Abseiling in the Blue Mountains

Posted: May 11th, 2007 | Author: Ben | Filed under: Out-and-About |

It’s a pretty good way to spend a Saturday morning: bouncing around on a very long rope on the side of a cliff 60 metres from the ground, a long way away from the nearest hospital.

I went with Laura on a day adventure in the Blue Mountains. Unfortunately my camera broke when we were sandboarding up in Newcastle.

We started the day with a quick lesson: stick your thumb up your bum to stop yourself from falling. Whatever you do, do not let go of the rope because you’ll die. A couple of people had a go on a 2-metre high surface, but everyone else who felt more confident about where to shove their thumbs went straight for cliff-face number one, at 15 metres.

Abseiling’s fantastic fun. It’s the going back up that sucks. A 15 metre hill climb is nothing for what came after.

We had a small lunch before having another go on a slightly bigger descent: this time somewhere just short of 30 metres. This was easy, except for Sagi who managed to go head-over-heals. Apparently hanging head first down the side of a cliff and still remembering not to let go of the rope takes a calm and collected mind. Figures.

Laura managed to take to it straight away, having already abseiled down Table Mountain in South Africa. The guide had a bit of trouble keeping the support rope slack for her. I’d have only just have beaten her if I jumped down the cliff like a lemming.

Straight afterwards was a short walk to the big cliff. With trees stretched out along the valley below and our heads literally in the clouds we stuck the rope in the harness and started the big descent.

Due to the unfortunate set up of my harness between my legs, it was a painful 60 metres going down but pausing to take in the view, dangling from a rope with the mountains cascading into the horizon in all direction worked as a pretty good sedative. Laura and I walked back up to the top (it’s serious hill climbing) where we thought we’d have another go.

Below is a shot of me just started my last descent.