So its taken me a while to get around to writing this but thought id get something up before I go to Cornwall. Beginning of this month my friend Ben and I headed to France to get some scary, exposed sport climbing in at Verdon Gorge in Southern France. This is what happened…

So the day we arrived was a write off because of the rain, so we relaxed after the long day’s drive and got a rack sorted for the next day. Unlike most people that go to Verdon we where not going to do a warm-up route, but instead go straight to do the classic Chimney/Off-width thing known as ‘La Demande’ 6a. We were told that the bolting was a little sparse, but weren’t really prepared for what we found. Parking in the bottom car park we walked in, in full sun wearing t-shirts, deciding to only take wind-proofs and a snack as the weather was nice and its ‘only 6a’. Eventually we found the bottom of the route after walking around aimlessly for a while, but at this point it was 2pm. I voiced my opinion that it was maybe a little late to be getting on a 13pitch route but Ben set off up the easy first pitch.
First few pitches were quite nice, bolting a little sparse, but managed to fill in the gaps with a few totem cams. About halfway up though the climbing changed from nice friendly climbing, to off widths with massively spaced bolts… At this point it was getting on 6pm. Slowly making progress up the top pitches we came to the Chimney pitches at the top around 10pm to find them sodden, shiny and hold less needing friction to climb up. To add to the misery of climbing in the dark with head torches where you can either see feet or hands at once, never both, it had started to get a bit chilly and the one apple and half an energy bar each hadn’t really been enough food since breakfast. Ben being the best at this sort of climbing managed to get us to within the last pitch through the super slippery, minimal bolted chimneys.

We toped out at 12:30am in the cold and dark with one of the head-torches dying, not realising that the car was nearly 3 hour walk away! Ended up walking back to campsite, (only 2hr away), and retrieving car in the morning..
After this mega day where neither of us got to bed till 3am, the next was a rest day. Following day though i chose the route, a nice friendly 6a that was well bolted. Not taking any chances this time I made sure we started climbing before 9am. The climbing was really nice and defiantly would suggest ‘Cocoluche’ as a good warm-up route! 
Getting off the route at around 1pm this time had a casual lunch in the sun then got on Wide Is Love 6a. This is probably the most exposed belay both of us have ever been on, you abb off the top and sit a couple of hundred metres up on a blank, pocketed wall. The route is really nice, like super scary indoor jug pulling with a run-out top and polished feet.
The next day we climbed a nice route further up the gorge, before heading to Sainte Victoire to climb a big multi-pitch route i’d had my eyes on.

The route that id found is called Le Grand Parcours and with 17 pitches started at 5am to finish at a sensible time after learning our lesson. The route is awesome with slabby, fingery climbing on the first few pitches, changing into fast scrambling for the middle, then a few off-width pitches at the top before some nice face climbing at the end. It’s well bolted compared to Verdon, however we took a few cams, coming in at uk HVS/E1 it’s a must do if your in the area.
The last few days of our French trip we spent sport climbing in Orpierre. The extremely generous bolting made a refreshing change from the last few days. Dodging the showers we played around on some of the harder stuff before heading home.

After a few days at work headed for a quick farther and son trip to Isle of Mull with the puppy for a bit of walking and wild camping. So much of Mull is unspoilt with some rocky coastline and steep rolling hills, with 2 Ben’s. 2 of the nights we were there we spent wild camping, one was on a beach on the west side of a small island called Erraid which is only accessible at low tide. A cool little wild camp, on a grassy verge at the back of the beach looking out to sea.
Second night we spent over by Ben Moore so we would be in the right place for a quick trip up in the morning before heading back. Luckily the clouds cleared just as we arrived at the top to have a view over the whole island and down the sound all the way to Jura.

So a few months ago my sister and I decided to go somewhere before I get busy again and she gets a job, also meant escaping the rubbish UK weather for a bit! We travelled to Aonang just outside Krabi on the coast of the Andaman Sea. Travel took about 24 hours, but was well worth it!
We stayed in the Ibis which was nicely set back off the road, avoiding the noisy Thai traffic! It was about a 20min walk to the closest beach, although the hotel had a free shuttle service every hour.
​While there we went Scuba Diving, visited a few beaches, went to the Phi Phi Islands, kayaked, did a bit of Climbing, Snorkelled and occasionally rested!

​Railay, Tonsai and Climbing 
From Aonang you can get long boat water taxi to a selection of close-by places, so twice we paid 400baht return, (£9), for the two of us to get around to Railay as the beach was a lot nicer around there. If staying in Aonang it's definitely worth going around for the day, the sea's clearer and beach quieter. Bonus too if your into climbing as Tonsai is only a short walk through the forest at the far left of the beach, (about 5-10mins). My sister doesn't climb so just had a bit of a boulder around the bottom of the cliffs on the beach. Theres loads of sport routes though!

