Friday night after work the Summer Rock students and instructors meet at Wellington railway station. We are waiting for Blair and Scott to arrive in hired vans to take us to Wharepapa South, somewhere north west of Lake Taupo. This will be our first weekend away. We pile into the vans; it’s a long drive – 6 hours – and we arrive at Bryce’s backpackers at 1 am. Next morning we’re to leave Bryce’s at 9 am but somehow it’s 9.30 before the last instructor and student are winkled out of Bryce’s shop. We drive the short distance to Froggatt Edge, park the vans and get ready for the rock. The instructors set up top ropes on the Slug Wall for warm up climbs. The rock is ignimbrite and pitted with small holes. There is a generous ledge well up the wall, conveniently placed for a rest stop. A couple of climbs and it’s after midday already. It’s scorching and the climbs are in the sun – we go through a lot of sunblock and water. After lunch we move down to Bring Your Daughter wall and Retour for some practice lead climbing. I am feeling a little nervous so Scott takes me up to a large boulder to practise lead climbing without me having to worry about falling. It’s disconcerting that he only has to walk round the back of the boulder to check my efforts at tying anchors. Encouraged I feel prepared to have a go at a short easy-looking lead climb. After showers back at Bryce’s, we head into Te Awamutu to the Redoubt for dinner. The Redoubt is full to overflowing; people are standing drinking on the street and the bar itself is crammed and noisy. We stay only long enough to eat and then head back to bed. Sunday morning a number of people are sporting shiny new gear having got up early to make the most of Bryce’s shop. We are all in the vans by 9.15 and heading back to Froggatt Edge; this time we start off in Animal Biscuit Valley. Scott has some of us tying anchors at the bottom of Retour, while the others revisit the Slug Wall. Emily belays me while I practise lead climbing on Retour which has a tricky little chimney-like feature that is rather lacking in holds (at least for the vertically challenged). At the top I attach my safety to one of the bolts and call “safe!” And it feels very safe since there is enough room at the top for me to sit comfortably while I prepare to abseil down. “Off belay?” “Off belay.” I clip some coils of rope to my harness and untie the rope from the belay loop. I run the end of the rope through the bolts looping it as I pull it through. When I have pulled enough rope through to reach the ground, I throw the loops of rope down. “Rope!” The rope now comes up from the ground through the bolts and down to the ground again. I tie my prusik round the double thickness of rope well below the bolts and fasten it to my harness with a karabiner and lock the karabiner, then taking hold of the rope above the prusik I push a loop of rope from each side of the bolts through my belay device and attach all to my safety sling with another karabiner. I lock the karabiner. I lean back to test that this set up will hold me. It does, so I undo my safety from the bolts and stand up with my back to the drop, lean back slowly and start to abseil down. After lunch I feel sufficiently rested and confident to try something a little harder. This time Catherine belays for me and I attempt Moon Base Alpha as my last climb of the day. It’s tricky as it starts at the edge of a shallow cave but somehow I haul myself up and then it’s almost vertical. At first there are plenty of holds but as I climb higher and my arms start to ache, it becomes more challenging. Almost at the last little ridge I make the mistake of looking down. Sore arms and vertigo decide me on retreat, despite the urging of those below me. Catherine, though, still has lots of energy; she climbs the slab to the left of the Moon Boulder (which we misread as Superwitch) before it’s time to head home.