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HELP: places near melbourne to climb |
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18-Jun-2012 5:28:47 PM
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My 2cents
I've lived, worked full-time and climbed every weekend in Melbourne and Sydney (and Brisbane)
Melbourne is a great climbing town! It attracts a more closer knit community of dedicated climbers than other towns with nearer climbing. Reason being is you need to carpool and commit to a whole weekend of camping with your climbing mates if you want to climb good routes.
Arapiles and the Grampians just have WORLD CLASS climbing in abundance. These two areas are brimming with inspiring, exciting and photogenic routes of every style. Literally thousands and thousands of them. If you have an opportunity to live in Melbourne for a few years whilst studing and you are willing to forgo getting drunk in nightclubs on the weekend and climb/camp instead you will be BLOWN away by the Victorian climbing.
I live within 5 minutes drive of several mediocre sport crags and 'allegedly' famous bouldering areas in Sydney - and I reckon I climbed more when I lived in Melbourne! Just because an area is close doesn't make it inspiring.
If you leave work at 5pm from the centre of Melbourne - the excellent local crag of Camels Hump is 45 minutes away, and the 'interesting' granite blobs of You Yangs is probably 35 minutes. They are surprisingly close! In summer you can get 5 or 6 routes done if you climb fast enough.
The drive to Gramps and Arapiles is tedious - yes, but in my opinion very very worth it. Maybe not a great place to spend your entire life, but for 10 years or so I loved every minute of it. Melbourne is also a really classy quirky town with great food, festivals, music, art, wine. Pisses all over Sydney for that kind of thing.
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18-Jun-2012 8:34:41 PM
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No amount of greater proximity to a variety of questionable quality crags is going to change the end conclusion that living in Melbourne is far more conducive to a greater number of hours on good routes on good rock in good weather than England over the course of a year
I can't believe I'm rising to your bait Wendy. I often respect what you have to say but this is opinionated hogwash. Arapiles is brilliant, fact. The Grampians are brilliant, fact. Yorkshire gritstone is brilliant, fact. You didn't like it much, fact. I would climb on average 150 days of the year on dry rock in the UK, fact. The rocks are a lot closer to Urban centres in England, fact. Max will probably have a great time here but will find it very different to what he has available now.
My advice to Max is sound and not intended to put him off coming here.
Peace, Karl
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18-Jun-2012 9:47:41 PM
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I'm totally with you Neil.
But, I reckon that ya gotta be a bit adventuresome to climb around Melbourne by straying off the the trodden path to keep it interesting.
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18-Jun-2012 9:56:38 PM
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What's the gritstone equivalent of Serpentine?
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18-Jun-2012 11:05:59 PM
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Pommy Serpentine
http://www.google.com/imgres?q=masters+edge+photo&start=92&hl=en&client=ubuntu&hs=lAI&sa=X&channel=fs&biw=1301&bih=680&tbm=isch&prmd=imvns&tbnid=umgOtWpY7Vcy0M:&imgrefurl=http://dieselryder.wordpress.com/page/26/&docid=iSo4WeIcgQvTZM&imgurl=http://dieselryder.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/26masters_edge_004.jpg&w=400&h=533&ei=hCffT_y-Dqu0iQemm8mFCg&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=381&vpy=205&dur=209&hovh=259&hovw=194&tx=89&ty=154&sig=118182314520673253202&page=5&tbnh=144&tbnw=108&ndsp=25&ved=1t:429,r:46,s:92,i:71
Proper Serpentine
http://qurank.smugmug.com/photos/157275596-S.jpg
To be fair, I did try to find a pissweak looking photo of Indian Face, but most of the shots I checked looked damn impressive
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19-Jun-2012 7:51:03 AM
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On 18/06/2012 nmonteith wrote:
>What's the gritstone equivalent of Serpentine?
What's the point? Have I criticised Victorian climbing anywhere? Have I? All I say is Melbourne is a long way from much rock. It is. For the last time and you may want to read this slowly so it sinks in....ARAPILES IS BRILLIANT! THE GRAMPIANS ARE BRILLIANT! There happy?
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19-Jun-2012 12:30:30 PM
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The only point I am trying to make is that if you are a keen climber who enjoys climbing world class routes (not just ticking hard grades at grotty local areas) then studying in Melbourne and roadtrippn to Gramps/Araps is an excellent idea. Especially if you have plenty of uni holidays so you can camp out there for weeks at a time in summer.
