Nothing much happened in the burbs of Sydney growing up in the 80’s. Shoplifting, cheap wine and smoking bongs was culture as was going to the vid shop to grab a movie. Life was cheap and pre-internet the world was small. Climbing entered this time and space for me, hence forth, life changed.
 
I was a kid, so didn’t venture far from the tree so to speak. Didn’t know any climbers so I just borrowed books from my local library and stole 'em if I needed for an extended read ('least I was reading). Those books featured mad Englishmen climbing shitty looking rock in hobnail boots and tweed hats. Others pictured Americans on big walls in white pants. I didn’t know better, they littered my imagination but thankfully not my fashion sense. 
 
I had a mate called Trevor. He had a dad called Bob. Bob was one of those Vietnam Vets who had an edge of crazy that six beers in on a summer afternoon was released. He used to jump off his shed roof into a pool and cause a splash that flooded the backyard bindies and had us kids laughing in hysterics and following on. The best thing with Bob was he was a linesman with the electricity mob so he had access to ropes. He heard me talking climbing and grifted me a hemp rope from work. I was destined for a higher calling. 
 
I dragged Trevor out to sandstone boulders near home and practiced knots learned from my library books.  Classic abseils down 20m cliffs was a step up, but other than chafing my balls, this shit seemed alright. We were kids, what could possibly go wrong?

​As I kept memorising pages of my growing library collection we would practice them in the grottos and boulders of rocks in bushland around my place. It was an escape. Lots of folks were doing it tough, no one had much cash and fish and chips on a Friday was a treat. Life looked pretty pedestrian so climbing filled a hole that life couldn’t and shit, it did even more, it opened a hatch to dream. ​

When you’re into something you find that you come across like-minded people. My bother had a neighbour named Bruce Stevens. Bruce was a climber, like a real one, with real gear and ropes and shit. My bruv had a word with his mate and I gotta an invitation to go climbing.

Bruce introduced me to his posse at the First Ave, the local mega cliff (all five metres of it). We would flap about trying to out-do each other on this rough and ripple standstone. I watched and listened to guys who knew shit and did shit, then took that back to piddle cliffs nearby and continued to learn my craft.  Placing prehistoric climbing gear like hexes and wedges, scraping myself endlessly and breaking shit, teaches you not to fall off. I got better at hanging on regardless of the fear and in the process got stronger.
 
There was a local rock not far from home. I could skip the last two periods of school and get several routes done by tea-time. We called it, The Wok. I taught myself to bolt there. Fuck knows what I was doing, but I had a mate craft a steel barrel I could hold in a hand. He drilled a hole in it with another tiny one and screwed a screw into it to hold the bit in place. I bought a drill bit from the hardware and 20-cent machine bolts and then grind their threads down.  With my mum’s hammer and a bit of Ewbank luck we had the goods.

​With a MacDonald's straw I would blow the dust outta the hole and dream I was Wolfgang. Whilst my mates were rooting, I was routing. As long as we all got up and no one had any accidents we could all be winners. 

Author Dave Barnes on the first ascent of "Room with A View" (22/5.11c) in the Shire at the Wastelands.

I developed a knack for coercing mates to belay.  We would skip school after lunch and ride our tredlies 10k’s to a local Shire crag. All being fair, I gifted them an adventure. They shouldered the gear and provided me a conveyor belt of belays. 

​This is how climbing in the Shire was developed; lies, ego and luck. Climbing was not footy and soon local lads whom I decided were not worthy to lug my crap and savour adventure were onto us. We were at a crag once and the buggers sneaked up on us throwing rocks down the cliff while we were on it! Don’t worry, I knew where they lived and threw some shit of my own. That was the end of that. ​​

Sydney is a humid place in summer. Heat gets stuck there like a hard to squeeze fart. The air goes stale and you sweat like you’ve gone three rounds with Mike Tyson. We learnt to climb hard in the morning's soft sun and retreat to the pub in the afternoon.  At night when it was cool again, we would get out our torches and go craging; Stanwell Tops and Mount Keira were  favourites so was Wastelands at Engadine. Wide-eyed times. 
 
I did my hardest climbing back then, before responsibly entered my vocabulary. There was a line I bolted on Rainbow Wall at Wastelands that was above my pay grade. I stretched like Plastic Man working that route. I was spent and invited a mate called, Graham Fairbairn. He was a pocket rocket kid, the sort of climber who just seemed to make dogs herd sheep. He watched me fall and fail until boredom got the better of him. 
 
“Just climb the fuck’n thing Barnesy! Stop fuck’n around and finish it!” He kept at me. “Pull you’re finger out, it’s just a fuck’n rock.”

​Graham had me. I was so busy trying to nail moves that I was not climbing. I was burying my resolve and it was weighing me down. He lowered me but kept up the soft-cock barrage of expletives and fleshed out something in me I have rarely found; belief. I had a smoke, chalked up and aced the thing. Bolting Blues (24/5.11c) was finally finished. 

I went on to climb widely and with many Graham’s who edged me to push harder, dream larger and not hide behind the shadows in my mind. I owe the world to these folks. I took that same resolve into living my life. 
 
Climbing is a good teacher and a local crag is a killer classroom and one you won’t  find in an X-Box. You only get your youth once. Don’t waste it, ace it. It’s memory will last you a lifetime.