It all started early on Friday evening. During the week there was some sad news, Poul had been posted to the Philippines for a month for work so our Ozy mission would have to be postponed. He literally got about 4 days notice before he has to fly off, he doesn't know where he is going or what he is going to do. Crazy! We were both really bummed as we were very much psyched for some serious aid climbing. Anyway, back to Friday night. I was supposed to pick up Poul at around 7.30pm for the drive up to Buffalo. I get a call from Poul saying 'Man, how about a big wall route on the north gorge this weekend?'. I replied 'No way man, we haven't got half the stuff we need'. We are short a haul bag, water bottles, a second set of ascenders, knee pads, a sleeping mat for me and a Gore-Tex jacket. Poul sounded really enthused and blurted out that he had just bought a $25 'haul bag' from an army disposal store and had also got knee pads. He had also borrowed a mat and Gore-Tex jacket for me. He was super enthused to do something before he left for overseas. I thought about it sensibly for about 10 seconds and said 'what the fuck, lets do it!' The route we decided to do was Defender of the Faith 190m M5 A2+ (grade 23 to free) a two day route up the North Wall left of Ozy. I drove home desperately racking my brain for things we needed, spare batteries, pocketknife, warm clothes, aiders, bolt plates, guidebooks arggg!!!. I threw the required items into the car and drove to Pouls. The $25 haul bag was excellent! It was a canvas tube, perfect size and it even had backpack straps for carrying! We then dashed to the local Coles for supplies. We chose some tinned food and various choc-bars for snacks and left in a hurry. I managed to leave one of our bags at the checkout and had to go back and get it! Concentrate Neil!

After picking up the Gore-Tex and mattress we started out from Melbourne at 8.30pm. Another quick stop over at a supermarket got me a disposable camera and we were set. We drove along the Maroondah highway discussing the weekend's plans. We were originally just going to go cragging at Buffalo with the other guys and just have a quick look at the North Wall for our Ozy attempt. Instead we were now planning to do a two day big wall as our first ever climb at Buffalo! The bivi ledge was described as 'small' by someone at the mill a couple of week's ago but we thought ' what the heck its only one night'. We realized we didn't have any wet weather gear apart from Gore-Tex jackets. We prayed it didn't rain. Five hours later we arrived very tired at the Buffalo campground. The mountain itself has some serious altitude, 1700m high and during the winter months is an entirely snow covered ski resort. We found the campground but couldn't find the others guys in the maze of little camps nestled amoungst granite boulders. We turned around a bend and were confronted with a beautiful sight/site, a classic 1940's alpine hut!! Finding none inside and ignoring the 'no camping' sign above the door we crashed inside.

Four hours the later the alarm went offÉ We groggily emerged from our sleeping bags and un0packed the car. Packing for a big wall route is a serious science. You have to bring enough food, water and clothes for the entire time as you have no chance of getting any from around you. Spending two days on the vertical also means you must pack light. We created a monster rack, consisting of four sets of wires, triples of most cams, a rack of hexes, two skyhooks, 25 quickdraws, about 10 slings and the usual array of aiding shit. Instead of a second set of ascenders we were going to use two shunts. We estimated we would use three litres of water per person per day so filled and packed 12 litres (12kg!!) of water.

