Bunny Bucket Buttress

Monster, achievable rock-climb

Bunny Bucket Buttress, 270m, Grade 18 sport climbPierces Pass, Blue Mountains

Ken Eastwood, nearing the top of pitch 7

For those who love vertical adventures, here’s one of the best days out you can have within a hop, skip and abseil of Sydney: a 270m towering mid-grade climb that is pre-bolted. That’s right. Most long routes in the Blue Mountains, and in fact elsewhere, are trad routes (meaning there are no bolts, and so you need a full rack of gear, and frankly I still haven’t scraped together the $1200 minimum for a proper rack) or are heart-stopping, finger-crimping extreme routes suited only to hardened (generally young) climbers who do nothing else but climb ridiculously hard routes.

This beautiful eight-pitch adventure, given the maximum five stars in the excellent Blue Mountains Climbing guide, 2010, was established in 2005. Originally a rich harvest of old “carrot” bolts, it is now fully ringbolted, with each bolt a comfortable 2–5m from the last. There are no hanging belays – all reasonable ledges, and the sixth and seventh pitches are up a gorgeous vertical headwall with plenty of “bucket” holds.

Earlier this year I had the absolute pleasure of experiencing this route – for hopefully the first of many times – with 21-year-old Blue Mountains Adventure Company guide Eric Butler. 

Eric Butler

Eric, who often chooses to climb and walk barefoot in the tradition of his grandmother Dot, aka “the barefoot bushwalker”, was on a day off, but had always wanted to do the route. I’d met Eric while climbing and doing a story on Warrumbungle National Park for Australian Geographic (http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/journal/warrumbungle-national-park-victoria-.htm).

An excellent climbing partner and great bloke, Eric is always calm, in control and happy to trade leads. We met at the top Pierces Pass carpark off Bells Line of Road, walked down to a few hundred metres before Walls Lookdown Lookout, then veered left on the thin track. This track takes you to the legendary “lunch ledge”, a precipitous eyrie with a multitude of climbs going above and below.

Eric sets up the first abseil

Eric had scored an excellent AND IMPORTANT bit of beta (intelligence): most people rap down the climb called Mirrorball, but many then have had nightmare starts to their day as their rope has become stuck when they try to pull it down after them. You’re better to stick on the Lunch Ledge for an extra 5–10 metres until you reach the next abseil station. The double abseil is a little tricky because the ledge and abseil point below is 45m down and 5m to the left (facing in), so send the most experienced abseiler first. And KNOT YOUR ROPES.

I was freaking out a little at the top of the abseil. 

I’ve never really loved abseiling – that thing of completely trusting the rope, rather than just having the rope there if you fall. Plus, I knew full well that the climb next to Bunny Bucket Buttress had seen the death of a climber in 2009 when incorrectly placed bolts pulled out of the rock. And there were fires elsewhere in the Blue Mountains, and I knew once we committed, we had a long way out. Eric’s light and seemingly spider-web-like 8.5mm ropes (rather than my 10.5mm ones) also meant that I rocketed down the rope faster than I expected.

Pierces Pass, showing the vegetated lunch ledge

From the bottom, it’s just a couple of hundred metres walk along the base of the cliff to the start of the climb, which is marked BBB.

Bunny Bucket has a few great surprises, and I won’t spoil them all, but the starting move is almost the hardest move of the climb. It’s a weird, foot-free, bouldery move and a mistake could be quite serious, as it’s over a small drop. But it is achievable in a variety of ways.

The first two pitches are fairly short and similar, the third slightly harder with holds a little more difficult to find. Pitch four is easy and fun, and pitch five more like a bushwalk (Eric had no shoes by this point).

Pitch 6 was my hardest lead, with an odd, almost foot-free traverse under an overhang, then disappearing around the overhang up onto the headwall. For me it was an awesome but achievable challenge, and Eric had the grace to at least pretend he struggled with a couple of moves.

The seventh pitch has those beautiful jugs for most of the way… until the last few moves when you are starting to get pumped. The fairly small ledge at the top of this pitch is definitely worth a bit of a quiet contemplation, some lunch, and a break to enjoy the view. 

