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You guys may have noticed a 18 year old kid from Belgium ripping up Tassie lately? That would be Merlin Didier. Great kid. I met him at Arapiles in December. One day I was lounging around the Pines nursing a hangover when Gandalf comes running up (remember the guy who wanted to climb the totem pole a month ago? Painted Green? Ed the Scottish giant? We called him Gandalf because when he sat in camp on those little chairs with us he looked like Gandalf sitting with the hobbits!) and stutters out, "Do you know CPR?"
This is never a good question to be asked outside of a job interview. That said, it is NEVER a good question to be asked.
Apparently Gandalf was belaying Merlin on an old crappy climb on the front of the Pharaohs to get up to Aftermath Roof. Somewhere up the middle of this chosspile Merlin dislodges a boulder the size of the Balrog which crashes down the cliff, with Merlin close behind! Gandalf dives out of the way, narrowly dodging the Balrog boulder. This time, he let the Balrog pass. Gandalf was unscathed, but what about our other conjurer of cheap tricks? Merlin took a bouncy little 15 metre tumble and was lying in a pool of blood when I got to him. Fortunately Merlin did not need CPR. With the help of Gandalf and the rest of the little hobbits from the Tas Uni Climbing Club, we called in The Great Eagles to fly Merlin's soul from the lady of the lake and sent him riding through the air into the healing arms of the House of Elrond (000, helicopter ride to the Alfred, if ya dont speak Tolkein).
Anywho, turns out Merlin just had a swollen brain. My hangover that morning was actually quite a bit more serious. So after a $20000 helicopter ride and business class tickets back to Camalot/Brussels, Merlin came back to Oz to finish his little trip. Long story short, Gandalf moved out of my little Hobart Hole and Merlin moved in. Lucky for Merlin, as you all know, April's weather was amazing. So he filmed all the climbing he did and made a movie about it and then entered the movie in a film festival via my wireless internet account (which cost me more than the prize money). And he won! The link is below. Its pretty good.
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