Paul Robinson Tackles Rocklands South Africa
After an estimated 750 million people watched the World Cup in South Africa, most of the visitors were headed out of the country but Paul Robinson and his girlfriend Alex Kahn were flying in in search of adventures and new lines.
The last few days have been amazing! We climbed our first day at the roadside where I did some fun moderates. The next day I felt strong so we headed to 8 day rain. I managed to send derailed, v14 in about 20 minutes which got me really psyched on how much stronger I feel this trip over last. Yesterday we went to another sector of 8 day rain and I managed the second ascent of jungle bar, v11/12 which was awesome to do! Today it rained and we explored a ton! We found livin large, nalle’s climb from last year, and I was not too impressed. The hike was insanely long and I don’t think I will try it at all during the trip. It looked ok but not worth the hike. I am very psyched on monkey wedding (unrepeated Fred Nicole line) and want to put my energy into that one! We did not find too much along the lines of fa’s but we are psyched for hopefully climbing tomorrow if the weather cooperates. I am looking forward my first day on monkey wedding now that I am feeling adjusted to the climbing area. Until next time! Tried monkey wedding today for the first time this trip. Psyche is high. It felt good and I look forward to trying it more very soon! Pics and vids to come! Internet here is bad! Can barely post text. ~PRob
And then Alex dropped us a note also…
Paul and I have been in South Africa just over a week now. The weather is different than expected and there is much more rain than we anticipated. The few days of sunshine we have had have been spent outside bouldering and exploring the valleys for new boulders. We stumbled upon Nalle’s sector where Livin’ Large is and looked for more potential there but unfortunately most of the boulders were blank. There is rock as far as the eye can see in almost every direction but as we get closer to it, a lot of it is unclimbable. We are hoping to stumble across a perfect valley of untouched rock with a ton of potential for hard lines- good thing we are here for 2 months. Paul has made a quick ascent of Derailed and the second ascent of Jungle Bar so he is off to a strong start. We have all adjusted to the time, now we are just trying to adjust to the temperature. It’s quite odd to go from 95 degrees and humid to 50 degrees max with clouds and wind. We are praying for good weather so we can repeat what is here and discover more! There have been a few incredible rainbows with all the rain we have had. Yesterday we booked a safari for the 2 days after Paul’s 23rd birthday so we are very excited for that as well! ~Alex
We look forward to catching up with them often as Paul continues his search for the worlds hardest lines…
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