Saturday Sarah and I went climbing in the Blue Mountains Saturday. Two of her friends from Canberra were also in the blue mountains, but they wanted to climb at Centenial Glen and Porters pass.

Sarah and I decided to spend the morning at a crag (a cliff) called Celebrity Crag. The cliff is split up into two areas called Jimmy Cliff and Heathcliff. We decided to go to Heathcliff which doesn't see a lot of climbers and we hadn't been there before.



We managed to get lost trying to find the cliffs and almost gave up trying to find the right track through the bush. After a final try we eventually managed to find the start of the climbs after more than an hours bush-bashing.

It turned out that the climbs there were excellent. Especially a climb called Bad Blood is a must do. It is a two pitch climb where the first pitch is a very pleasant grade 19 (led by Sarah). The second pitch is a grade 22 (which I led).


Click on this link to download the video I took (18Mb).

Near the top (after passing the crux) I took the biggest fall I've taken on lead so far. I climbed up to the next bolt and while clipping the bolt I got my feet up too high (stay low Andy) and couldn't keep the balance. The fall (maybe 3-4 meters) was nicely caught by Sarah. On the second try I managed to get it.

We were planning to climb out rather than walking through the bush, but we ran out of time and I was way too tired to climb with the backpacks. We decided instead to see how many pitches we could complete of another climb before it got dark. We managed to do the first two pitches and then had to bail due to the time.

We didn't get back to the car until after it was dark, so we didn't meet up with Sarah's friends until we got back to the car park. It turned out that they had had an excellent day at Upper Shipley (which you can see from Celebrity Crag).


It is probably one of the best climbing days I've had for a long time although I was totally of of shape.

Click here to see more photos of: Climbing 2007