Zero Carbon Adventures: Lundy Island

Iv just got back from a weeks climbing on Lundy, a small island 3 miles long and 1 mile wide off the coast of Devon. It was a fantastic experience. Getting to the island requires a two hour ferry journey; once on the island there are no cars, no roads, only one shop, one (very good) pub and miles and miles of golden granite coastline.

Arriving the Bahamas?....no Lundy!

Lundy is packed full of wildlife every day we would see loads of seals, birds, deer, goats, rabbits, caterpillars, ponies, chickens, ducks and my favorite..plenty of sheep! Sometimes all within 100m of each other.

The climbing on Lundy was fantastic it feels quite adventures almost all crags require committing feeling abseils down to small wave washed ledges. Due to the inaccessibility and spaced nature of the routes we often only got two of three routes done a day! Definitely quality not quantity. After each of us had done a good lead (I was climbing a a three with Bani and Luke) we were often happy to go and chill out in the campsite/pub or watch the sun go down with a bottle of red wine at the top of the old light house.

We did too many routes to mention them all here, if your interested have a look at my ukc logbook.

One of the best days was a day on the Parthenos one of Lundy's best cliffs. The main crag is about 50m tall and the top section is very overhanging. Barni started off the day by leading the stunning and very photogenic Mal du Mer E4 6a.

Barni on Mal du Mer E4 6a

Next I climbed Cithaeron E4 6a; it was an amazing experience, a long (almost 50m) pitch which was fully involved and hard at the grade. The climbing was fantastic with many powerful moves on steep ground with often good handholds and poor footholds. The gear was good but spaced and fiddly.

Me placing gear just before the first crux on Cithaeron E4 6a

Last but definitely not least Luke climbed Zobra the Greek E5 6b. It was a bit of a one move wonder with bold climbing at the top. But that one move was amazing.