Ledge at the top of pitch 7

From there the last pitch is unusual but relatively easy at grade 13.

There are plenty of big routes in the Blue Mountains, and some other classic fun routes (such as Sweet Dreams of course) but I don’t know of any mid-grade sport climb in Australia that is as big as this. It took us 7.5 hours to get back to the car from the time we left it, and we didn’t dawdle, but just enjoyed a superb day out, on superb rock, with superb company.

Happy climbing.

Apologies that these photos aren’t up to my usual standard – I borrowed a small point and shoot camera that appeared to take blurry shots. Clear photo of me by Eric Butler.

Why I support our farmers

Why I support our farmers

It’s the same journalistic story told again and again: ‘greenies’ and ‘farmers’ scowling at each other across the paddock fence. Both groups eye the other not only with suspicion, but with disrespect and sometimes a deep-seated loathing.

Like many city-born environmentalists, I know I have sometimes fallen into the same trap: unfairly branding all farmers as uncaring about the environment in which they work, and terrible custodians of the land. For that I apologise.

Muriel Dunne, Kilala Station

 We need farmers more than ever. 

In the next couple of decades, food production across the world will need to double in order to feed everyone, as our tender globe plunges faster and faster towards a frightening population of 9 billion people.  Many countries won’t be able to increase production, and so places like Australia need to become an even bigger producer and exporter of food. Some predictions say that Australia will need to quadruple its food production in order to satisfy demand.

Thankfully, many of Australia’s farmers are already exhibiting world’s best practice. Using advanced technologies, many produce maximum tonnage of crops time and time again, and although some animal husbandry practices have been rightly called into question of late, Australia’s humane farming methods are on the whole some of the best in the world.

Do not misunderstand me: I am not saying Aussie farmers are perfect. Far from it. In my 20-year journalism career I have often reported on some of the long-lasting, extensive and extremely detrimental impacts of agriculture on our environment. There has been irreparable widespread clearing, sometimes illegally, the degradation or decimation of entire ecosystems, pig-headed greed, and pollution, such as the fertilisers running off into the waters of the Great Barrier Reef. Generally a conservative bunch, the agricultural community has in many cases been slow to adopt changes that could have made a difference. And as owners and operators of often very large businesses, with vast overheads, they make primarily economic decisions that can have negative effects on the environment. So do city folk.

However, on the whole, I think today’s farmers do see themselves as caretakers of the land. Often highly trained in everything from agronomy to botany, these savvy farmers are trying to right the wrongs of the past: to re-establish wildlife corridors, to use less water – and use it more effectively – to rescue soils, and all the while produce copious amounts of high-quality fruit, veggies, cotton, meat, wine, grains, wool etc, despite seasonal turmoil or the effects of climate change.

Brian Campbell, Ilkadoon

Consumers

As consumers, we can make choices that will help the sustainability of our agricultural industry. Nearly every environmentalist in the world will tell us that one of the best things we can choose to do is to eat less meat. (For the record, I am NOT a vegetarian.) They say that if everyone ate just one meal less of meat a week it will make a substantial difference. We can choose to pay more for groceries that we believe are produced more sustainably: whether free-range, “organic” or from farmers who we know are endeavouring to do a great job with the environment – those who are winning environmental awards or who are taking steps to be more sustainable.

John Dunne, mustering feral goats

Although I have made efforts in my own suburban backyard to be more sustainable, I am under no illusion that my chooks and paltry veggie garden will feed even my own family, let alone anyone else. Sure, my neighbours might get the odd bit of excess produce, but I am not going to feed the world.

Many urbanites simply haven’t spent enough time with Aussie farmers to hear their stories, or endeavoured to understand their struggles and find out why they make the decisions they do. I encourage all, especially those of us who call ourselves environmentalists, to take one of the many opportunities to listen to an Aussie farmer. Choose a farmstay for your next holiday. Unfortunately FarmDay didn’t happen this year, but its aim is to give city families a farm experience for a weekend, and build bridges over the urban/rural divide.

