After five months of Kimchi and Korea, my vacation was more than welcome (don’t get me wrong, though, I had and I’m still having a great time in Korea, it can just be, well, exhausting at times). Luckily Thorsten and Alex were able to join in for some climbing and it didn’t take much to convince us that Sardinia would be the perfect place to go. However the trip started with a moment of shock when we discovered that Alex’ VW leaked some oil and a mechanic advised us not to use the car as there was immediate danger of fire. As you can imagine we weren’t too impressed at gave it a shot anyway. And in order to come to the point – the car was just fine and never caught fire! | View gallery (weiterlesen …)

Some more pics from recent climbing trips to the Grampians | See the pictures

Some more pics from a recent climbing trip with Rob and Sam to Spurt Wall | See the pictures

Despite the cold weather, we had another two weekends outdoors in the Grampians. The Ravine and Millennium Caves (both sport) as well as Mt. Rosea with its trad multi-pitch climbs. | See the pictures

A couple of weeks ago I caught up with Rich at the Grampians. He had posted on Chockstone.org that he was looking for a climbing partner and I was free so why not shoot up to the Grampians for a couple of days? I also met Peter there, an Italian traveller. For the first time I went to Mt. Arapiles, one of the best crags in Australia. Mainly trad climbing and perfect rock in a nice setting. Here you can see the pictures in the Gallery.
I’ve also tried to find a bike pretty much since I arrived – several auctions on ebay I just missed due to stupidity or other bikes got sold minutes before I called the owner. Finally I found a stylish street racer that will hopefully last a couple of months – that’s all I’m expecting for 50 bucks.

Last Saturday the annual boulder competition at The Lactic Factory started again. I hadn’t been climbing for about two months beforehand, thus my ecpectations were not very high. However, it went quite well and a 7th place in the ranking among 24 other competitiors was definitely a surprising result. I even made it onto the starting page of The Lactic Factory!
Shortly before I return to Germany there’ll be the second round held at Lactic, just enough time for some training and a last blast on the plastic | See the pictures (external) …

Sorry, but this post is not available in English

A week ago I met Adrian at the local boulder wall, and yesterday we already went climbing together to the Werribee Gorge. This crag is located about one hour by car west of Melbourne. It offers only a few sport climbs but some easy trad routes. A good opportunity for me to try my first trad leading, a style of climbing that I haven’t really done so far. It’s definitely more intensive if you have to trust the placements that are put in the wall by yourself. Even though the grade is fairly low so one should be able climb that easily. | See the pictures …

Die Grampians sind ein Nationalpark etwa drei Autostunden westlich von Melbourne gelegen und bekannt für ihre vielfältige Flora und Fauna, mindestens genauso bekannt aber auch für die regelmäßig wütenden Buschfeuer. Und wer mal einen grünen Eukalyptuszweig hat brennen sehen, der weiß warum diese Feuer in Australien solch ein verheerendes Ausmaß erreichen. Aber zurück zu unserem Trip. Mit Jesper und Lindsay gings also los den roten Sandsteinfelsen entgegen. | Zu den Bildern (weiterlesen …)

Letztes Wochenende fand in der Boulderhalle “The lactic factory” ein kleiner Boulderwettkampf statt, den ich immerhin in den Top ten beendete. Einige Fotos hab ich auch geschossen, und die möchte ich euch natürlich nicht vorenthalten.
Außerdem gibts ein paar Bilder von der Boulderwand unter der Burnley Bridge 5min von meiner Haustür entfernt.