However, if you hate camping, want to go clubbing and pubbing every night and don't enjoy driving then I suggest studying elsewhere.
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19-Jun-2012 2:25:34 PM
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Gee Neilo, I never thought of it like that. So, what you're saying is that Melbourne is an awesome town for climbing when you're in your 20's, single, ocd, and fortunate enough to have a crew who are the same.
Whereas Sydney in your late 30's, with a wife, a mortgage, stupid hours at work, mates who have to take the kids to footy, and the distant flickering candle which used to be your burning desire to climb...........that's not such a great town for climbing, eh?
"Out on the road today, I saw a deadhead sticker on a Cadillac........."
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19-Jun-2012 3:01:52 PM
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Exactly Damo! Apart from I'm still in my mid 30s and not officially married...
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19-Jun-2012 5:14:12 PM
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Melbourne is fantastic for not camping, for clubbing and for pubbing and not driving. It's at least as good as most UK cities for all of those things. Alright maybe not the pubbing ; )
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19-Jun-2012 5:22:54 PM
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On 19/06/2012 Karl Bromelow wrote:
>Melbourne is fantastic for not camping, for clubbing and for pubbing and
>not driving. It's at least as good as most UK cities for all of those things.
>Alright maybe not the pubbing ; )
It's just you can't mix those activities and decent climbing together. You can certainly do that in Sydney or Brisbane. The climbing is worse in those two cities though. For example I winged a day off work tomorrow so I can go to Nowra. The options are extremely limited in Victoria with only one day free.... especially if you have lived in Melbourne for more than 10 years.
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19-Jun-2012 6:01:40 PM
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The pub / music scene in Melbourne used to be a whole lot better but the outdoor parties were pretty good too..... But I guess I stopped climbing back in those days :(
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19-Jun-2012 6:47:08 PM
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On 19/06/2012 nmonteith wrote:
The options are extremely limited in Victoria with
>only one day free.... especially if you have lived in Melbourne for more
>than 10 years.
Now I'm confused. You seem to nearly be agreeing with me. Or should I say understanding my efforts to explain myself. Oh and if you don't mind checking out some facebookery here are a couple of images of a "grotty" crag as close to central Leeds as the You Yangs are to Melbourne. It has around 300 routes, a mixture of excellent trad and many excellent sport routes from F6a+ to F9a up to 60m in length. Cracking pubs with great ale just below and you can go clubbing back in Leeds when you've finished. Camping immediately underneath and another one around the corner (a short walk over sheep pasture) under a similarly brilliant crag with some 225 routes up to 127m long and again mixing awesome trad and hard sport in a stunning location. The photographs were taken at the end of this winter in the northern hemisphere while I was at over there for a trip to the Alps and some time in England.
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150697073936332&set=a.10150697067696332.392508.648261331&type=3&theater
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150697073226332&set=a.10150697067696332.392508.648261331&type=3&theater
Rubbish eh?
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19-Jun-2012 6:55:40 PM
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Picture's worth a thousand words
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19-Jun-2012 7:03:00 PM
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God, I miss Yorkshire!
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19-Jun-2012 7:32:31 PM
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I don't the uk is a blight on the earth
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19-Jun-2012 8:21:25 PM
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On 19/06/2012 widewetandslippery wrote:
>I don't the uk is a blight on the earth
Some more photos of that "blight" you speak of. A brief holiday up north just before we migrated:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.116422256331.109997.648261331&type=1
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19-Jun-2012 8:29:32 PM
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On 19/06/2012 Karl Bromelow wrote:
>On 19/06/2012 widewetandslippery wrote:
>>I don't the uk is a blight on the earth
>
>Some more photos of that "blight" you speak of. A brief holiday up north
>just before we migrated:
>
>http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.116422256331.109997.648261331&type=1
>
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19-Jun-2012 8:39:22 PM
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On 19/06/2012 Duang Daunk wrote:
>This content is currently unavailable
Seems to work from my end and I have made this album public to share with chockstone.
Cheers, Karl
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19-Jun-2012 8:45:37 PM
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On 19/06/2012 widewetandslippery wrote:
>I don't the uk is a blight on the earth
Mt Kiera and Wingello arnt any better which makes them a pox compared to a blight.
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