New Nowra
Jason Lammers and Rick Phillips explore a rapidly expanding arena of new ascents
Nowra – it’s like 80s music: you don’t tell people you like it, but everyone goes there. Bolts, biceps and backyards sum the place up pretty quickly. That is until the NSW government spent $80 million upgrading the road from Nowra to Canberra, opening up a plethora of new climbing areas that will change your mind about Nowra climbing. No longer do you park your car in a street and walk past suburbia. Now it’s towering cliffs, waterfalls, car camping and endless valleys – all located 20 minutes southwest of Nowra along the Braidwood Road.
With three main areas, over 400 climbs and an elevation of between 400 and 600 metres, this spot offers drier, cooler and generally less humid conditions for climbing. It is often dry here when it’s wet and rainy at the Nowra city crags. Grades range from 11–26, although the majority are in the 18–23 bracket, making this area perfect for most climbers. There is plenty of potential for harder climbs to be put up, but alas the current developers are either too old, too fat or a combination of both to climb anything harder than 25.
Approaching the crags after leaving Nowra, the first one you arrive at is Hylands Lookout. This consists of two main areas: the lookout itself – where you park your car, open your door and fall over the edge or scramble down the easy gully – and Utopia, which is a short walk from the car park.
We found obvious evidence of previous climbing activity at Hylands Lookout, in the shape of an assortment of bolted routes, but after asking around couldn’t find the owners. The routes here range from 30-metre face climbs to steep pumpers punctuated with stunning orange arêtes. It is a crag in construction at present and a hot spot for new activity.
Utopia is a great summer and wet-weather crag, as it faces southeast and is capped in some parts by a huge roof. Most of the climbing here is on delicate crimps, but it also has a steep area for the pumpers.
Although Panther Country is in the same area as Hylands, it’s accessed from a different car park roughly one kilometre away. At 20 minutes, the walk-in is the longest in the area, but for that small effort you are rewarded with some of the best routes in New Nowra. These include standouts such as Flake Orgasm (23), Rockaholic (24) and Tiger Tales (24).
Moonshine and Darkside are next along the road and are quite the boutique crags, with only 50 or so climbs between them. Two-minute walk-ins and camping by your car make these areas excellent for a weekend. Moonshine rock is very different to your typical Nowra sandstone being closer to limestone, and the climbing is mostly on pockets and incuts. Cosmic Thing at that fun grade of 18 is touted as one of the better ones in Nowra and My Bolts My Climb (24) will have you pumped in an instant.
Facing south and surrounded by towering trees, Darkside lives up to its name. Although close to the car park, climbing here has a remote feel to it, with huge palms and giant fallen trees covered in moss your only company for the day. The rock here is sharp and abrasive so expect your sore tips to sting at the end of day when you’re holding that hot chocolate. Steeper than Moonshine, the grades are a little stiffer and it only has limited warm ups. Climbs to do here are Yaksative (24) and Big Bang Theory (24).
A further ten minutes along the road you arrive at Tianjara Falls (TJF), where previous climbing efforts have also been recorded, with past visitors including the likes of Mike Law, Graham Hill and Steve Bullen back in the 70s.
Steve’s climbs are easy to recognise – they are impossible. With nearly 200 climbs, TJF is the largest in the area. It is divided into six main sections spread over one kilometre of cliff face. The first climbing opportunity is a mere five-minutes walk, while the furthest area, Indian Head, is a 20-minute amble across the cliff top. With spectacular scenery and fantastic climbing, everyone is catered for here: test your endurance on long mid-grade face climbs, bring along the kids and wander up the easy slabs or pop a vein in your forehead on the steep routes. And, for something completely different, the Falls is the only crag in Nowra that has a large number of all trad or mixed climbs. Your tick list should contain Rod’s Arête (16), Lattes on the Lounge (22), Dodecahedron (22), Big Yak Value Meal (24) and Boule et Frit (24).
A new guidebook is in production and, according to Rod Young, will be out before Christmas. With roughly 1000 climbs it’s guaranteed to weigh down your pack. For those who just can’t wait, your option is the online guide on the Australian Climbing Association site www.climb.org.au (follow the prompts to New Nowra), which provides directions to the areas and, in some instances, photographic topos. Be aware that even as this article was being written, other cliff lines were being discovered, including a 60-metre-high monster, and roughly five new climbs a week get bolted – so it is rapidly expanding.
The amount of rock out there is mind boggling. If you have a drill and sense of adventure every dirt road ends at a cliff and there are new routes and entirely new crags just begging to be discovered. So now that the mountains are too cold and Victoria is too wet, maybe a trip to New Nowra should be part of your winter plans?
