Fluff

Taipan- now there’s a name to conjure with in the world of climbing… - Gordon Poultney Taipan Wall is the centrepiece of Australian climbing. Massive, orange, relentlessly and brutally overhanging- a steady and continual incline that withers your forearms as you look at it. It is also, surely, one of the most stunning pieces of rock on the planet. I challenge anyone to find something better. You can approach Taipan from two directions. Either you slog up the non-factually named ‘Flat Rock,’ until, gasping for breath, Taipan rears up in the distance. Or (better) you wander up from the much more appropriately named ‘Camp Sandy’, where you can gawp at the crag for much of the walk. Incredible scoops and flakes on perfect rock are Taipan’s calling card, along with significant sections which are stunningly blank. Like most Australian rock, it is also an incredible colour. That orange sandstone with black water streaks is the sort of rock formation a chi...

Pretty much my first experiences of climbing were on the slate. I went on a PYB course for my 18 th birthday, basically for no other reason than I thought I’d like it and had enjoyed monkeying around for a few indoor sessions. I remember being awestruck by the quarry when I first walked into it. It seemed like an abandoned city from an ancient civilisation. Tiers of slate rising for hundreds of feet, rusting orange lumps of metal everywhere, the relics of the quarry still there in the form of huts and even tools, coats and boots.  Its an absolutely surreal location to climb. No matter where you are in the quarries, you can always see choss, and often hear it as scree slips under the shoes of a climber or explorer. It’s an inherently unstable area and that feeling of danger is added to by the obligatory trespassing. Not that anyone seems to care, as long as you keep out of sight. Ever since that first time, I’ve been back as often as I can. Upon going to uni and joinin...