Dural is a newly developed micro-crag in Sydney’s north. It looked ideal as a place to take our kids for a day’s climbing, as it has 50 or so very short bolted climbs in the grade 10-20 range, mostly very easy. A flat 15 minute walk in, and kid-friendly base sealed the deal – sounded perfect for a no stress day. We planned to take 3 or 4 ropes, and two of the adults could lead a bunch of easy routes and leave them set up as top ropes for the boys.
Sunday was another blue-sky Sydney winter day, warming up to 20 degrees, and finding the crag was easy. My friend Charlie had already discovered the local Dural patisserie, and we started as we intended to continue – it was a cappuccino and croissant kind of day.
Charlie was determined to have a relaxing day at the crag
Dural turned out to be a typical Sydney sandstone ridge, small sandy scrubby cliffs in a very pleasant bushland setting. The walk was easy as advertised, and with the help of a PDF guide from The Crag (https://www.thecrag.com/climbing/australia/north-west/area/663606603) the climbs were easy to find. The craglet is split between an Upper and Lower Tier – we started on the upper and worked our way down to the lower – but in hindsight we should just have skipped the upper and headed straight to the lower, where the climbs are a little longer and more interesting.
Max tops out
Gives you an idea of the size of the top tier – Max topping out, Dylan belaying
Climbing in trainers – cos we can.
The climbs were very short, and generally pretty chossy as you’d expect. Rock quality was awful on many of the climbs – sandy, friable, crumbly. Some of the climbs were really quite fun, but less so for the leader, as every hold was suspect, and most moves you’d be keeping in mind the consequences of at least one hold breaking – adding a little spice. Even the climbs with better rock were super-sandy and friable – and on the worst climb I broke 4 holds and fell off due to rock giving way
One of the many rockfalls in the day. (Might not actually be Dural. But very similar.)
The boys loved it, as it was a friendly location & atmosphere – nothing too intimidating, so they could focus on trying to pull the moves. We ticked off 10 climbs, given that we had to climb most of them twice, and had a late start, that was probably reasonable going. The boys had a ball, and fell asleep in the car on the way home – mission accomplished.
Would I go back? Probably not – even though the lure of closely bolted easy grades and convenient access is powerful, the climbs are just too small and the choss too hideous. Probably go back to Mt Kuringai, Bangor or similar. The boys will soon be climbing harder than me, anyway, then they can drag me up some higher quality stuff. Fun day out though, (almost) no such thing as a bad day climbing.
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