The Great Ocean Road, Nowra & Point Perpendicular

G’Day Mates!
It has been a long time since our blog has last been updated. We are now in the Blue Mountains (close to Sydney) and have been very busy planning for the arrival of Jen and Tony who will be meeting us in Sydney on the 17th of December. We have a great couple of weeks planned with them in the Blue Mountains, New Zealand and camping in Tasmania.
Internet is not always easy to come by and neither is accommodation or rental vehicles. Give us a break, climbing for a living is tough work.

After leaving the Grampians early because of a 50 year heat wave we decided to see a little more of this amazing country. We drove down to the Great Ocean Road on our way north towards our last major destination on the main land, The Blue Mountains. The Great Ocean Road blew us away and was far more spectacular than we could have imagined. Sandstone towers stood tall out of the turquoise waters of the Southern Ocean. We checked out many of the sandy beaches and cooled off in the refreshing but very salty water. We took a small detour along Cape Otway which is the most southern part of Australia to see the Koalas. After seeing the lazy bears hardly move except to put the gumtree leaves in their mouths, it was no surprise that there were no Koalas in the Grampians because of the fires in 2005. BBQ.

Our next stop was Nowra. We stayed at a water ski park and canoed to the cliff each day. The climbing is steep sport, similar to Kentucky with less routes. Erin and I climbed our first Aussi grade 26.

The wildlife in Nowra gave us some surprises… we were woken in the middle of the night because our car was rocking back and forth. At first I thought it was our buddy Brett; however, after looking out the curtain I couldn’t see anything… yet the car was still shaking. Then we saw it. A Wombat (a small furry pig like creature) was scratching up against the side of our van. We also saw water lizards, a Goanna Dragon over a meter long, and baby birds being fed by their mother.


We lasted 5 days in Nowra while we waited for the Aussi Navy to finish shelling the seaside cliff we would visit next.

It was great to meet up with our friend Timmy, an Aussi who we met in Yosemite. He would be our local guide to the Point Perpendicular area. Point Perpendicular was one of the most beautiful climbing areas we have ever seen. It reminded us of our home crag Lions Head, in which you rappel in from the top. The climbs were along the seaside cliffs of the Pacific coast and were stunning. As promised by climbers we met in the Araplies, we had quite the adventure there. Humpback Whales were fully breaching out of the water just below our climb. We also saw Dolphins swimming below as we climbed high above our protection on the fragile white rock.




After a few days of great weather we had some rain in the forecast so it was time to finish our journey to the Blue Mountains where we would meet up with our good mate Ken, who we also met in Yosemite. Currently we are staying with Ken in Lithgow, climbing, canyoning and taking in the sights.

Stay tuned for the Blue Mountains update soon to follow.