#state8

[lowbrowcustoms]

Our friends at State 8 asked if we gave this art idea to a random Atlanta shop... nope but looks pretty cool they included us in the piece! #lowbrowlife #lowbrow #lwbrw #motorcycleart #pieces #atl #state8 #motorcycles #triumph #thelife

[state-eight-assault]

Mt Woodroffe

I've always felt a connection with Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump when he says ‘I'm not a smart man.’  Indeed, what kind of idiot quits his job, runs off to Europe, and comes back, only to go to Uluru, while still ravaged by inconsistent sleep patterns, and hike up a big mountain?

So I spent a total of 27 hours in transit, just caught two connecting flights, and had a few days of restless sleep.  The next day I left for Sydney, to catch a Jetstar flight to Uluru.

Jetstar amuses me.  I have said on numerous occasions that ’business class only exists so they have an excuse for treating everyone else like shit.’  But Jetstar takes that to a whole new level.  You can pay a small fee, in exchange for giving up your basic human rights, and having a very large man read porn magazines right next to you, just to say you got to Cairns cheap.

I installed Jones in the Fast Lane, what a game that was.  Really inspired my love of simulation games.  Oh aye, we saw the field of lights, I was most amused by my pathetic phone camera. But the real thing I was there for was to hike Mt Woodroffe, South Australia’s highest peak.

My parents (yes the very same who said I would not be able to hike Bogong) said that I would be able to get to Mt Woodroffe, as there had been a bit of rain prior to the hike while I was away.  As I hadn't heard anything, I just stuck with ‘It’ll be alright’ and changed the subject. As it turned out there was quite a bit of rain and it stopped us, and forced us to drive an extra hour, at the SA border.

At the border I found a knob-tailed gecko (I didn't know it was a knob-tailed gecko, other people told me) and I held it up to my face.  It wore such an expression of optimism that I couldn't help but adopt it as my attitude mascot for the trip.  Of course it could have just been happy because he knew he was much better looking than me.

In typical style I spent most of the night awake, then decided to sleep as the wake-up call sounded, and woke up five minutes before we left.  I threw together some lunch and snacks and jumped on the bus and attempted to attach my gaiters without any light.

We had been up to the mountain the day before to scope out paths, the consensus seemed to be to loop around to the left, before jumping onto the ridge line up to the top, another group was going to zig-zag up the face, and another going to go out to the east and go up the eastern ridge.

People over-complicate these things, and at the risk of appearing like Brendan Gleeson in The Guard, when Don Cheadle says ‘I can’t tell if you’re really motherfucking dumb, or really motherfucking smart’, why don’t you just walk up the mountain.  The mountain is treeless so you can see the highest point, aim for it and go.

Spinifex was not my friend; Lee the Aboriginal bloke who lived out there described it as ‘his cousin’, which was hilarious.  I was dealing with rocks and spinifex, which means it was going up above my gaiters. Brian, the most Australian man ever, agreed that it was good he put on gaiters, but was in shorts (with gaiters) by the time he got to the summit.  Brian had also pointed himself at the summit, but took a slightly different, and smarter, path.

I had taken a path with more rocks, figuring I could get over rocks faster than spinifex, and spinifex is sparse on rocks, but the bastards also ripped a giant hole in my pants (when I told Brian I’d get mum to fix, he said I should do it myself), and got to a high point as the sun was coming up.  I decided not to stop and to keep yomping.

Blatantly ignoring the small cairns that had been placed on the point of the final ascent and still going straight to the highest point I had to do some rock scrambling, which turned into rock climbing at points, which was fun, I really like that kind of thing.

I was aiming for 1:20 and as that fell away I was just aiming for a quick time, the sweat had soaked through my shirt and jumper and my old Arsenal cap was ever more threadbare. The original cairns had thrown me because I hadn't read about them in any of my pre-trip research, I even thought that the first one had been the summit.  As I hauled myself over another rock, and I thought I would have to do a bit of a ridge run to get to the summit the giant cairn appeared all of 30m away. Sprinting towards it I checked my watch and it was 8:24am, 1:29.  As it was APY lands no alcohol, so I missed my beer at the summit.

Brian stomped up six minutes later, to his pleasure and my amazement, and it was around another hour before Lee and Keith came up, after slogging up the front face of the mountain.

To be honest I was knackered so I opted to go down with Brian and take a bit of time heading down, following the cairns was definitely the way to go.  Going down with Brian we discussed work, life, retirement, things I want to do, and points of interest for both of us.  It was very enjoyable and I learned quite a bit chatting to him.  I want to own a quarry, considering all the ones I’ve broken into.

On the way down we deduced that we were a few hundred metres off our original path and bashed back around to the right place, Brian said he didn’t want to ‘lead you up the garden path’, I thought, ‘Good God, if I was leading we would be on the wrong side of the mountain by now.’  We dipped down into the stream that ran from the top, in three dry streams and to the main stream and found the waterfall which was trickling.  We kept going down rocks (people complicate this, can you get down, then go…) until we got to the very bottom of the waterfall which was a round, high rock face.  I sang Jerusalem into there with the sound bouncing back.

I was very tired when I got back to the car, and it was another hour and a bit before anyone else came down, Stephen had sprained his ankle on the way up and showed hella guts to make it up and down, and Stephen v2.0 had completed the State 8.

I enjoyed being around ten other people attempting the State 8 (Brian was doing the State 9, arguing that JB is a separate territory and so he would do the eight contiguous states and territories and the one non-contiguous state), normally when I have to explain that I want to hike the highest mountain in each state and territory in Australia I get a black stare and an ‘oh’ which encourages me to change the subject.  But with these people they understood that I wasn't crazy and got the issues with logistics, timing, and the demands of the hikes themselves.