The lining of the inside of the haul bag was our mattresses, the bottom was sleeping bags and the top was jackets. Inside was the precious delicates, the stove, food and torches. I hastily constructed a multipoint anchor to the top of the bag (I don't trust a $25 haul bag's stitching). The last thing you want is it to rip open 100m up the wall at 7pm. At 7am we drove the several km's to the gorge that is situated below a big alpine hotel, the Chalet. Having never been here before we got a little lost. We parked in a big carpark and walked up to the closet lookout. The view was of nothing, just a big mist cloud. I could hear water falling waaaaay down below. It was a terror of a vision. We had no idea what we were in for. We unpacked the car, heaved the mountain of gear onto our shoulders and walked into the rap gully	Poul at the top of the Gorge
By this time the clouds had parted revealing a monster dark grey face. The rap route descends what is known as the Comet Ramp. In reality it's a slightly angled chimney which is mighty uncomfortable, especially when you are rapping with a 30kg Haul bag! Three 50m raps and we reached a ledge which led down to the base of the wall. It was about this time that I realized we had left the guidebook in my bag at the top of the cliff!!! We almost turned back then and there, apart from the fact we had no idea how to get back up again! The thought of three pitches of wet unprotectable squeeze chimneys was most unappealing. I remembered the heights and vague description of the first three pitches and Poul remembered the heights of the last two pitches so we had okay beta. I managed to easily pick the line from below. The route starts up a manky chimney for a few moves then traverses into a thin corner then an arete and finally into a magnificent face crack which blasts 100m up the wall. I started up the first pitch at 10am.	Rapping into the start of Comet Ramp
Here is a blow by blow description. The start is a complete manky chimney corner filled with slime and moss. Amazingly the rock is so rough that I easily bridged up the two walls not touching anything chossy. I placed a good hex then free climbed a bit more left along a grassy ledge (its sounding classic already!). The next moves were the best, I had to dig hand and foot holds in grass tufts with no protection and mountains of gear to eventually touch some real rock. The next moves were the hardest technically on the pitch. Multiple small wires up a piton scarred small corner for about 15m with several RP's being vital. From half way up the corner you clip a bolt on the left arete and use a stick to clip another to your left. It was a pity we didn't have the guidebook so I didn't know about the stick! The bolt was way to far away so instead I lowered down from the first bolt about 5m and swung pendulum style across left and grabbed the base of a crack. Using a tension traverse I managed to stuff a cam, clip my daisy chain in and rest. A very cool move about 30m off the deck! It is this crack that is the start of the mega face crack which features for the next two pitches. I still had a little way to go yet up an amazing cracked face. The pitch ends 45m off the deck just below a roof. It's a complete hanging belay off natural gear just under a small roof. With not even a foot ledge it soon became very uncomfortable. I was to spend the next four hours hanging off this belay. Poul jugged up cleaning whilst I hauled. It was suprisingly easy to haul the bag up with the aid of shunts and a small pulley. In no time at all Poul was at my belay racking up for the next pitch. It was 1pm.	Neil starts up the manky first bit of the first pitch
Poul's pitch was a direct crack splitting the face that emerged from the lip of a small overhang. He easily got through the roof and started the slow process of aiding upwards. I began to get quite cold on belay. I had a set of thermals on, a windstopper jacket and a Gore-Tex jacket but was still feeling the chilly wind which blasted up from the gorge waterfall far below. A small lookout it situated at the top of Comet Ramp which has an excellent view of our climb. We soon became aware that Nick, Ben, Adam and Marcel were watching us. They yelled out a few things but alas we couldn't hear anything. By the time Poul got to his belay my hands were numb and I was jumping up and down just to keep warm. Jugging the pitch was easy. It's an amazing very rough crack, which has curved edges so makes placing gear quite hard. Cams especially only seem to hold at the far back of the crack. It took an amazing amount of large wires. Poul's belay was off several old aid bolts and a few pieces of gear. As I was jumaring up I became aware of an awesome line that was about 10m to the right of ours. It followed a thin seam and face and had plentiful new bolt hangers. Not having a guidebook meant we had no idea what it was. Later on at home I worked out it is a Steve Monks/HB route called Rough Justice 180m 28. The crux pitch is almost entirely bolt-protected face climbing for 50m about 100m off the deck. Its definitely one of the most impressive pitches I have seen anywhere. Nick and the other guys left to go climb something.	Neil jugs up the second pitch. Photo from belay.
