A murky day dawned in the Grampians today, with the crags barely in view. It was quite eery walking into the gloomy burned out forest this morning. With all the warnings of Ozzy bugs etc, we were very glad to have been staying in the van last night. I’m not sure I’d have been too Read more

It’s so tempting to stay at Arapiles and just spent the summer (Oz winter) living here, working through both the grades and the guidebook; climbing everything in sight. It really must be a contender for ‘best crag in the world’. But, Australia is a big place and there is still much to see and great Read more

Australia had vanished into the mists this morning! Needed the headlights on to drive at 10am it was so thick…  Nipped back up to the top of Mt Arapilles first thing, in the hope that it might be above the layer of mist and cloud. This was the view that we got yesterday:  This was Read more

Woke to be greeted with two alarming discoveries this morning. Firstly, according to the altimeter on my watch, we were -7 metres under sea level. Having ascertained that this was just due to an overnight change in pressure, rather than a sudden rise in sea level, I checked the thermometer which was reading 1 degree Read more

There are loads of big routes to go at on ‘The Watchtower Face’ of Mt Arapiles. We chose to climb the classic route ‘Arachness’ (Grade 9). Because it’s ‘off-season’ for most climbers around here, it’s amazing to have such a huge expanse of cliffs and barely anyone else around. It was very peaceful walking in Read more

‘The Baird’ (Ozzy Grade 12), is one of the most famous and popular routes in Australia and justifiably so. Today we got to go and see for ourselves on the journey that weaves its way up these steep cliffs. Four long pitches of sustained climbing, with some intermittent on and off showers just to add Read more