The Blue Mountains

We were able to go explore the Blue Mountains climbing scene today.  The weather was not the best, but we made due and ended up finding quite the exciting climbing area.
After a few mix ups in trains we arrived at Blackheath about 1pm to dense fog and a constant drizzle of rain.  The rain was not cold, which is much better than we usually experience in Moscow, but still you found yourself soaked within a few minuets due to the shear volume of water that comes out of the sky.

The walk from the Blackheath train station to the climbing area is a little more than fifteen minutes when you know where your going.  Unfortunately for us we did not know where we were going and proceeded to spend 2 hours walking all over creation, but we eventually found our way.
There are quite a few areas where you can climb in this small region of the Blue Mountains, but very few of them would be appropriate for climbing in the rain.  Luckily I had talked to a few climbers and knew that the Centennial Glen climbing area was mostly dry during rain storms.  Getting to the routs was quite fun since we were required to scramble through some crazy in-cut caves and even walk behind a waterfall, which made me feel very pirate-esk for some reason.

We finally found our way to a likely climbing spot that was protected from the rain, unfortunately we were already soaked from head to toe from our misguided hike but the reprieve from the weather was quite wonderful.  You could sit on the rocks with your back to the wall and look out over this deep cut valley while the rain pored down all around you.  It was a pretty awe inspiring vista and I only regret not taking a picture of it when I had the chance.

We met quite a few other climbers at the crag, even one from Portland Oregon, and they were able to point out a good rout for us warm up on.  The rout was a juggy 21, which is about 5.10a ish, that proceeded up a slight overhang for 5 clips.  It was not the best rout since I was climbing with my brother and two people that had never climbed before, but it was just exiting to get out on the wall and Leighton did very well considering not climbing for about a year.  In the end we got to the wall to late to really play on it and ended up leaving after one climb each, but it has only wet my appetite for climbing in Australia and I can't wait for the weather to improve a bit so that Leighton and I can explore some other climbing areas.