Climbing Campan

Driving along with our faithful PANDA and our trusty 1:100,000,000 (not so detailed!) scale map of France's climbing and with the aid of some nice French people at the local sports shop we found this nice spot on the side of the road. Great climbing, beautiful stream and picnic table all right at the cliff. Cliffs were very high and the limit of our rope! Nice views too.

Camping Pyrenees

We were driving and driving and driving deeper into a valley in the Pyrenees looking for somewhere to camp. It was getting darker and darker, when we pulled up into a quaint inn at the side of the road. It was dark inside and we hollered a little at the bottom of a set of stairs when a lady appeared stroking her dog. We asked in our best french whether she knew of a camping site nearby. 'Non'. Ok then, we then continued to explain we had all of our own equipment and would not need any facilities. 'aaaah, savage, oui c'est possible'. It was ok to camp 'savage' for one night in the Pyrenees. She explained that we were welcome to drive behind her property over a little bridge where we may find something suitable.

Yes very suitable!!!!!!!

Yummy Dinner!

Making Peppermint Tea in the morning...mmmm.

Climbing Arudy

So what do you do when you can't find a decent general guide book for France/Europe anywhere? Just drive around with a 1:100,000 map and think lucky:) After taking a detour tour through the not so exciting town of Arudy, we returned and investigated what seemed to be the access track to the crag. Thankfully our fiat panda had neither the girth or the limited agility of its namesake. We ended up following a narrow and precipitous rock path past a chemical plant to a dead end amidst goats in the depths of a secluded valley (only very marginal hyperbole!). Anyway the panda was nimble and robust and we made it back out and eventually found the crag.

The crag itself had a how to say.......urine stained, defunct, underground station atmosphere...mmmmmm FUNKY! Well it was dingy in corners but the limestone was pretty nice and the routes interesting. A little too interesting in fact (read above our skill level). Given the single non locking gate permanent anchor set up, I thought I'd be conservative and leave the last draw in, as well as cleaning an erant quick draw I placed a little wide on lead onto what looked like the correct route. Renu climbed to find I had given her a direct but perhaps too hard route to the anchor.

Thank you Australian Climbing Consultants for teaching us the most valuable skill of prusiking.

Climbing Mondarrain

Amazing spot!! We weren't too sure where this climbing spot was. We spotted a cliff and parked the car. Luckily we spotted a french man with his bouldering mat nearby. We spoke to him and he let us follow him up the hill - the walk was about 45 minutes up (which was a little tiring as we weren't very fit at that stage). It was so beautiful up there - paradise really. You can see in the photos. The climbing was very easy but super fun given the amazing views. The spot was more for bouldering so we gave it a bit of a try and posed for some photos....

You can see Nathan pointing in the photo below - the end of his finger shows the location of our car all the way down there.

A really breathtaking place where we would like to go back to one day.

Camping near Mondarrain

Here is our first campsite!! It is just south east of Biarritz. Our new tent is the best! (We did consider bringing the 6 man tent but thought it may be a little too big to carry around....)

We had so much fun. Check out our gourmet meal in the picture - the wine was 2 euros and the sausage less than that - French supermarkets are the best!!

Climbing Biarritz

Our first climbing experience in France! We randomly found this place on the internet and the best thing was that it was freeeeee! We met the groundsman (who was hiding in a warehouse) and traumatised him with our french and asked if we could climb the wall. He was very friendly and said we could climb as long as we had insurance and he held no responsibility for the quality of the holds on the wall. So up the wall we went!! And survived - yay!

French Classes

French classes in Biarritz, what to say! So much fun, with our energetic Prof Sandrine (see photo for example of wicked cool finesse) and our class of young OCDs (de TOC) haha not to mention the wise oldies (age > 17 years). Martin we are looking forward to seeing you in Australia next year. The wallabies are waiting for you......