The face crack that Poul had just led continued for another pitch, 50m long and uninterrupted by any ledges. If you were freeing this you would need mega endurance and mega tough hands as it's practically a rough granite hand crack the whole way. At one point it widens to offwidth size which I only just managed to aid through using my biggest piece of gear, a size #4 cam. The exposure on this pitch is amazing. You are so high up and the rock on either side is just slick granite. It is a beautiful line in an amazing place. By the top of this pitch I was clean out of quickdraws and most wires so had to use a dodgy tied of piton then an aid bolt to reach the belay ledge. This was the bivi site that we were told was comfortable for two people sleeping on. I looked at the jagged grassy ledge and was not impressed. The entire horizontal space was about two chairs worth and then there was several large rocks poking out around. It looked mighty uncomfortable. Aiding the last pitch and taken me a couple of hours so by the time Poul arrived at the bivi site it was 7pm. Nick and the other guys had returned to the lookout and were again yelling stuff at us. We realized that they properly thought we were having an epic and didn't have any bivi gear. We yelled out as loud as possible back to them 'bivi here! Bivi here!' but they couldn't hear.	View from start of third pitch looking down at Poul's belay.
Oblivious to their calls we checked out the surrounding ledges to try and find something bigger. Unfortunately the ledge was the biggest one around. We de-racked, tied the haul bag above us to the belay bolts, rigged up our safety lines and set about cooking dinner. The ledge was so small we couldn't get our sleeping mats out whilst we cooked as their wasn't enough horizontal space. We did manage to get into our sleeping bags and sit our legs over the edge. We took great care in unpacking them as the thought of them blowing over the edge was unthinkable. We had brought Poul's whisperlite stove that took forever to light. We almost gave up and ate the food cold but finally it kicked into life after several minutes of bashing and tinkering. Dinner was canned Turkey Chilli Beans. That reminds me, do you know what NZ's call an esky? A Chillybin!! Hot food was very nice indeed and was followed by tinned apricots and fruit cake. Feeling absolutely stuffed and quite cold we packed away the food gear and prepared for bed. The tricky bit was blowing up the thermarests, they didn't have tie-ons so were pretty risky to fumble about with on the ledge. I got the eastern end of the ledge and Poul go the west. We both wore everything to bed, including Gore-Tex's. Practically lying on top of each other with our feet jutting off the end of the ledge it was more sitting whilst asleep rather than lying down. The atmosphere was fantastic. It was a fairly brightly lit night and the whole gorge was lit up by moonlight. We both fell asleep instantly. At around 10pm we awoke to Nick and the guys yelling at us from somewhere up above. We couldn't make out words so we just went back to sleep. Later we discovered they had thought we were trying to climb out at night but couldn't see our torches. They went to set up a rap from above but couldn't find the top of the route. They thought the haul bag we were carrying up was just full of rocks (for haulbag training) not gear! Anyway we didn't have a clue what they were doing. At about 1am we both awoke again. A whipping wind had built up in the gorge and I was freezing! The fact that I had a large rock under my back didn't help either. I was thirsty and in the process of drinking managed to tip a fair quantity of water into my sleeping bag. I also go the zip on sleeping bag caught so I couldn't zip it up fully. The rest of the night was a half asleep, freezing cold nightmare. I had my Gore-Tex jacket hood completely done up as well as the sleeping bag hood. We were like little cocoons on a very small ledge. I checked out the weather report at the campground when we got back. At 8am (three hours after dawn) on Sunday morning in the campground it was 1 degree Celsius! It must have been&endash;5 or something for us with the whipping wind in the middle of the night. We had a funny little test. We had heaps of chewy museli bars as snack food and we could tell when it was freezing cold when the 'chewy' bars turned into crunchy!	Poul wakes up on the Bivi ledge. Notice my sleeping bag jutting off edge of cliff. Poul racked up ready for the third pitch   Neil belaying on the second day from the Bivi ledge

