WHEN I'M 64
Doing the garden, digging the weeds
Who could ask for more
Will you still need me, will you still feed me
When I'm sixty-four
So go the lyrics to the old Beatles song. But when Ben Maddison turns 64 this year, weeding the garden will be the last thing you’ll find him doing. Just recently he hired an excavator to demolish his garden so he never has to work in it again. He is more likely to be abseiling into a terrifying zawn on Bruny Island in Tasmania and bolting yet another new route.
Since starting climbing in 1970 as a 14-year-old in the Blue Mountains, Ben has become one of Australia’s most prolific new routers, probably climbing more than a thousand new lines. It all began at the Endeavour Club at Sydney Grammar school where Ben was introduced to climbing, although the club had little influence on his transition to independent climbing. Of that period Ben says, ‘We were really just making it up as we went along, making our own gear, etc. We were lucky to survive.’
‘BEN WAS SEVERAL BODY LENGTHS ABOVE THE BELAY WITHOUT A RUNNER AND, IN BOB’S WORDS, "JERKED ALL OVER THE STAGE LIKE A STRING PUPPET IN THE HANDS OF A DRUNK – EVIDENCE OF THE EXCESSES OF THE PREVIOUS NIGHT," THEN SLIPPED AND FELL.’
I first met Ben in 2000 on an expedition to the 300m sea cliff at Cape Pillar at the southeastern tip of Tasmania. Though I never climbed with Ben in his ‘70s heyday on Ben Lomond, I felt like I already knew him. Master
