After we finished our sea kayaking trip, we headed toward Castle Hill, which is basically one of the world’s bouldering hotspots. The weather was perfect — the sun, miraculously, seems to be chasing us — so we climbed there for 5 days. The rocks are bizarre limestone blobs scattered on a few huge grassy hills, and they have virtually no features. Climbing there is a huge trip because there aren’t any holds. Seriously. Success at Castle Hill depends on body tension and friction, and damn good sloper strength. Which nobody except the locals seems to have.
Our first day there was pretty sad, and ended with a lot of sore muscles. Every problem requires you to mantle over the top of the boulder, which is basically akin to doing a dip between two chairs. That can get difficult by the 100th time! But after a few days we eased into the climbing style and I managed to pull of a V9 — a first! Alicia almost sent a bunch of V5s, and has a couple of good projects to get back to when we return in a few weeks.
We took a rest day at this place called Cave Stream, which, if you can believe it, is a stream through a cave. But it’s pretty cool since you can actually hike the length of the cave in knee-deep water over the course of half an hour. The cave is about a kilometer long, 6 meters high and 6 meters wide, and it requires the use of a headlamp. Way cool. If it were in America, you’d probably have to pay a $35 entry fee, have to hire a guide and sign a lot of waivers.
Anyway, check out the photos (the first one’s from Pancake Rocks, on the way there from Paynes Ford)
