For those of you who follow our blog, you will note that I am always searching for the balanced holiday. Some culture, good food, some sightseeing, activity for the girls which includes shopping for Lucy and some rock climbing for me. Koh Yao Noi met most of the requirements but fell short on the shopping front. Chiang Mai was good but it is steamy during the middle of the year and no one deserves to have me sweat on them while belaying.
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| Picture perfect view back to Rovinj as we rode to the crag. |
When planning the holiday, Kate and I worked hard to look for a location that met all the requirements while also having good accommodation at a reasonable price. We had always been keen to visit Croatia as everyone we had met raved about the coast, the food and the people. We started looking around Split but struggled to find accommodation that suited and also had appropriate travel arrangement to the crags. Eventually we looked at the Istrian Peninsula and Rovinj and we were pleased that we did.
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| The streets of Rovinj at night. |
Rovinj turned out to be the perfect family holiday/climbing
location. The town was beautiful, with the oldest part perched on a circular headland with a St Euphemia
Church positioned on the top of the hill towering over the town. The food was
great with the Italian influence ever present in small bistro’s that dotted
every square within the town. There was plenty of shopping although Lucy, who
is now 15, rarely left the apartment. The water was warm and there was swimming
off the rocks in the town or on the pebble beaches to the south. There was an inflated floating "Wipeout" style obstacle course halfway between Rovinj and the crag which Ada loved. There is a
separate post on the joys of Rovinj so I will just focus on the climbing in
this post.
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A Damien Gildea style "selfie" at the top of a route.
He must have longer arms or a wide angle lens! |
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Shame that a beautiful setting is spoiled by
graffiti on the rock. |
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Limestone slab in the foreground, bike
path and the Adriatic in the background |
Just the south of the town was a headland which contained
the forest park of Zlatni rt. Is is a beautiful semi-manicured park land that contained bike
and walking paths . The main path hugged the coast for 20 km along which sat cafes and swimming coves. At the tip of the headland was an old Venetian quarry
which supplied limestone lock for construction in Venice. Quarrying stopped hundreds of years ago but
left an easily accessible and now stable cliff line. Many routes were shaped by the quarrying,
slabs with small horizontal ledges where the limestone blocks had been
cut. Other routes still had the natural
limestone features, even some flowstone in places. The crag was shaded in the
morning but came into the sun later in the day.
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An iPhone photo from the top of a route
looking south |
Below the quarry is a lower cliff line, a little above sea
level that offered a more natural
setting close to the ocean and partially shaded by trees. These crags are very
close to small coves and rock platforms that are perfect for a post climb swim.
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Rapping off the double bolt belay to prevent
wearing the fixed gear. Greg, my old Mumbai
climbing partner would be proud. |
According to the Croatian guide book there are over 100 routes
in the area but I would estimate that there are 10% more climbs which have been
added since the guide was produced. All
are bolt protected with a mixture of stainless steel glue in and expansion
bolts. At the top there is a mixture of spring clips from a double bolt belay or
double glue in rings. I rapped off the double rings and lowered of the spring
clip to minimize wear on the fixed gear.
They don’t seem to have the same problem as in Thailand which has resulted in
retro bolting with titanium. The routes are predominantly moderate, which was
good for me with 80 routes between 5a and 6c+ which ranged from slabs to slightly
overhung.
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| What's Russian for hangdogging |
What always amazes me in Europe is that climbing is more of
a mainstream recreational activity when compared to Australia where it
certainly sits on the fringe. Due to the
selection of routes and the child friendly nature of the area combined with the
proximity to Rovinj meant that there were a number of large
groups during the
day. The down side is that there was a tendency to set up top ropes and tie up many routes on the cliff. Given my limited Croatian or Russian it was
difficult at times to politely ask people to move their ropes so we I could
lead a route. In the end, I gave up and
moved on. Generally it wasn't a problem
as Kate and I were at the crag by 0730 and were packing up by 1030, after 7-8
good climbs, when the large groups started to arrive.
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| Ada occasionally did some climbing too! |
I would like to say that I had some good photos of me
climbing but I can’t. Kate was belaying me for the first time in 18 years and
she was concentrating hard on her technique. This left Ada to take the
photographs; unfortunately, she is no Frank Hurley so I now have 10 photos of different
parts of my body on routes, photos of my walking shoes and many of Ada's "selfies". My butt
features heavily and I am mostly headless.
Perhaps she was thinking of preparing a Robert Motherwell style collage by combining all the parts of my body together with fish and chip paper and sand paper.
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An Ada "selfie"
Would you trust your holiday memories to this person? |
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| Climbing travel mode of choice |
A 10 minute bicycle ride and we were back in Rovinj and the
girls would be just out of bed and Ada would be ready for a morning swim while
Lucy was ready to do what ever teenage girls do all day in their pyjamas.
It is a great spot for a relaxing family climbing
holiday and the climbing was a great warm up for Kalymnos as I was able to rack up over 40 onsights while I was in Rovinj and still be a good dad. I could have easily spent a
second week and I hope to get back in the future.
