The University of Queensland Mountain Club Forum

Hey all, here is a little trip report I put together. Thanks to Clem for taking these photo's (if you've got cool photo's please email me!). Sorry if I've made a mistake and didn't mention your great send, but there was so much happening at Brooyar that it was hard to record everything! Anyways, enjoy the read and the photos, and feel free to add your story below



Day One (Monday, June 29)
The uni semester is officially over and holidays are about to begin!!! After about two hours of driving Jeff, Clem and I arrive in my wagon at Black stump around 2pm. After warming up on some the classy routes like “Annabelistic” (18) and “Footprints on the other side” (19) we all agreed that we are super unfit and can’t wait until we’re back into the swing of things, all whilst cursing the end-of-semester uni lifestyle for taking up all of our climbing time. At around 4pm Jono joined us so we headed over to “Dreamcatcher” (20) and “The Enticer” (17) for some more spanking fun! How awesome are these two routes? Definitely some of the best routes at Brooyar! Dark came too soon so it was off to the campsite (with a boot-full of firewood) for dinner and fireworks. What a great way to top of day one of the trip, with a fire, friends, food, and fireworks.

Day Two (Tuesday, June 30)
As the sun gently warmed our tents, we casually woke up and headed to Green Lane to enjoy some of the classier routes on offer. For a warm-up, Jono red-pointed “DH4” (20) and Jeff then flashed it, Clem flashed “Herbs and Spices” (21) whilst I had to rest at the crux. After making a dash out to town to pick up American Jon, we all congregated around “Herbal Tea” (22). In true French style, Clem put all of us boys to shame by flashing it, however, not to be defeated by a girl we all hardened up and sent it soon after! What a great start this trip was off to! Herbal Tea was Jeff’s first 22, and one of Clem’s first 22’s also, congratulations! Once again, dark came too soon and off we went back to the camp for dinner, chilling and a fire.

Day Three (Wednesday, July 1)
Today we headed to Eagle’s nest to play on some of the longer routes on offer. I thought it would be cool to do doughies in the carpark, but after the third circle went through a rut with the front wheels at full lock and rolled the tyre of the rim. Woops. Soon after arriving at the crag we were joined by Naomi, Tom and Luke. Popular routes included “The Pioneer” (16), “Miss Kandy Kane” (15) and “Miss Manners” (15). The trip almost came to a very serious end for Jeff when he fell from the upper arête of “Celluloid Hero” (21) with a handful of rope out. Jeff almost broke his tailbone when his belayer (Jono) rocketed up into the first horn leaving only centimetres between Jeff’s tailbone and the boulder’s below. Wow, that was bloody lucky! On a brighter note though, Clem got another 22 (prima donna) and I licked my knife after cutting chilli, then rubbed it in my eyes. Naomi also had a good time showing Tom and Luke around Eagle’s Nest. The campfire was a lot bigger tonight thanks to Tom driving up in his ute, thanks mate!

Day Four (Thursday, July 2)
Trying to escape the mid-day sun that cooked us on previous days, we thought it would be a good idea to climb at Point Pure today. Popular routes included “Coco Pops” (15), “Unleash the Swarm” (19) and “Orange Flavoured Hand Grenade” (22). Good work to Jono for sending Orange Flavoured Hand Grenade, and also to Jeff for getting really close (sorry mate, can’t remember if you sent it?). Kudo’s to Tom and Luke for ascending the apparently dirty chimney (8?) in white shirts and coming out with white shirts! Also, good stuff to Naomi for jumping back on Unleash the Swarm. It’ll go down for you next time for sure!

Day Five (Friday, July 3)
Wow this trip is going fast, it’s Friday already! The weather was great and so we decided to head to Black Stump in the morning then walk around to Hanumans for an afternoon of upside-down roof climbing fun. Unfortunately, Clem smashed her finger in the boot of my car when the loyal support stick collapsed (the struts are dead!). So we had to head back to camp (against Clem’s wishes not wanting to be annoying) to get ice for it. Dave was working “Little Wednesday” (25) and sent it on his third or fourth attempt, awesome! After a little rest, Dave then went on to work “Shake and Bake” (23/24) and sent it on his third or fourth attempt, bloody awesome! Dave wasn’t the only one on fire, Tom also sent his first 20 this morning with an ascent of “Dreamcatcher” (20). Top stuff Tom! Jeff, Clem and I then went on to climb “Spank the Monkey” (20). Lunchtime. After lunch we headed around to Hanuman’s as planned. With no time to waste, Dave jumped on “Hanuman’s Eye” (21) and sent it! Jeff jumped on “The Animal Within” (19) and sent it! I decided to try “Slave to Gravity” (24) and quite amazingly onsighted it! How the hell did a fat bastard like me onsight that? Damo’s back. Soon after Dave untied from Hanuman’s Eye, he then proceeded to flash Slave to Gravity too. Wholly Molly, Dave was on FIRE!!! If that wasn’t enough sendage for the afternoon, Jono also flashed Slave to Gravity!!! Jeff almost got it too! Wow, go UQMC! I think we also invented a new climbing move called the “Chicken Wing”, where you flap your arm over a ledge and use it to push upwards. You could hear everyone chanting “Chicken Wing, Chicken Wing, Chicken Wing” when Jeff was at the upper tier of Slave to Gravity! Ah good times.

