I spent the weekend climbing at a few spots around Wanaka and Queenstown. We started off at Roadside Attraction, a wall in the Hospital Flat area near Wanaka. We did a few warm-up climbs, and then had a go at the first pitch of a popular grade 17, ‘Shortcut to Exposure’. I was pretty happy that we both made it up, being the hardest grade I’ve climbed, let alone led. We were awoken by rain on sunday morning, so went and checked out the indoor wall at Wanaka.

Indoor climbing is completely different to outdoor; it feels a lot safer, and it’s so much easier to climb, given that you can see every single hold. We did pretty much every climb on the wall up to grade 19 without a huge amount of difficulty, then decided to head over to Queenstown, where the weather turned out to be much nicer. Wye Creek is a great spot; it’s a steep 30 minute walk to get to the southern walls, where all of the easier climbs are located. We managed a few of the lower grade climbs before the rain approached. A fun weekend, and I’m aching all over to prove it.