Sydney January 2017

Dr. Captain Adventure Mike does it again! I flew to Sydney Friday after work. I wanted a last adventure before I'm laid up healing after the installation of my laser eyes scheduled for Wednesday. I made a friend, Chris T at my NZ alpine adventure in November, and he mentioned how cool the canyoning and rock climbing in Sydney is. I love buying plane tickets, and for 160 AUD (~110 USD) I had round trip tickets booked in December before my Tasmania Overland Track adventure.
I took the train to the Sydney Central YHA, which is a 5 star hostel.  I wandered through Chinatown which was buzzing in anticipation of Chinese New Year, and I wandered about in Darling Harbour.  My leg was hurting a good bit from my running injury, but I wasn't doing any damage. I had ice cream and then found a trendy Vietnamese place and ordered some high class Pho. I visited the bottle shop and got some Soju, then I repaired to the rooftop pool at the YHA.
I was surrounded by an international cast of young, sexy folks all doing exactly as I was.  Travel the world and enjoy a brew.  The views are epic, and I talked to lovely ladies from Colombia when I practiced my poor gringo Spanish. I also talked to some Belgium girls, so pretty with their blonde and blue and legs for days. And then I talked to some Kiwis and bogan Aussies.  All was good!
Chris picked me up early and we drove to a crag called the Soft Parade, which has a lot of lower rated climbs with plentiful new bolted protection. I dosed religiously on Advil to keep the pain manageable, and we climbed a variety of routes up to Aus 15's.  I managed to lead a few 14's with my bum leg, but I failed to 'send a 16 that I was leading. Chris managed it, and no hardware was sacrificed to the wall gods.  As is expected, I gave my offer of blood to the mountain and put my mark on his rope. At the end of the wall was a easy 13 climb out and short walk to the car park.  Fun!!!
We then drove to The Grand Canyon, an impressive name for an impressive place. We donned wetsuit and climbing gear and rappel led 17m into the canyon, then we followed the creek throughout. These mountains are all sandstone eroded my millennia of water to create phenomenal canyons and gorges. At points the cliffs rose 50m/160' above us, and it was dark and secluded.  I wandered into a very hot couple skinny dipping. I wish they didn't put their clothes on as I was enjoying the view! We finished the walk and hiked out, then we went to a very busy nearby free campsite.
I brought a box-o, and we cooked veggies and steaks.  Glamping! Later in the evening we hiked to a lookout and viewed the magnificent starscape. I was amazed, flabbergasted even to see the large and small Magellanic Clouds!!! I had read about these nearby galaxies, but I had no idea they were so big!!!  Seriously, this was amazing, and these are only visible down here.
Sunday I woke up and wasn't hungover, which is fairly incredible, and we hit multiple hiking destinations. The cliffs here are huge, 300m/1000' or more, all carved by millennia of water in the soft sandstone. This area hasn't experienced any volcanism, so the Rock is striated evenly horizontal. Millions of years ago this whole land was underwater and built up these huge layers of sandstone.  Quite incredible!  There was much talk of climbing or rappelling these cliffs. We went back to the Soft Parade and climbed numerous routes, but it was hot and we became weak from lack of salt. I had some terrible, salty beef jerky that restored us. I led every climb, but pain kept us to 13's. I failed to 'send the last 13 because I needed to dyno on my left leg and I couldn't, so Chris mopped it up for me.  More blood sacrifices too.
We climbed out again and then headed to Empress canyon.  We walked 2 km in and then glissaded down a muddy slope to the creek. We cleaned off the mud and trotted in to a wonderful series of technical down limbs and jumps through the canyon.  At one point I had to jump 4m/15' down into a pool, and I lost my glasses.  I swam to look for them a bit, but I don't care.  I still have my RX sunnier and I won't need glasses after Wednesday.  This canyon wasn't as visually impressive as the Grand Canyon, but it was technical and difficult.  Copious Advil combined with cold water kept my pain acceptable, but I did a few bad things that hurt.  So it is. Anyway all this was lovely, and we finished off with a 30m/100' rappel down a waterfall. Sugoi! Amazing! Fantastic! So much fun!
We walked out after I had completely chatted up 2 lovely tattooed beauties.  They really liked my US flag speedo, and I was hoping to get invited to a different type of adventure. Adventure successful, Chris drove me back into the city and dropped me at the YHA. New adventure awaits tomorrow! I'll explore Sydney, the opera house, botanical gardens, museums. I'm glad my leg is supporting me thus far, and I'm having a blast.