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Crag & Route Beta

Area	Location	Sub Location	Crag	Links
All NSW	(General)	(General)	(General)

Topic Date User

Washaway Cave, Sydney Bouldering 19-Jan-2012 At 12:43:43 PM Dave.k

Message

The bouldering in the cave is not worth it.

I really did my best when I wrote the section in Pete's guide to deter anyone from bothering to try find it. Pete wanted it in there for the sake of completeness only. Don't bother. The only good line has a death fall. DEATH.

However, the Washaway slabs, upper and lower tiers, are spectacular, and offer some of the *best* vertical and under-vertical bouldering in Sydney. The style at the lower seam is reminiscent of the Peak District.

The lower tier is an 8 metre thick monolithic seam (read: no horizontal breaks) of sandstone. Counting the slabs and the boulders in the forest area (along the track towards Castle Rock beach), there are around 120 developed problems ranging from V0 to V8. I've drawn up a topo that I happily give out photocopies of, but I've never made it publicly available due to the fact that climbing is technically banned in the Sydney Harbour National Park.

To get to the slabs, I park at the lookout at the Eastern terminus of Cutler Rd and walk 20 metres down the track until it intersects with the Manly Scenic Walk. Then, without joining the MSW track, walk straight another 20 metres until you get to a concrete bunker. Get below the bunker to the left and follow the overgrown gully 50 metres straight down until a small jump-down seam of rock, then another 20 metres to a bigger seam. This seam is the upper tier and has good bits in either direction. Continue down 50 metres further until you hit the biggest 5-8m seam at a big balcony of rock and you are at the lower tier. Again, problems go left and right from here and include some of the best lines in Sydney. Once upon a time we made nice tracks, but they get totally reclaimed by the bush each summer.

At the arete where you pop out there is a five star problem called "The Balcony" V2. it involves a huge dyno move off a sidepull flake to a pocket. Here is a Picture of Phil Schaal pulling through the dyno (scroll down to the 4th pic):
http://phillipschaal.blogspot.com/2010/09/oz12.html

Forget about the mythical cave.

Cheers,
Dave