I hope that as this proud urban greenie spends more time over the next few years hearing, investigating and telling the stories of Aussie farmers, that I can support those who are trying to do the right thing by the environment, and encourage some of the others to do the same.

kensbigbackyard.com.au

Rossmore Station

Why I hate Las Vegas

Why I hate Las Vegas

Call me a gambling man, but I’ll bet Las Vegas is worse than just about any nightmare you’ve had. Oversized, grotesque buildings loom over filthy streets filled with hordes of mindless, pokie-playing punters who stare straight ahead like zombies in search of ATMs.

On this trip to sin city I discovered the best thing about Vegas is actually 27km away from the main strip, and – no surprises here – it isn’t owned by any casino (yet!). It’s a stunning colourful natural feature called Red Rock Canyon. Home of both the coyote and the road runner, the 80,000-hectare reserve has 50km of hiking trails and a 20km scenic drive. It’s winter at the moment and the towering sunset-coloured rocks have received a rare light dandruff of snow, adding to their spiky hair of cactus and Joshua trees. They are real and natural, and so unlike the city, which is beautifully hidden once you are in the reserve.

Las Vegas hosts some 36 million visitors a year, and this little piece of parkland paradise cops a million visitors a year, so the scenic drive isn’t exactly peaceful. However, driving bumper to bumper around the colourful slice of the Mojave Desert reminds you that sham city itself sits in a barren desert and so every palm tree, every blade of grass and every flower in Vegas has been brought in from somewhere else at huge expense. Heck, Vegas even has a massive aquarium and performing dolphins that jump out of blue pools inserted in the desert sands. Now is that a triumph of human achievement, or a reminder of how ridiculous the whole place is?

At least the dolphins are real. All the fake stuff in Vegas – generously provided by one of the 1700 licensed gambling houses at your expense – is awful. Vegas’s Eiffel Tower may be a half-size replica of the Parisian icon, but without space around it, it has none of the original’s grace and charm. The gondola-filled canals at the Venetian casino might sparkle with chlorinated water rather than Venice’s muddy liquid, but they washed away all of Venice’s old-world class.

Even the food here is a conjuring trick as good as David Copperfield’s finest. 

On the surface, Vegas offers great food with almost unlimited variety, but – and this is really bizarre – none of it has any smell. At all. 

In fact there are no pleasant aromas in Vegas, just stale cigarette smoke. Therefore, it doesn’t matter what you order – everything from “$29, all you can eat all day” buffets, through to burgers, steaks, or items in expensive Korean, Italian or Japanese restaurants – it all tastes the same. Plastic-like and tainted. You enjoy eating it momentarily, but feel slightly nauseous after it’s over. A bit like a holiday in Vegas really.

Walk the overcrowded footpath along Las Vegas Boulevard and you’ll also discover it’s wall-to-wall porn, with insistent parades of pimps flicking and clicking nudie cards with phone numbers like some sort of obscene rhythmic group. Most of the cards end up on the ground, so you walk across a carpet of pornographic images, which is particularly enjoyable when you are dragging a seven-year-old and a nine-year-old along the footpath. 

Of course, the Boulevard isn’t called “The Strip” for nothing.

Inside the casinos it isn’t much better. Most waitress uniforms are – hmmm, what’s the delicate word for this, “slutty?” – not feminine or particularly alluring, but obviously designed by one of Hugh Hefner’s pyjama tailors. And you can’t get to your hotel room, or any of the restaurants, theatres or the toilets, without walking through the casino floor. Kids and all.

Even the shows, such as the premier extravaganza Jubilee, which has been running for nearly 30 years, are generally an excuse for live porn. (Have you seen Jubilee? They spent millions of dollars on costumes and still couldn’t manage to cover the performer’s tits and arses!) Don’t get me wrong – some shows are brilliant. In fact, they’re so good that you mercifully forget you are in Vegas. Fifteen years ago my wife and I were watching a Vegas show while the city’s biggest ever sandstorm ripped through town, knocking over the world’s biggest sign among other things. Cocooned in air-conditioned luxury (and surrounded by naked performing women), we had no idea at all of the devastation until we walked outside after the show was over.