Or maybe we are all crazy, that’s the thing about crazy people, they don’t realise they’re crazy.

[state-eight-assault]

Update v2.0

Since I wrote this a few things have changed, lets keep on top of things.

The plan for completing the state eight is below.

Mt Koscuiszko 1995 EDIT: and 28 March 2017

Bimberi Peak - 5th October 2015

Mt Bogong - 21st November 2015

Mt Woodroffe - 14th May 2016

Bartle Frere - EDIT: 26 July 2017 Early Feb to coincide with Aidan’s wedding, fly from Brisbane to Cairns, do it in a day.  EDIT: Unfortunately this one was attempted in February, which my Mum (Queenslander) explained was ‘wet season’.  A little rain never stopped me, I danced to Mainstreet in Dutch rain.  Well I started out and it was a light trickle of rain, no problems.  The rain got heavier and heavier until it was officially torrential, and the track turned into a stream.  I had fuck-all grip and there were fucking leeches all over me.  I stopped once to get the fuckers off me, but when I stopped there were more leeches attaching to me than I was getting off.  I turned back a little over halfway up to the summit.  Unknown date right now.

Mt Ossa - in 2016 when Rob does his cruise around Tasmania.  EDIT: This one will be a little sooner if I’m unemployed. EDIT: would like to next summer, see how work is.

Mt Meharry - Late 2016 or early 2017 fly to Newman, hire a 4x4 and head into the Pilbara.  Camp 1 night. EDIT: Definitely 2017. EDIT: unknown

Mt Zeil - unknown

[state-eight-assault]

Mt Bogong Assault

Sometimes you wake up and ponder your life choices.  I definitely did as I got out of bed at 3:10am on Saturday morning.

Outside Canberra’s most (in)famous nightclub there is a step down from the undercover area to the uncovered area.  If you are sitting on the step you are on the ‘steps of shame’.  if you have at spent time on the steps of shame it means you probably need to re-evaluate your life, extra points if you are leaning on someones shoulder or hurling.  When Rob and I drive back from Sydney on Saturday night, cruising in around 2 or 3am to get to Aranda on Sunday morning I tell him to go past the steps of shame as we judge everyone whose night has come to that.  However I was not on the steps of shame at 3:10am, and I was still re-evaluating my life.

I was up and driving by 3:30am, the first red bull was cracked open at 3:35am, and would prove to be the first of six I would consume that day.  I was headed for Mt Bogong, the tallest mountain in Victoria, second tallest of the state 8, and tallest mountain on mainland Australia outside of NSW.  I was not going to do this whole, stay a night, no no.  Up and back in a day.  With a beer and a 5km run in between.

There are a lot of trucks on the Hume Highway at 4:00am, but I was making good time.  I glanced a kangaroo in a bizarre moment but checked and no damage to the mx5.

I stopped in at a very cold Wangaratta to parkrun

I got 18:38 and ran in second, my quest to get a first at parkrun goes on.

I started out the walk to the top of Bogong.  The staircase spur track is hella steep.  I was breathing heavy 2k in and my t-shirt was drenched with sweat by 4km.  I had expected the hut a little earlier in the piece, but I could start to see the steep slope running up to the ridge line of the mountain.  It reminded me of English mountains, that have heather and exposed rock on them, instead of Australian mountains, covered with gum trees, or with clumps of trees and thin grass.  Instead you had thick heather covering the top of the mountain, it was rather alien for me, being used to the Australian bush.

I stopped and had a quick drink at the hut before jumping back on the track, I saw an echidna, which is the first echidna ive ever seen, which was nice, I called him ‘social anxiety echidna’ because everytime I moved he tried to burrow into the dirt and hid his face from me.

Onwards and upwards I went until I started approaching the treeline and could start to see back along the Victorian alpine region, which was quite impressive, I could see three or four rows of mountains back.  I was amazed at the amount of mobile coverage, I had walked past some blokes calling their mate on the summit, nothing like that in Namadgi, weak Victorians, however I was chatting to people most of the way up from the hut onwards.

As I hit the tree line I started to get an idea of the rest of the path, I asked a guy who was coming down where the summit was and how long it would take, he said it would take 30 minutes and it was steep at the end.

I thought he was crazy until I actually got to the hike to the top, it was slippery rock and steep like steps.  It took me 25mins to get to the top.

The top was eerily quiet, Bimberi, Square Rock, Legoland, all have wind rushing across the top.  It was still up at the top.

Up the top I had a beer and then raced back down.  I slipped once and my foot started hurting just before I hit the end of staircase spur.  It was really killing me so I jogged a bit back to the car.

I stopped in for a beer and organised to see the Pole vault princess that night, I got back all bloody and gross and took a glorious shower, before devouring her delicious quinoa pasta.  It was a great hike, unfortunate that I have messed up my foot, because my sister is coming back from the states and we were going to go hiking, I’ll have to do it on one foot.

[ascendingthestateeight-blog]

[ascendingthestateeight-blog]

Portfolio

My dad's asked me to put together a folder of information about each mountain - general information like the height, location, etc, as well as information regarding which way to take, how long we'll have to walk to get to the mountain (Tasmania wins that one at 65km), if we need swags or if there's huts, good places to stop for lunch, which season, etc.

I absolutely love planning things, so this is completely in my element. It'll probably end up looking more like a university assignment than a simple plan haha.