Sydney

The trip to Sydney was awesome! We had a beautiful and cool climbing day in The Balkans, one of Sydney’s bigger and older Bouldering Areas. We met up with our friends Steve, Joe and their daugther Tara, which we had met a few weeks ago in the Blue Mountains.

I had visited this area 5 years ago, but only did one climb: „Sloper-Dan Milosevic“, V5 since it was a 33ºC day with 95% humidity and the rock is facing the sun .. not the best crag for a warm summerday. This time it was different, we got to climb a lot and I could get a quick ascent of „L’homme Obu“, V11 the hardest climb in the area. Katinka and Miriam spent some time on „Paratroopin“, V8 – finally sending it, while Joe was getting really close.

„L’homme Obu“, V11 – The Balkans, Sydney

We spent the evening together with our friends, enjoying some showers, homemade Spätzle and wine. We arrange a meetup with another old friend, James Alexander, for the next day. Sydney has a lot to offer for bouldering, as it has a huge amount of little bouldering areas spread over the whole city. No matter where you live, it’s never more then 15min drive to the next boulders!

Katinka in „Paratroopin“, V8

James took us to „Crumply“, a dirty cave that Finja enjoyed a lot! Katinka decided to take a restday to save some skin and power while I could snap some quick ascents of „Sushi Train“, V8 and „Chaos and Disorder“, V10. Before we hiked to the cave, we realized we spit 3 liters of orange juice on our van’s matress. What a mess … we decided to take care of it after the climbing day, not psyched to waste any of the remaining day light.

In the night we cleaned everything as good as possible, but it was an uncomfortable night with lots of orange smell in the car. The next morning we drove straight to James parents, to start the laundry mission. It took 3 overloaded laundry circles to get everything clean again and 30h of drying time.

We went to another bouldering spot next to James house, the Black Cave. Jochen could manage an ascent of „Plunge“, V10 tried to send „Deep Blue Sea“, V12 while Katinka did a nameless V6.

The Instructor (James) and his students (Jochen and Katinka) at the Black Cave

Now after some days in the City we are back to the Blue Mountains where we had left some gear at the cliff as we left in the cold and nasty weather. Time to finish some last climbs before heading down south to the Grampians next week!