Finally the morning came with sun streaming onto our ledge. The sunrise hits the wall directly and it was an amazing feeling. We ate breakfast with our feet dangling over the edge of the cliff. Poul even managed to make coffee. We took an hour to rack up and re-pack the haul bag for the next day's climb. At this point the climb dispersed into a serious of corners, slabs and vegetated ledges. Having no guide and neither of us remembering where to go we chose a route at random. It was Poul's lead and he free climbed up a serious of ledges going left aided on top of a detached block. Above this was a wet vegetated thin crack which he proceeded up, using his nutter to clean the dirt from the crack. This was hardly the classic line of the day before. A few tenuous moves on RP's got him to below a sloping ramp. He skyhooked up and set up a belay on a muddy ledge. He had to dig out the crack to put the cams in. We noticed Nick and Adam on the opposite side of the gorge starting up Where Angels Fear to Tread (17), a 200m long classic mid grade granite 'trench' route. From the belay the obvious line looked like a sloping ramp leading left to the base of the corner. The problem was it had no gear and was practically a waterfall of moss and slime. This was true mountaineering!

I chose to lead of right instead. I freed climbed a few moves directly right and placed a sling. I lowered down from this and tension traversed across to a good jug and another sling. Above was an ugly angled offwidth which I was forced to free climb for about 10m using the only two pieces of big gear we had, a #11 hex and a #4 cam. I couldn't leave gear behind as it would have been a nightmare to clean for Poul. The offwidth trended left so soon I had serious Z rope work happening. I free climbed another dodgy move, digging into dirt and grass, then aided around a arete and slabbed up a belay tree about 5m below the top of the cliff. The rope drag was so bad I couldn't continue. Poul did some tricky seconding maneuvers using both the Haul rope and the lead rope to clean my tension traverse. Because of the belay position I had to haul the bag with my hands. The final five metres were a chossy hose ramp and horizontal (?) squeeze chimney which Poul almost got stuck in. As he was mid way through it Marcel and Ben arrived at the top and looked down to see Poul groveling along on his stomach. I couldn't stop laughing as it looked so ridiculous. I jugged up avoiding the squeeze.

Neil's horrible Z ropework on the fifth pitch

We had made it! Our first two day big wall. I was amazed, with such little time to prepare it had gone of suprisingly easy. Technically the route was easy, neither of us was worried in the slightest by any of the aid moves or the runout. Spending two days on the vertical is truly an addictive feeling. We wanted more! If we had the time we could have easily rapped back down and done another. We walked back around the gorge rim to its opposite side and for the first time saw the wall we had climbed. It was gigantic! The north wall is so big compared to the south wall which is what we had been looking at the entire time up the our route. Ozy looked fantastic and is almost twice as high as Defender. The good thing is its bivi ledge was actually visible from afar unlike the one we had slept on! After munching down on the food that Ben & Marcel had cooked for us the night before (one of their rescue plans) we decided to do a free route before we left. For some reason we chose a cliff on the complete other side of the National Park, an area known as Dreamworld. The 10km drive along the winding alpine road was worth it but. The scenery is beautiful, so many granite tors and big cliffs the whole way up. After floundering around in the bush for awhile we finally found the wall. It much like Asana at Giraween but a fair bit shorter. It has amazing dykes sticking out which create steep face routes rather than the standard granite death slabs. Ben got the onsight of the classic 19 route This is Not Our Land and I was very happy to get the onsight of the arete left of Bens route, Injustice 22. Four of us sat on the summit of this wall and watched the sun set. It was a fantastic end to a fantastic two days climbing.

Poul and I drove back whilst the other guys stayed for another two days. When I got back to home I looked on my Mt Buffalo poster that Cath had bought me last year. It is right next to my bed so I have looked at every night before I go to sleep. It is a shot of the north wall of the gorge and I could easily see our climb and the crappy ledge we had slept on. It was a good feeling going to sleep knowing I had finally climbed the wall. Now all I have to do is Ozy.