safety slings, because she wanted to feel bad-ass… Everyone completed the traverse and it was time for the next abseil.
According to Scott our next abseil was only 15m. So, not being able to see the bottom, the 40m rope was thrown down, giving us 20m to abseil. Sounds reasonable right? Think again. THE ROPE WAS 10M TOO SHORT! Scott discovered this too little too late and improvisation had to follow. You see, Mr “trip leader” only had one prussik on him at that time, and therefore he could not climb back up. Never fear though, our trip leader was Ninja enough to solve the problem. Being the Ninja that he is, he found a ledge to stand on and connected our 40m rope with the 60m rope he had in his back pack.
After this abseil Scott had a look at the time. It was already 11:40! Were we the slowest group to ever do this abseil? Or is there another explanation? Stay tuned to find out later in this trip report.
The day continued, with some amazing abseils, views and “thats what she said” jokes… Then we reached our 30+m abseil. For this abseil the plan was to tie two 40m ropes together. BUT you guessed it, once again some fails occurred. Someone, not naming names, tied the two ends of the SAME rope together and almost threw it down the ledge. Luckily Chantal was there to point out “He who must not be named’s” (Voldemorts) stupidity. Hi5 Chantal (Did I just hi5 myself?).
That was the end of the Boars head abseiling. We had another look at the watch, and it seemed clear that we would not have time to do Malatia point. How could we be so slow? (Stay tuned to find the answer). According to the “laws of abseiling” what goes down must come back up. We started our trek back up to the top. Everything was going according to plan, until we reached the sign pointing to “Cliff drive 0.5km”. We followed the general direction of the sign and then reached some scrubs. At this point it was clear we were lost, so we swallowed our pride and looked at our map (complementary of Bjorn). Whilst Chantal and Scott was intensely arguing about their where abouts (according to the map), Martin decided to go on a Man vs Wild trip. In the mean time Chantal and Scott had a plan of action and decided to head back to the sign. They “more wood”-ed Martin and told him to meet them at the sign. After waiting at the sign for Martin for quite some time, Scott and Chantal decided to search for the lost soldier. Whilst looking for him, Scott and Chantal found the right path, but could not follow it because Martin was still missing in action.
Mean while, Martin had actually found the path back to the car. Martin thought it was an obvious path and thought Chantal and Scott would have seen it, so he headed back to the car, only to find that they were not there. Were it not for the fact that Chantal had the keys, he would have headed back to Sydney. Unfortunately for him, he had to go back and find them.
The trio was finally reunited, and they headed to the car. The plan was to have lunch at Malatia point and then head back to Sydney. We drove to Malatia point, had some lunch and got back in the car to head back to Sydney.
(Now for the moment you have all been waiting for) As we started to drive back Scott looks at the clock on the cars dash and says “Um Chantal, your clocks wrong”… which proceeded with Chantal stating “I’m pretty sure that’s the correct time”… blank stares were passed around and everyone reached for their phones to check the time. Chantal, being superman and everything, dove for her phone underneath the car seat with immense speed and discovered it was only 13:45! Turns out Scott’s watch was still set on New Zeeland time from his previous trip. Good work Scott!
It was unanimous; everyone wanted to do Malatia point, since we now had two extra hours to add to our day.
Malatia point was only filled with epic wins! I do not recall any fails. We even had our head torches ready incase we got benighted, but it was not necessary.
Our abseiling trip came to an end, and we headed back to Sydney. The trip back home was however filled with its own unexplained mysteries! Chantal believes Scott and Martin turned Ninja and stole her chocolates, since they have been missing in action.
Overall we had a great trip filled with adventure, epic fails, epic wins, great views and one too many “that’s what she said” jokes. Don’t miss out on the next one!
Don’t forget to have a look at the movie we made: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57DS2_ZqMNs&feature=channel_video_title
Peace out, Ninja’s