It is Saturday evening.... I am eating a lamb curry wrap and enjoying a tasty cold Speights beer. I got out of Palmy again today and finally got down to Wellington to climb some sea side rocks! I got a lift from one of my co-workers down to "Hang Dog's" climbing gym, where I met up with Ryan.... an employee there who offered to show me around the local rock scene (thank goodness for internet climbing chat forums!).
Due to the fact that it had been raining the entire 2 hour ride down, my spirits were not at their peak. Ryan had told me that every Saturday a large group leaves from the gym to go out and climb...... as that it was wet and windy, they had not showed up either. It also seemed that due to a minor issue with staffing, Ryan was working his first Saturday in 3 months. I noodled around for a bit on their bouldering walls.... convinced that I was doomed to another day of indoor climbing when Ryan proved to be a truely compationate climber..... "Hey dude, the sun's coming out. Why don't you just take my car to the rocks and bring it back before the gym closes.
To be an honest guy, I left my trad rack there (which he later confessed was worth easily twice the value of his car) and accepted his offer. I was off to Baring Head, which is a cool bouldering area on the south east point of Wellington. The rock is know as greywacke (of the Torlesse Supergroup, deposited during the Triassic and Jurrasic eras between 250 and 140 million years ago!). It is conveniently located on a sandy beach which makes for superb landings. A lot of the climbs are short cliff style in the 5.6- 5.10 range (moderate difficulty) though there are some real test piece problems to work on. I also set up my rope on Ship Rock, which is the mother of all boulders at Baring Head. As that I had no belayer, I set up a sturdy single line and practiced my self belay techniques.
All in all, the climbing was awesome. I headed back to the gym, did a few more climbs to warm down and yaddered with Ryan, who turns out to hail from Kentucy/ Tennessee area! he offerded me a ride to the bus station so I could get myself back to Palmy..... and here I am. Damm, what a good day. I am going to go explore the Manawatu Gorge with the owner of City Rock (the Palmerston North climbing gym) tomorrow and hopefully get even more climbing in.