Blue Mountains, Sydney and Canberra

We finished our time in the Blue Mountains with some nice last climbs up to 27. I was able to Flash "Wrong Movement", 27 while Jochen had big success on his longterm project "Alpa Leather", 32. He had tried it a lot on his last trip to the Blue Mountains about seven years ago, and now it took him another 4 days to complete. This day ended with a delicious dinner at the Blackheath Tai Restaurant.

Jochen in "Alpha Leather", 32 - Blue Mountains

After those last days we went back to Sydney to check out the southern bouldering areas around Sutherland. We wanted to see The Wing Cave and The Villas and we wanted to meet up with our friends Manu and Marie from Germany. Both happened and Katinka was able to climb "Weak Ape Test Zone", V7 the only boulder she had seen on a photo before and she really wanted to climb. Great job! We had a fun day out there with James and even though it was really hot, i could climb most the boulders up to V8 in both areas.

James in "Weak Ape Test Zone", V7 - The Wing Cave, Sydney

Then it was time to hit the road. We went to Wollongong, where Manu and Marie had spent their first week in Australia. A nice little town just next to the ocean. We went to a junk yard where we found another pair of roof racks which makes it way faster and safer to store our crashpads on the vans roof for longer drives. We spent a few days driving down the coast in slow motion. Dinner at the beach, breakfast at the beach. We saw Kangaroos and Dolphins and enjoyed the salty water.

Dolphins

Around Canberra we stopped for a day to climb at the Black Range Bouldering Area. It's nice granit and you have to drive 10km on a rough dirt road to get to the area. Now we are on our way towards the Grampian Nationalpark. A big bush fire happened here in January, so most of the northern Grampians are shut down. Nobody is allowed to walk in there or even climb...

Axel in a nameless V9 - Black Range Bouldering, Canberra

So now it's time to grab a brush and help developing the southern areas, which are way younger and less developed then the world famous northern Grampians with Taipan Wall and Hollow Mountain Cave.

read back in a few days.
www.chalkonrock.com

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!

www.chalkonrock.com

Blue Mountains

A few days ago Jochen, Miri and Paula arrived in Blackheath. Hey had flewn into Sydney on April 24th and spend a couple days in Sydney in search for a van as well. After final success they are proud owners of a Kia Pregio, 2004, 270000km with was a little cheaper then ours but in need for a garage repair as well. It also has a nice camping setup and is a little longer than ours. But our car has the better electical setup with LEDs, sparebattery and the solarpanel. :)

Jochen and Miriam next to our vans.

 It is running great now, after the broken Gas Converter beeing replaced last week and Jochen Van has an appointment in our garage for next week. They need to replace some clutch or transmission cylinder. Besides that their car seems to run great as well!

It's a nice situation for Paula and Finja, as they then play together. They are really good in making chaos everywhere, as there most favorite hobby is to work through the kitchen and remove every pan and every pack of cereals to another, random place. While rockclimbing they sometimes are distracted by each other, so all four of us can climb at the same time, while is a big improvement. But usually it's one person climbing, one person belaying, one person babysitting and one person doing nothing or taking pictures.

Welcome Party

 Katinka managed to tick one of her projects as she sent "Tricks Roughly", 26 a few days ago. I myselfe climbed up all the way to the last move of "August 1914", 29 three times now, but couldn't finish it. I always get pulled down by gravity and my cold and numb fingertips, so i stopped trying it now. Better climb more and easier things at first and then return in better shape and send the project with a free mind but later.

Axel in "August 1914", 29 - Centenial Glen, Main Wall

Jochen is complaining about loosing all his strength while eating to much and moving to less on their Newzealand Roadtrip. But he is regaining strength fast and making good progress in his old project "Alpha Leather", 32 which he couldn't finish on his last trip to the Blue Mountains seven years ago.

Now we are looking forward for some cold next days. If it will be to cold, we might just leave the mountains and head back to Sydney. The weather there is usually 8-10ºC warmer. But as you want cold conditions for bouldering this might indicate to warm conditions for this type of climbing again ...

Jochen in "Ruddy Norry", 22 - Centenial Glen, Main Wall

But we'll see. We might just give it a try, do some Sightseeing and meet up with our german friends Manu and Marie. They are flying in on Monday, they are going to buy an other van and they are going to join our trip though Australia!

www.chalkonrock.com

Australien

The next morning we took another bus to Sydney Central Station where we had an appointment for buying a van. At around 12am we were owners of a Mazda E2000, the same car we already owned in New Zealand, only 10 years younger and 100.000km less driven. In general the car was well maintained and the previous owners did a good job with the camping setup. It has a second car battery with is charged by an 50 Watt Solarpanel fixed on the roof, it has an electrical powered sink, LED lights everywhere and a useful box/bed-construction.

Mazda E2000 - 2001, 300.000km

Spare Wheel and 50 Watt Solarpanel

We paid a bit more then we wanted to, but I think it will pay off in comfort. On our way to the Blue Mountains we even realized, it's a Dual Fuel. Beeing able to drive on Petrol and on LPG autogas would save us a whole lot of money, but the Dual Fuel is broken...