Day Six (Saturday, July 4)
LYCRA DAY!!! I’ll let the photo’s do the talking Joined by some of the Urban Climb staff and Dave Reeve and Co., today was a great day at Eagle’s Nest. “The Pioneer” (16) was absolutely prime real-estate and sported climbers nearly all day! Eagle’s nest was a fantastic location for lycra day, as there are so many easy and moderate long climbs to be enjoyed, some of the best being “Free Range Heggs” (17), “Up a Rat in a Drain Pipe” (18), “Long Way to Tip a Fairy” (16) and “Little Ray of Sunshine” (17). “Blinky Bill’s American Breakfast” (23) also saw a lot of action, with Dave, Joe, Ryan, Paul, Clem and numerous others jumping on it. Apologies for not recalling who sent what today, but I do know that everyone was doing really well. Top stuff! To finish up the day, we had a race up The Pioneer, and Clem smashed the boys with a record time of 2 minutes 13 seconds.

Day Seven (Sunday, July 5)
Our last day at Brooyar was spent at Green Lane, where Clem sent “Coexisting with Insanity” (21) – a scary old-school route. Clem and Jeff then played on “No Scrupples” (23), but couldn’t get through the roof. I helped Graham with some Safer Cliffs Qld work at Green Lane. After a swim in the creek to clean up, then some lunch in the sun at the campsite, we headed up to Wolf’s Lair to climb “Awesome Well’s” (21). At this stage in the trip, we were ready to move on to Cania Gorge to explore some new rock.

Day Eight (Monday, July 6)
Relaxed breakfast, packed up tents and repacked the car. Why can’t people take there own rubbish? ARGH!!! Jeff had to hug two massive bags of everyone’s rubbish whilst we drove into Gympie to dump it in a pizza hut bin. Perhaps I should make it more clear next time for people to manage there own rubbish??? Anyways, we soon bid farewell to Jono, American Jon, Naomi, Paul and Bec. After a quick visit to Gympie for some essentials (like fixing my tyre) Jeff, Clem and I then followed the beautiful bumpy Burnett Highway for 4 hours up to Cania Gorge National Park. As we drove into the park right on dusk, we were greeted with amazing sandstone cliffs which went on for kilometres! Oh we were in for a treat. Or were we?



Day Nine (Tuesday, July 7)
Today was our first day exploring Cania Gorge, and so we decided to start from one of the main carparks and follow a few national park trails. Inspired by the beautiful overhanging cracks we saw from a distance, we first decided to follow a path to “Dragon’s Cave”, which turned out to be a cool small cave which would be great if it were bolted. However, no naturally protected lines here. Further along the path we found an awesome looking arête which may’ve been protectable with the tiniest of RP’s, but I lack both the RP’s and balls to ascend that line, so we settled for a chossy crack in the corner. Seriously though, that line on the arête would’ve been amazingly fantastic if it were bolted, or had some more realistic natural protection. The path we were following soon stopped at a tourist lookout, and so we back tracked and followed a path to “The Overhang”.

Half-way down the track there was quite a great looking crack line, which led into a small roof-crack thing. So we climbed it, but were surprised when the roof-crack thing was actually quite big. Stupid me didn’t take up any cam’s bigger than a #2 camalot, and had to crank up for a few moves above a daunting ledge before the saviour #2 could be placed in the depths of the crack. A closer inspection of the upper roof-crack thing revealed that the foot-holds that looked great from the ground were actually very loose! Woops, looks like a variant is in order So we headed out and right with crappy pro, loose vegetation and sandy rock, then topped out. Crikey it felt good to be on top. After an interesting descent, we continued on our quest to “The Overhang”.

