Claire and I just got back from a Spanish climbing trip in the Costa Blanca region. We brought the trad rack and half ropes over, but ended up sport climbing for the entire week. We stayed in a lovely house in a tiny village in the mountains north of Benidorm, and climbed in some beautiful areas, the best (in no particular order) being Reconco, Bollula, Bellus, and Sella - the shady Pared de Rosalia was my favourite crag of the trip, with Arte del Olvido being the standout climb.

I discovered that Benidorm is best known as a popular place for the British to get extremely sunburnt and extremely drunk, whilst celebrating events such as stag do’s, hens’ nights, and so on and so forth. The sunday morning return flight was full of hungover Brits, and smelt a bit like a brewery.

My vague aim for the trip was to onsight a 7a (about 23ish in Australian terms). I didn’t manage this, but each of the 7a’s I did try I got second go, and I did manage to onsight quite a few 6c+’s. So I was pretty happy with my efforts.

Spain is great - the people are friendly, the weather is warm (too warm for me), the coffee is good and the wine is cheap. San Miguel is an excellent hot weather beer, too. We didn’t end up figuring out why so many people were drinking beer at 10am each morning, but I did discover that real tapas is much simpler than the stuff you get in those fancy tapas bars - it has a real home-cooked feel to it. Good stuff.