South Africa, June / July 07
Welcome to the vertical world of SA!
| Clare bouldering at world class Rocklands |  |
| Check out Dan's silky smooth slab technique |  |
| Rocklands again. Not just for the boulderers |  |
All hail our future leader. Emma on
the Island, Rocklands |
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| Typical Rocklands cragging. Heather on the Cattle Rustler...maybe??? |  |
| Jez has just been cragging! |  |
| tired fingers, sore skin... |  |
| Martin on the never ending steepness of Orange Plasma | .jpg) |
| Mole cranking on little holds |  |
| Brent on Cogmans Buttress, Montagu. |  |
| More action for Emma, at Montagu |  |
| erm, caption ideas please! |  |
| Henry fixing something. again. |  |
| Pretty De Bos campsite, Montagu. |  |
| Don't look down Penny! |  |
| Cat at Paarl rocks |  |
| Clare, on the snake dyke lookalike, Paarl |  |
| Dan and his silky smooth slab technique. Again. |  |
| Nick at Silvermine |  |
Well, it's a beautiful photo! |
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| Attack of the killer parrots, Table Mountain. |  |
| Little Em, cragging at the Cape |  |
| Welcome to Hot Rock's caption competition for 2007... |  |
| Karaoke party, Cape Flats. It's a long story. |  |
| Shona, preparing to plant the Irish flag on Table Mountain |  |
| Penny & Shona, Table Mountain walk-in |  |
| This is not an easy way down. Lianna & Keeley, Table Mountain. |  |
For the second half of this photo album, click here
or read on for the trip report in full...
Perfect rock, perfect routes, perfect views, guidebooks, even the occasional cable car to save you the walk-in. What more can you really ask for? Welcome to South African climbing - day after great day spent on the rock, followed by relaxed evenings trading stories and comparing flappers around the camp-fire with a beer in hand and a steak sizzling away on the BBQ.
Rocklands
We started our South African rock-odyssey at Rocklands, which is fast becoming a contender for the title of ‘the best bouldering in the world.’ Fontainebleau may have wine and cheese, Cresciano may have pizza and espresso, Hampi may have stoned sadhus watching you and Hueco Tanks may have rednecks shooting at you, but Rocklands is really where it’s at. You’ll only need to take a quick peak at the photos here before you pack your bouldering mat and book your flight over.
Covering an area the size of a smaller African nation, the rock here is endless and awesome. Its solid frictiony sandstone is steep, covered in crimpers, jugs, in-cuts and, occasionally, bolts to please those who don’t like climbing small stuff. Back at camp, there are more boulders, more sport routes, other climbers to chat to, bottles of cheap South African wine, and sausages and steaks that would give your cardiologist a heart-attack (it has to be said that t-total vegetarians would miss out on many of South Africa’s pleasures!) We spent four fantastic days here, although people climbed so much and so hard, caught up in their enthusiasm, that there was a lot more flailing and failing on the fourth day than there was climbing. We left, we went and climbed in other places, and then we went back again a few weeks later. It was that good!
Wolfberg Cracks
If Rocklands was heaven for the sport-climbers and boulderers amongst us, Wolfberg Cracks was nirvana for our traddies. Afficionados of the BBC series ‘The Face’ may well recall an episode in which Joe Simpson, together with South African hard-man Ed February, actually managed to climb something without hurting himself. The route was ‘Energy Crisis,’ a superbly stunning E2 test of how well you keep your marbles when exposure enters new dimensions. Traversing into space with several hundred meters of nothing but air below you and no nice little holds to go under your rockboots, only a resilient climber (or nutcase) doesn’t call for their mummy….
Energy Crisis is Wolfbergs most famous route, but there are many more similarly pant-filling and high calibre routes, all following beautiful natural lines on the steep and imposing red sandstone buttresses. Like Rocklands, we went, then we left, we went and climbed in other places, and then we went back again a few weeks later. It was that good!
Cape Town
Cape Town was the ideal place to calm down after the heart-stopping Wolfberg routes (and walk-in for that matter…). Plenty of nice single-pitch crags, covered in close-together bolts, looking out over the vibrant city, the serene Table Bay, or the bigger and wilder False Bay. We even paused our climbing for a few days so that we could be tourists (and because it was raining). We visited Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was incarcerated for 25 years. We went to see penguins and Cape Point. We wandered around the city centre, and sat and drank cappuccinos by the harbour. We went surfing, and then we went climbing again, on Table Mountain. With it’s cable car up (avoiding the two-hour stomp up an unrelenting hill), with it’s steep and exposed routes on perfect hold-covered rock (seems to be a feature of western cape rock…), each of them landing you back to the café and bar at the top, complete with tourists wanting to shake the hands and take snaps of the Brave Climbers, there are few places more conveniently brilliant for trad routes. A truly world-class venue.
