another day in Flock Hill

Flock Hill

Flock Hill is for us the best area of Castle Hill. It doesn't have a guide book yet and is at 45 minutes steep walking in the sun...So we wait quite long to go there : a cloudy day!!!





An enormous sector, we could stay one year here to see all the problems.








Hopefuly, there are not only sloppers here...and really beautiful problems.

Qantum field

After two days in Spittle Hill, let's go to Qantum field (one minute walking ;-)






A lot of difficults mantles boulders. Here it's better not looking at the grades;-)
A V3 mantle, under the sun, really looks like a V8!!!

Castle Hill

After the rain in Babylon, let's go to Castle Hill, 10 hours drive from Babylon and 1h30 from Christchurch.
It's a real contrast between Babylon and here. It's 36 degrees and nearly not possible to climb during the day....so we have to wake up early to climb in the morning and late in the evening.
For our first day in Castle Hill, we choose Spittle Hill the first sector of this area, 5 minutes walking from the car;-)

Wanaka

4 hours from Babylon is Wanaka, a small town around a nice lake...Here, nothing compare to babylon. The walk to the crag is very easy, 2 min from the car park, it's nice sometimes ;-)
There are a few little crags with more easy routes, from 15-29 (from 3b to 8a).

babylon

After these sunny days, the rain start again...heavy falls! so we were obliged to take 3 rest days. Then, even with the rain, we decided to climb again.
but after 2 more days of climbing, and walking up to this ugly and steep track in the mud... we've decide to left to the North, were the weather is better!

Climbing in Babylon

Babylon is situated in the "fiordland national park" and has approximatively 10m of rain per year. it's more than in Belgium!!!! amazing!











Before we arrived, it was raining for 1 month in babylon and the climbers told us we were very lucky to have 5 days of sun!



It's possible to climb in the rain, but the problem is the track to go to the crag.



It's a "jungle" track, you walk in the mud, you pulls you in trees and sometimes has fix ropes, to arrive there.






After 15min walking, you arrive to Babylon, a 10 years old crag, but for the moment, all the climbers go to Little babylon, 15min walking upper from Babylon, in a same kind of horrible track (Ceuse is an easy walk compare to here!). It's a crag discovered 1 year ago with routes from (23-33) 6c+ to 8c