When we finally reached “The Overhang”, we marvelled in its beauty but were somewhat disappointed that there was no quality routes there under perhaps grade 30. Not to worry though, there was some good bouldering further up that creek system, but we didn’t have any mats and were way more enthusiastic to climb. We discovered some amazing climbs that afternoon as we bashed through the scrub, the spikey vines were alive and would grab us every once in a while. There were a trio of climbs on a beautiful dark red wall that I was contemplating leading, but they must’ve been around grade 20+ crack routes and with the fading light I didn’t really feel up to it. Call me soft. On the way back we found more proud lines – arêtes, faces, cracks, overhanging cracks, overhanging face routes. If this place were allowed to be bolted, it would no doubt be a contender for the best crag in Queensland. With the best rock being much much better than anything I’ve seen in the Blueys. Awell, we must respect the EPA’s decision to ban bolting, and understand there actions of creating large paths and constructing big walk-ways with concrete, bolts and timber. Alas.

Day Ten (Wednesday, July 8)
Soon after checking our uni results this morning we headed off for another day of adventure, but this time off the beaten track. There was an interesting looking escarpment off the side of the road, so we parked and trekked up. Over an hours worth of trekking got us to the base of the (chossy) cliff. There were a few okay looking choss-fest lines, so we looked around for twenty minutes and found a great looking finger-crack. In my excitement I charged up the crack line (well, whimpered and crawled is more fitting) up the surprisingly loose in parts crack line, then had to think hard about not dieing whilst topping out. Bloody oath, this was adventure climbing, an hour and half of trekking on new ground, climbing a beautiful surprising finger-crack then having to top-out through a dirty, loose, boulder and leaf filled ledge, establish the anchor, then traverse back down a little to place more pro to ensure that the rope doesn’t run over the most precariously perched boulders and kill my second and third. It was fun though. There was a few other lines in the area, but they would have been quite hard and on thinner pro (C4 #0.4 wouldn’t fit). Despite our little adventure, after lunch we continued along the cliff line. There was an absolutely amazing red crack line that varied from small hand jambs to pin-scar cracks, but it looked totally possible. It looked maybe mid-20’s? By any means too hard for us on this trip, but it would definitely get attention on the next trip. On the descent, Jeff and I decided to help out the native plants by playing a “Prickly Pear Smashing Game”. Ten points to smash a little one, 50 points for a metre tall one, 100 points for a 2 metre tall one, and if it was a really big and thick-trunked one, 1000 points. The score was 901 to me, 880 to Jeff. We both nearly rolled down the hill numerous times in our quest to smash the most prickly pears Clem was invited to play, but it really was a bit of a boys game. We all slept really well tonight.

Day Eleven (Thursday, June 9)
Ten days of climbing and exploring was beginning to catch up with us, so we slept in a little. Today’s destination was a buttress that boasted many proud looking red, orange and grey faces. After twenty minutes of walking and within moments of arriving at the cliff we started up an interesting line – climb up a wide(ish) crack for four meters, cut right in a wide horizontal break then finish up a nice thin corner system. Unfortunately the horizontal break was manky, so a detour led around the corner to a surprisingly cool 5 metre open chimney, so we named the route “Turnaround Surprise”.

The next climb we discovered was an awesome big red book, where you started off face climbing (with thin pro) up into a beautiful red corner for twenty meters or so. There was a few cool variants out to the right of the corner also, but we didn’t do them. “Meatlovers aka no Veggetation” (ie. Our name for this climb) had the coolest belay position – a nice shady cavelet with a back rest. Unfortunately we didn’t find any well protected lower grade routes this afternoon, but we were very excited to stay an extra day and explore another great looking escarpment.

Day Twelve (Friday, June 10)
Today we climbed our best route at Cania Gorge – a corner crack route in between immaculate red/orange/black sandstone. It looked a lot harder than any crack climb I’ve ever led, but the pro would be bomber and the climbing just looked way to cool to keep walking. You can see in the photo a short offwidth section which we deemed the crux. The moves were great, but I fell twice trying to get established to place the #5 Friend, awell. Jeff seconded the route, but had to rest in the crux. Last up was Clem. Jeff and I were perched atop the climb and watched Clem ascend the route without struggling at all, which we were proud of her for, but at the same time didn’t like being shown up. “Quick, throw a rock at her,” but instead Jeff just threw a big ant at her (which missed!). All in good fun though We decided to name the climb “Crouching Tiger Hidden Offwidth”. Tonight we bootied some wood from our camping neighbours and had a nice warm fire, drank some wine, and reminisced of our great two week adventure.