Montagu
But then is Table Mountain really the best climbing in South Africa, as many people say it is? It’s awesome, but then so much of the climbing in South Africa is awesome. Montagu might be better. But then, maybe Table Mountain is better… or maybe Rocklands or Wolfberg… Oh it’s so hard to decide when there’s so much good stuff!
The frictionless sandstone makes you climb so well, body tension keeping your weight firmly pulling into that slippy little crimper, and pushing directly into the sloping little smear that you’ve so carefully placed your foot on… if you can just hold it all together, you might get that tick. You might tick one of the 3000+ routes here, all of which ooze with quality. The unsurpassed views and the surrounding vineyards, combined with what is probably the best campsite in South Africa, De Bos, a dedicated climbers haunt run by Stuart and Regula, who are almost single-handedly responsible for developing climbing in Montagu, it’s really a hard spot to beat…
Paarl
… unless climbing granite slabs is your cup of tea, in which case Paarl Rocks, only 50km outside of Cape Town, will be your favourite. We only spent two days there – the weather wasn’t playing ball - but it was a great taster of what this place offers. You’ll find huge, clean sweeps of grey rock in the heart of the Cape Wine Lands. Airy, paddy, smeary, slabby. Teeter, wobble, clip the bolt, breathe, wobble, teeter. Needless to say, we loved it!
Everest
A full two days drive (including a lovely overnight stop in a beautiful lay-by next to the N1 motorway, replete with litter, loo roll and trucks rumbling past all night) took us to Everest. Not the big white pointy one, but the small private game reserve. It’s got trad routes, sport routes, boulders, single-pitch, multi-pitch, new routing potential and a Christian Learning Centre so that you can brush up on your bible skills!
The routes are – wait, guess what’s coming – all excellent, on steep solid sandstone littered with holds large and small, and there is one absolute must-do route. It’s on the Cyclops Crag, a small crag hanging way above the valley, with an access pitch that goes at 19 (~f6a). Imagine the photo-shoot: set up camera and tripod, or many people with many cameras. Begin traversing easily on bucket holds across a steep but imposingly dark face away from the cameras, which are all poised for action. Look well-hard as the ground literally drops away beneath your feet, opening up views that take in immense exposure, as the shutters start working. Take the photos home and revel in your glory as hard-(wo)man out-there climber, climbing high above the African plains populated by whatever vegetarian antelopes happen to be wandering through the views. Just have a look at the pictures and you’ll see what I mean.
Drakensberg
After all this climbing, it was time to rest the fingertips and muscles, so we headed to the Drakensberg. This famed mountain range in Kwazulu-Natal, Zulu heartland, is often called the Barrier or Spears and the name fits. One long jagged escarpment running 200km, it is a seemingly impenetrable wall. Beautifully soft and hazy winter light treated us as we walked high up into the mountains, scrambling and climbing the occasional via-ferrata style ladder, before eventually exiting onto an arête that led straight to the summit of Cathedral Peak. With the exposure of the sheer 700m drop on the right, and the almost eerie wind-still serenity, I held on so tightly to the holds on that final 50m of Mod scramble. What a place!
Restaurant
Hailed by many as the South African climbing destination, the Restaurant is, like Montagu, a huge area sporting 3000+ bolted routes, most within easy walking distance of the climber’s bunkhouse in the local town. It’s hard to describe the quality of the climbing here, but suffice to say, some people spend their entire lives living and climbing here. Others come here on their annual holidays. We spent over a week here – as long as we spent anywhere on the entire trip from Nairobi to Cape Town. It’s amazing. Great climbing, a fantastic bunk-house with a fully equipped kitchen and actual, real, proper beds to sleep in! I’ll let the photos tell the stories…
Magaliesberg
Then it was time for something slightly different, a destination which is not on the average itinerary of visiting climbers. With no guidebook, no topos, no real idea of where this place was, we headed there just to see what it was like. And it was good. Magaliesberg is a collection of about 15 ‘kloofs’, or water-worn gorges or canyons cutting deep splices into the hillsides. We opted for one, reasonably at random, and found a great little sports crag with mostly harder routes, and some really fantastic looking trad lines, if we could actually manage to get to them! The routes are approached by following the base of the gorge, necessitating the odd swim through the icy waters of some of the perennial ponds – not easy with a rucksack full of gear on your back!
Lesotho
Lesotho is a strange phenomenon, it’s a small landlocked country, bordered entirely by South Africa. Where South Africa is rich and developed, it is poor and relatively primitive. It is tribal, it is quirky, chaotic, and feels like a return to the ‘real Africa’ of the early months of the trip. I love the place. We spent a few days there, mostly getting sore bums and trying not to get thrown off small ponies. I wandered around in the villages taking lots of pictures. There are reports of some climbing in a valley near where we stayed. But some places are best enjoyed for what they do best… and in Lesotho that isn’t climbing…
So we went back to Montagu to feed the rat for a few more days, before it was time to head into Cape Town for the big finale – the end, the good byes, the drinks, the celebrations.
We actually made it!
For the second half of this photo album, click here