We asked a garage to fix it and they ordered a new gas converter for next week. It'll cost us another 600$ but this should pay off by the amount of kilometers we are going to drive within this big country.

Autumn in Blue Mountains

The trees around us look more and more like autumn. They are turning red and colorfull and temperatures are more plesant for climbing then they where in New Zealand. Suns temperatur is just right for drinking a coffee and a Tim Tam Slam wearing only a T-Shirt. In shade it's a lot colder. You have to be careful when starting a new climb, because it's easy to get really cold fingers halfway up the route.

Katinka in Rubber Lover, 25

We are still trying to get back into route climbing shape, as we've been only bouldering for the past few years, but we can already look back on a nice list of climbs we accomplished:

Katinka:
Rubber Lover, 25
Iona, 24, Flash
Nev Herrod, 23, Flash
Split Wave, 23
Jaws, 21, OnSight

Axel:
Rubber Lover, 25, OnSight
Trix Roughly, 26, 2nd Go
Madgde MacDonald, 25, OnSight
Bare Essentials, 26, 2nd Go
...

Today it's raining and it's to foggy to climb in joy. Luckily we made friendship with some Brisbane Australians. They are here for the easter week and have rented a house for their time here. In the moment we're waiting for the laundromat to clean our clothes and nappies while we enjoy sitting in a dry room after a refreshing shower.

read back soon:
www.chalkonrock.com

Business with vans

Selling a car at the end of the backpackers season in New Zealand is no fun!
We were quiet dissapointed by the Auckland Backpackers Carmarket. We expected a place, just like the Backpackers Car Market in Christchurch: A place were you can park for a couple of days and try to sell your vehicle to interested customers, a place were you are allowed to sleep inside your van within the city, a place were you can do laundry, take a shower and use the internet for maintaining your gumtree add.

But Aucklands Car Market is different: You pay them for parking your vehicle on a tiny, inclined property, set the price you're asking and hope for the best. No sleeping in the car is allowed, not a pleasant place to hang out while day, and not many customers passing through ...

Surfing at Muriwai Beach

We drove away and reduced the price on our gumtree add. We did print some infopapers, advertising our van and put them on several blackboards of Auckland hostels and then we left.

We had seen enough of this huge, but not to beautiful city and did not want to spent our last days here. We had 5 days left and wanted to see more of the country!

Muriwai Beach

Our privious hitch-hiker friend Torre had mentioned a beautiful beach, just 40 minutes drive from the city which we wanted to see. At Muriwai Beach we rented a surfboard and enjoyed a long and exhausting day in the sea. We are both very beginners of this sport and barely managed to stand on the surfboard, but it was fun! We ended the day with a delicious sourcream, meat and pasta dinner at the beach while the sun disappeared and our spirit went up again, as we got a first text message of two dutch surfers in search for a van.

The next morning we went back to town and met for a test drive. They liked the car a lot, but were looking for a bargain. We were asking about twice as much as they were willing to pay, so we said goodbye and moved into a hostel which we had booked for our last three nights. We cleaned the van and prepared it to get sold. The next morning we went to a car trading fair, but there were about 10 campervans and over the whole time of 6 hours only 2 of them got sold ... 1 to a low price car dealer.

Car Fair in Sydney

The second car fair which is held every sunday is supposed to be 5times as big, but our motivation level was low, so we decided to text the dutch surfers again and sell it to them. We agreed on a price in the middle, which was a bit of a loss for us. But that's life! And the van still did cost us less than half of what a rental car would have cost us.

After a relaxing last day we got our luggagae packed up again and went to the airport. Usually I know Emirate Airlines as a customer friendly company. They never bothered me about carring to much luggagae or about the crashpads we transport (they are way bigger then a checked luggage is allowed to be!). But this time it was a pain to check in. I head to repack our bags 3 times before they accepted it.

In Sydney our friend Eddie Fowke was already waiting at the pickup bay. He's a photographer and author of a new climbing magazine called "The Circuit - World Cup and Performance climbing Magazine". Take a look at his website if you're interested and let us know what you think :)
The Circuit Climbing

The Circuit Magazine

He was so keen to pick us up at the airport and host us for our first couple of nights in Sydney, as we wanted to buy our next camper van.

The car prices are way higher here in Australia and even tough its a big city there are not to many camper vans around in the moment. Due to Finja we need three seats in the front of the vans, but more than 50% have only two seats.

A well-earned coffee at the Fine Food Store in The Rocks, Sydney

We finally found an other Mazda E2000. 10 years and 100.000km younger, but not as long and as high as the last one. We made a deal and tomorrow first thing in the morning we are driving into Central Sydney to buy the van, prepare it for the next road trip and head to the Blue Mountains.
The plan is to meet up with Roman again and as well with our Christchurch hosts Greg and Jean. Psyched!

read back soon:
www.chalkonrock.com

North Island

We arrived in Wellington at our friends place without any problems, besides evening traffic ...