​Scuba Diving 
So both being qualed. padi divers we booked a three dive boat trip through The Dive Ao Nang. Theres a few dive centres in Aonang and after walking around and talking to a few The Dive was the most friendly and didn't feel like I was pulling teeth when talking to them finding out about the local dive sites. We went on what they call the ASK, essentially in its three dives, a wreck and 2 reef dives.
The wreck is an old car transporter which sank in 1997 after hitting the reef nearby, (also the location of the second dive). Called the King Cruiser, it also happens to be in Scuba Travel's top dive sites in Thailand guide. The wreck is sat upright with the wheelhouse at 10metres, going down to the props at 30. Theres lots of life, big schools of fish, shrimps, nudibranchs, moray eels and box fish, along with typical reef life for the area.
The next dive was on a reef called anemone reef. A pinnacle starting at around 5 metres going down to 30+metres. As the name suggests there are lot of anemones. Lots more life too, even a shoal of barracuda swimming past on our dive. Our guide said that there used to be quite a few seahorses there, but in recent years they have completely disappeared. 
The final dive was called Shark Point, which is three pinnacles at progressively deeper levels, first tops out around 4metres, second 10metres, third 20ish. Again we where told there used to be quite a few sharks at this site, but have dropped sitings recently. We didn't see any, but did see a hawksbill turtle, along with a variety of shrimps, crabs, a cuttle fish and a few tunas.
The trip was well run with food and drink offered between each dive, and the guide was very knowledgeable. The guide ratio was good too with one to three and after our guide saw that we knew what we were doing soon relaxed. Ended up with 3 60min dives, not bad for a day diving!

Phi Phi Islands
​For one of the days we went on a Phi Phi Islands tour. It cost 2,000baht(£46) for two of us. That included a taxi from the hotel to the speed boat, Lunch and water throughout the day. The only thing it didn't include was national park entrance fees which are currently 200baht/person. It's approx. a 40 minute boat ride from Aonang to the Phi Phi islands. We visited several of the islands on the trip. First place we went was Maya Bay on Ko Phi Phi Lee. The beach is possibly one of the best beaches I have ever been on, well it would have been if you got rid of a few hundred people! According to the guide, 200 boats visit every day in peak season!
After a few more beach and sightseeing stops we arrived at the main island, (Ko Phi Phi), for lunch. Buffet style and nice food. Our final stop after lunch was a snorkelling trip then relaxing on Bamboo beach. Coral around Bamboo island is good, (video below), and the beach has soft white sand. It was also a lot quieter than the rest of the beaches that we had been to.

Food, Getting Around, Ect 
The food in Thailand is generally pretty cheap. Cost 2 of us around 600-800baht(£15) for a decent meal every night, although neither of us drink. In Ao Nang you need to get a water taxi to the other beaches around. To get to Railay beach it'll cost you 200baht return / person. There is however a nice beach just around the corner in the next bay along that can be got to by walking to the far end of the beach and up through a bit of rainforest.

Ive had this trip planned for a while and a few weeks ago I got to go! It all started at 4am on 7th Oct. Waking up to the alarm hoping to find Joe asleep in the living room after letting himself in the night before, we set off in my trusty clio from Swanage for Dover to take the ferry to Dunkirk. With the ferry on time we arrived in France before midday.
We had decided to take the back roads instead of the motorway to avoid having to pay for tolls, so total drive time was about 5hr30min. Had a nice steady drive through France, both of us being glad we took the backroads as got to see so much more of France this way. I even ended up seeing Saint Quentin which is twinned with my home town. Having an early night after arriving in the Forest camp site psyched for the following day of climbing. The only issue for the drive over was… well all i can say is don’t just eat chocolate raisins for 3/4 of the day!

Day 2 saw us go to the boulders near the camp site at Gorge-a-Chats. This was my favourite location that we visited while we were there. Properly in the forest compared to the sandy openness of the first day. I think I was starting to get used to font sandstone though as didn’t fall off nearly as much. Managed a really nice traverse problem on slopers. My other favourite was a problem where you had to stand up from a undercut and reach/dyno to the top, coming in at 6a wasn’t hard but was cool. Rest of the day we bimbled around he boulders trying anything that looked nice.

Our final day saw us visit the classic bouldering area of Cuvier Bas. To sum up Cuvier Bas in 2 words I would go with polished and sharp. The start of nearly every problem had polished feet. Walking around however we found some boulders away from the rest that had some cool lines going up them. My favourite was Sans l’Arete 6b. This contained mostly slab climbing on sharp crimps up the corner of a boulder.
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The following day saw us packing up and starting the long journey home. With no major issues and some awesome DJ skills from Joe we arrived back in Swanage around 9pm after leaving the camp site at 7am that morning. 
The wether was awesome the whole time we where there. Just warm enough for a t-shirt during the day, but at night it really dropped. One morning’s read of the temp gauge in the car read -2ºC. The cold nights also meant that early morning everything was damp so nothing really came into climbing condition till about 11am. Short approaches where really nice too with our biggest being 10mins. To sum up Font climbing is awesome and will be returning soon, although next time to climb something hard!