Of course, it wouldn’t be Vegas without the 200,000 slot machines (for a city of 500,000 people), and at the airport they are inconveniently positioned to stick their arms out and trip you as soon as you get off the plane. They’re everywhere. Supermarkets. Service stations. They seep out of casinos onto the sidewalks, helping to generate the state’s $12 billion income from gambling each year.

As a result, the white noise in Vegas, wherever you go, is incessant. Although no longer as loud as they used to be (because coins are no longer dolled out – it’s all done with paper now), the machine armies emit a constant hum of tuneless tunes and pointless bells around the clock. This generally makes people talk louder, wherever they are. Combine that with a $1 billion annual bar tab and a 24-hour town mentality where nothing shuts, including peoples mouths, and you can be assured that whatever time you are trying to sleep there will be someone near your hotel room making way too much noise.

Bugger Vegas. I think I’ll stay up here at Red Rock Canyon and go hiking. 

I’d prefer take a chance with the dozen mountain lions that still live here than the card sharks and shysters back in town. Odds are two to one that I’ll come back alive.

Top 10 walks in the ACT

Capital walks

Few people realise that almost 50 per cent of the Australian Capital Territory is taken up by just one national park – Namadgi. This special alpine wilderness includes alpine ranges flecked in snow, plunging waterfalls, granite cliffs and vast forests of alpine ash, peppermint and snow gums. In spring and summer many of these peaks remain cool and become festooned in native wildflowers.

Canberra has great wildlife, and it’s relatively easy to see large animals such as eastern grey kangaroos on many of the walks. As well as Namadgi, the ACT holds the excellent Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve, which has a multitude of walks and the Sanctuary, with abundant platypus, birds and other wildlife. There are also 30 reserves spread across the ACT in the diverse Canberra Nature Park.

Take a healthy break from the pollies and the Pollocks, and ride Shanks’s pony to any of these.

1. Square Rock

By far the best medium-distance walk in the ACT, this 9km return route starts on Corin Road, in Namadgi National Park. Wind your way up through pretty forests of alpine ash, black sallees, mountain gums and snow gums, past wetlands of croaking frogs and massive round granite boulders left over from a giant’s game of marbles. The track is rich in wildlife, particularly reptiles, with dragons, skinks and snakes galore, but there are also kangaroos, swamp wallabies and red-necked wallabies. After a short breather at Orroral Valley Lookout, the highlight is the surprise at the end – a fantastic adventure playground of huge granite boulders on the edge of a vertiginous cliff, with stunning views over the national park.

Square Rock summit

2. Jerrabombera Wetland Reserve

Almost in the centre of town, this wonderful wildlife refuge provides vital habitat for a whole range of birds, including rare migratory species. Take a pair of binoculars and dawdle along the cycling track or a series of winding paths, to five very well set up bird hides. There’s many of the species you’d expect to see within sight of Parliament House – the occasionally vocal (Wayne) swans, the pretty but hard-to-catch dollarbirds, old coots galore and, if you stick around the ACT long enough, you might even get to hear (Mark) Latham’s snipe. Enter from the end of Newcastle Street in Kingston.

3. Pialligo Forest

Squashed between the airport and the drag-racing track is this heritage-listed secret – the largest stand of mature redwood trees in Australia. Giant sequoias are the tallest trees in the world, and Canberra architect Walter Burley Griffin decided to plant 120,000 of them – giant redwoods and coastal redwoods – to provide a majestic grove. Although many of the imported trees died in the Australian conditions, there are still some 3000 remaining, and a very gentle 3km walk wanders through them. As they are “only” 100 years old, they are still relative newborns, but it’s still worth a meander through the “nursery”.