We could use some real laundromats again, which are always rare if you travel in a van.

After some discussion with Toby, Carina presented us a sightseeing plan for the next day: Start walking at their apartment in Haitaitai, through an awesome park with a beautiful lookout towards the city, then along the Waterfront and through the city towards the botanical gardens. After that we would walk through the city again, or grab a bus if preffered and stop at the "Chippery", a really good Fish&Chips Restaurant.

Wellington

Wellington

So we did! It was a long day, with much to see and tired feet in the evening. And it was worth it! It's indeed a beautiful city, with many green spots and nice beaches to spent the time at. We had some really good icecream and Katinka bougt an awesome pair of leggins for climbing in semi-cold conditions and looking great at the same time ;).

The next day we drove one hour to Turakirae Head, to check out the best local climbing spot. From the carpark it's still an 5km hike, but its flat and you walk along the sea. It's a lovely area but for hard climbing it was just way to warm. All Wellington people kept telling us how rough it can get here, we should always prepare and have a second layer of cloths with us at anytime, since the weather can change all over a sudden. But it never did. We had blue sky, with little to no wind and for the three days we spent in and around Wellington.

V7 in Turakirae Head

As for the climbing, we did send the classic "Black Wall", V6 but nothing harder then that. Anyways ... we might be back at some other time in the future ... 

"Black Wall", V6 - Turakirae Head

After a delicious homebaked pizza we prepared our departure in the morning, run another last laundromat and left our friends behind to drive north. After two days of driving we would stop again at Mount Ngauruhoe, better known as Mount Doom where the ring of "Lord of the Rings" finally gets destroyed. Its a great landscape with vulcanic stone there and we witnessed another awesome sunset while having dinner.

Mt Doom

After a bath in the natural Hotspring around Taupo we continued to the eastcoast and now just got to Auckland. We need to sell our van, since we only have five and a half days left in this country before heading on to Sydney, Australia.

Haku Falls - Hotsprings in Taupo

We knew the travelers season is coming towards an end, but we did not expect so little interest in our van. Now we have hope for the best. We advertised our van at gumtree and craigslist - two online platforms for trading - and we posted aome printouts in backpacker hostels around the city. As a backup, there will be two car trading fairs this weekend, and if this will be without success, we might have to sell it for a little amount to any mechanic around ...

Wish us the best, and keep on reading our blog!

www.chalkonrock.com

Golden Bay

After a long drive we arrived at Golden Bay, the northern end of New Zealands South Island. Especially Katinka was tired, since she was still recovering from beeing sick, so we just got a quick shower at the climbers campground called Hangdog, cooked some dinner and went straight to bed.

The next morning we glanced again at the beauty of the landscape around us and soon went into town for a quick internet session: Now our flights are changed, instead of april 6th we are departing on april 14th from Auckland to Sydney. This means we have 8 additional days in this beautiful country and we are not as much in a hurry as we had been for a couple of days now.

Puanaiki Pancake Rocks

Next we walked to the rocks. Paynes Ford is an nice climbing area with many slopers and pumpy sportroutes. We both did "Send a Gorilla", 23 (~6c+) for warming up and I managed to fell on the very top of "Papageno", 28 (~7c+) twice. I'm not really used to climbing on a rope, so usually the routes are way to long for me and my arms stop working after more then 20 moves in a row.  I gave up, because we wanted to spend the rest of the day driving to Cape Farewell the very northern tip of the Island.

As we walked out of the area, we met Torre again, the hitch-hiker climbing with us in Castle Hill for a couple of days. He was pleased to see us again as well and hitched another ride with us. After a beautiful sunset we had a nice steak for dinner and he tuned our seightseeing todo list. The next morning we went to a beautiful beach, a 20min hike from the parking and we were almost the only tourists around, which was amazing. We enjoyed a lot of sun and sand and when the low tide came, we saw some baby seals. There was a group of 10 seals in a small pool and they were not shy at all.

Baby Seals at Wharariki Beach

They touched our feet and sniffed at us and went back to keep playing with the group. It was a lot of fun to watch them.

The next day we went back to the crag and I finished up my unfinished business, ticking "Papageno", 28 in my first go. It was only a quick climbing session, since we still had to do a fun ropeswing into the river, some internet business and some coffee trinking + town shopping in the morning hours.

Our hitch-hiker Torre jumping down a dune

We had booked our ferry from Picton to Wellington for the next day, but did not want to drive all 4h30m in one rush, so we did the first 2h section in the last light of the day. We found an awesome campground just next to Nelson and continued our drive in the morning.

The Ferry from Picton to Wellington takes 3,5 hours

The rest of the day was easy. We sat on the deck of the ferry for 3,5 hours burning in sun, but cooled down by wind and enjoyed the landscape. Now we are staying at our friends Toby and Carina's apartment in Haitaitai, Wellington and will get a Wellington tour by Carina tomorrow.

more to read soon!
www.chalkonrock.com