Mount Everest and the Drakensburg.

With an entire country of crags to go at and plenty of other things to see besides, we piled onto the truck leaving the daily routines of the past week behind. Like a party of OAP's Bob the friendly driver took us to the next venue with few hiccups, the journey only broken for lunch, which I spent reading the graffiti on the back of a petrol station bog door while praying for the shits to end.
Arrival at the Mount Everest game reserve was seen in with the now compulsory bender, in the true style of Brits abroad. Waking up to see my first daylight view of the crags I was confronted by a team madman who, on experiencing the local brew decided to shave all of his hair off apart from three horns, which were sprayed a metallic silver. The crazy bastard then applied sun cream to his scalp spelling the team 'hot rock' logo, this being the only part of his head not to be a bubbling mess of sunburn by that evening.
Not being over impressed by this and hoping to grow some brain cells back from the previous nights action we decided to head for the climbing. Forgetting we were staying on a game reserve, we ambled over the grassy plains scouring the impressive sandstone outcrops rising above us. The local scrub was particularly unfriendly and while nursing a new scratch, I decided upon taking the path of least resistance, only to find wildebeest on the move. Believing these boys to be no worse than your standard dairy herd I ploughed onwards, after two miles of bush beating to avoid some pissed off wildebeest I arrived at the foot of the crag delirious with animal panic.
Over the next few days, the team climbed some of the best routes to be had at Mount Everest, mainly consisting multi pitch bolt routes offering good climbing and awesome views of game and tundra below.

Montagu and Paarl rocks.

An overnight burn from here towards the cape saw many sightseers in an arse about missing the beautiful coastline. Thinking back I'd not take that option again, but fuelled by 3 days rest in the Drakensburg Mountains and inspired by climbing the huge river boulder, the hardcore of us were motivated to pull on some holds.
Bailing off the truck at 6am in the morning, with a quiet lad called Ben; I wandered the obscure Jurassic swampland of Montagu crags. We were in search of inspiration, after spending the past few weeks in amazing scenery; the bolted quartzite bogs left little to the imagination. It screamed hard and painful sport climbing. Returning to the truck in tired desperation, maybe sleep would shed new light on the situation. While many could be found sleeping, the hardcore were recovering from the night's journey by floating in a Jacuzzi drinking gin and tonics.
Praying for the development of powerful biceps overnight today was going to be the start of a siege on a series of desperate roofs. Requiring a further 2 years of training to consider the crux sections of these routes trying them became depressing. Being too weak to understand the desires of the hard sport climber
I headed for anything, which read 7a, or below. Having resisted the temptation of booze so far, this performance needed its sorrows drowning. So packing up at four in the afternoon, Ben and I headed for the local in hope of a cool beer or few. What started as an early afternoon drink ended in an epic adventure, I even believe we managed to get a local religious maniac wasted. Whilst Ben was being mauled by a local tramp and preached to, I decided to try to make good with my girlfriend. I was blown out of the water from 3000 miles. This was the beginning of the end, climbing was ruining my life.
At dawn, while dusting of the chunks, realisation arrived in the form of a splitter headache. I was sure I'd rang my X at three in the morning her time. Too late now, we were moving on and Paarl rocks was the venue, my first taste of granite slabs.
Max led the first pitch, 3 weeks of sport climbing had dulled the senses and those bolts appeared to be a long way apart. Anyway, he was bold with a penchant for moments of madness, which could prove worrying. Chickening out of the first harder pitch seemed like a good idea at the time, Max could have grazed himself pretty badly. Setting out on the next pitch, it began to dawn on me that there was no apparent line and definitely no bolts. 45 metres of lichenous smearing left me crying with fear; a fall would have resulted in an entire body graze down 130 feet of evil rock. More unnecessary fear was to follow.