4. Black Mountain via Botanic Gardens

One of the most prominent landmarks in Canberra, Black Mountain, with its needle-like Telstra Tower, holds two wonderful natural treasures revealed only to those who explore its covered flanks. The first is at the bottom: the brilliantly laid out Australian National Botanic Gardens, which features 74,000 individual plants representing 6,200 Australian species, making it the world’s most comprehensive display of living Australian native plants. Don’t miss the gorgeous Rainforest Gully or the Eucalypt Lawn. From the back of the 40 ha gardens, an easy-to-follow path (5.4km return) heads gently up through surprisingly lovely forests of scribbly gum, drooping lime-coloured cherry ballart and red stringybark to the summit with its glorious views over Canberra. The mountain has the most diverse vegetation in all the ACT, as well as bubbling creeks and rich birdlife.

5. Yankee Hat

Visit the most accessible Aboriginal rock art shelter in the ACT on this relatively easy 6km return walk in Namadgi National Park. The white clay and ochre painted figures include a turtle, dingos, emu and a series of abstract humanoid figures, all on a rounded off, under-cut granite boulder. Carbon dating of nearby campsite deposits indicates the site has been in use for more than 800 years, although indigenous people have lived in the wider area for many thousands of years. The track leaves from Old Boboyan Road, 30 km south of Tharwa, and travels through undulating grasslands in which you’ll see kangaroos and views over wilderness areas.

6. Mt Tennent

When bushranger John Tennant was captured near here in 1828, it’s rumoured he left a whole cache of loot somewhere on Mt Tennent. It hasn’t been found – yet. Search to your heart’s content on this bracing 15km return walk to the mountain’s summit. The mountain itself is the prominent landmark looming over Canberra’s south-western suburbs, and is rich in wildlife, with kangaroos, swamp wallabies and birds galore. It’s a long, steady climb to the fire tower at the top, but there are plenty of opportunities to stop and enjoy the cascading creeks, weird granite boulders, massive fungi and views over lush grazing land. The walk starts directly behind the Namadgi National Park Visitor Centre.

Snow gum colours, Mt Tennent

7. Walk over politicians

There are few countries in the world in which you have the democratic right to walk right over the top of leading politicians and bureaucrats – and we get to do it on lush grass. The long sloping tracts of ryegrass and Kentucky bluegrass lead invitingly from either side of the courtyard up to the iconic 81m flagpole, although barriers prevent you from actually reaching the flagpole unless you go down and through security at Parliament House. Enjoy the views back over Old Parliament House and the War Memorial. Go barefoot to get the most out of the experience.

8. Lake highlights

No visit to Canberra is complete without a refreshing stroll around part of Lake Burley Griffin. The route around the whole lake is more than 35km long, so unless you have a couple of days it’s best to pick a section. For a tranquil experience, start at Black Mountain Peninsula, off Parkes Way or, if you want to be in the heart of Canberra’s icons, start near the National Library, passing the Australians of the Year Walk (tromping over the written music for Advance Australia Fair), Peace Park, the Captain Cook Memorial Jet, the International Flag Display, Speakers Square, the National Carillon and 3ha sculpture garden outside the National Gallery of Australia.

9. Mt Ainslie

Like Black Mountain, Mt Ainslie’s summit is most commonly reached by road, but it’s well worth taking the local’s route: the concrete pathway from the back of the War Memorial. In the mornings and evenings, there is a constant stream of joggers and power walkers, but even they don’t scare away the large mobs of eastern grey kangaroos, fantails, superb fairy-wrens and crimson rosellas that are always found in the scribbly gum and drooping she-oak forest. It’ll take about 45 minutes of walking to reach the summit, and then you can really appreciate the view.

10. Cooleman Ridge Nature Trail

Abundant in birds and other wildlife, this 3km loop offers one of the easiest ways to see common long-necked tortoises in their natural habitat. The park, found at the end of Kathner Street in Chapman, is an ex-grazing area and initially doesn’t look spectacular, but it has some lovely woodlands and grasslands, with attractive box trees and red gums, and birds everywhere. The easy walk leads up to a trig station with views over farming land, the Brindabella and Tidbinbilla ranges, Mt Stromlo to the north, and Mt Tennent to the south. It’s easy to spot the tortoises in the dams.

Some of these are featured in Top Walks in NSW