Harveys Marbles, west of Townsville in
the Hervey Range (yes, there was a mix up with the spelling) is, to
quote the guidebook, “Queensland's premier bouldering location.”
With that kind of billing, a climber just can't drive past. Access
is easy, take Sharpe Road south from the top of the range, and drive
until you reach the army gates. The Commonwealth of Australia (which
you think would be the good citizens of Australia, but somehow does
not seem to be) owns a big chunk of land in this area which is used
for military manoeuvres and trespassing could result in you being
shot, intentionally, or unintentionally, in the end, it probably
doesn't matter. Anyway, these are the gates you come to.
A good trail heads up the embankment to
the left (south) as you face the gates and this is one of the access
tracks. We, as I have mentioned before, aren't great boulderers and
have no bouldering pads, so, even though I had downloaded the 145
page guidebook, we didn't bother too much about working out where we
were or what we were climbing. It takes enough time getting oriented
at a crag with bolts and anchors to help. Working out where you are
in a few dozen hectares of scattered boulders from a guidebook (no
matter how thorough the authors have tried to be) is bound to be
futile.
Some good problemmettes on the tall boulders in the background
We arrived around 2.00 pm, but didn't
get out until 3.00 pm as there is no turn around at the army gates,
the road is simply gated, and, we had to unhook our caravan from the
car to get it turned around. That, and having some lunch, consumed
an hour. The temperature was quite reasonable for bouldering and,
given the shade, the breeze and the higher elevation than the coast,
you could probably boulder here even in summer, although mornings and
evenings would likely be best.
Our first mistake was looking for big
boulders. There are some tall highballs in the area, but, at least
where we were, in the Inner Circle (the area which is quickest to
reach and seems to have the densest concentration of boulders) the
boulders are not that big. We started on a fairly obvious boulder
(that I think, looking at the guidebook later, may have been Boulder
#3 at Middle Marsh) and managed to work about three or four problems
off that boulder. Exploring around in the same area we occupied
ourselves for about 1.5 hours, often finding multiple different
routes on the same small boulders. Because the boulders are fairly
short, the longest we climbed were maybe five or six moves, we
started calling them problemettes as problems seemed a bit overblown
for the length of the routes. After a while, we wandered off on a
deteriorating trail, but didn't find a big concentration of routes at
our level again that afternoon and retired for traditional Australian
“afternoon tea” at about the dinner hour.
Next day, Doug managed to get his
broken down computer working again which meant he had to finish the
programming work he had on the go, so I spent the day out bouldering
again. In the morning, I walked down to the Embankment to work some
routes. I came back for breakfast, and then spent the rest of the
day out wandering from boulder to boulder getting progressively
braver with the routes I was doing which resulted in some brief
moments of not quite terror. The motivation to not fall off as I
mantled over the final few moves on what were, for me, high routes,
was pretty high.
This is probably the longest period of
time I have spent outdoor bouldering – bouldering on artificial
walls doesn't count the same – and I can now say I understand the
appeal. There is something refreshing about heading out for a day
with just some water, a chalk bag, and a pair of shoes and working on
various problems (or problemmettes). There's no faffing around with
gear, and ropes and anchors, and “on belay”, “off belay,”
“take,” “lower,” and so on. You see a boulder, you see a
line, you give it a go. What could be simpler?
No comments:
Post a Comment