Desert Island Climbing

Once again, we've spent te day marvelling at the places that climbing has taken us! A real adventure day today! Got out of the noisy camp as soon as possible, left the tourist hustle of Taupo behind and drove along the coast to a remote little village called Kinloch. Its barely marked on the map and we'd never have known to have gone there if we hadn't had a tip off from some climbing friends. It's a quiet little place right on the lake shore where we'd been told that we could get a boat ride round to some climbing. We parked up and took a seat in 'The Tipsy Trout' for morning coffee while we formulated our plan. Our friends had told us to ask for a bloke called Wally. The coffee shop came up with all the goods - soon enough we had a comfy chair, a couple of lattes and Wally's phone number. As it turned out he was in town buying a few bits for his boat and said he'd meet us on the docks in half an hour. Forty five minutes later we we pulling out of the little harbour and heading off across the Lake Taupo in the late morning sun. Wally pointed out where the climbing was, then dropped us off at a remote pebbley beach. Just in land from the beach was dense forest that was more like a jungle to us. In amongst the trees were little clearings for tents. As the boat pulled away we could barely contain out exitment!

We got camp established, then set off to the nearest cliff which was a totally pristine piece of rock, with excellent crack climbs that were about 35m high.

Once it got too hot on the cliff, we returned to camp for some swimming and noodles, followed by an afternoon nap! At 6pm we explored through the jungle and along the waters edge, through a rock ravine and past a big cave. It was a bit spooky! All the creepers on the trees looked menacing! We made it over to a further cliff and did a quick climb, then returned for another swim just before the sun set. We quickly cooked dinner before it got dark, then crashed out absolutely shattered but buzzing!