By Dëon van Zyl
It all started in 2019. I had already been living in Mossel Bay for a year and I was gradually transitioning from being a trad climber to becoming a sport climber. The reality had hit home that it was a long way to travel to Cape Town or the Cederberg for trad, and the proximity of sport crags like Montagu, Oudtshoorn and Wolwerivier lured me into the sport climbing fold even further. Hiking sections of the St Blaize trail, which runs from Mossel Bay Point along the coastline towards Pinnacle Point, had also become a weekly habit. It was during these hikes that I noticed there were some interesting looking sea cliffs that looked climbable. After chatting to some locals, a barista named Rikus told me that he had seen some bolts on a crag below the St Blaize trail, and pointed me to some lines on a subsequent hike.
It turned out that the late Danie Smit (a local adventurer and climber) had bolted five routes in the mid ’80s. Adele McCann even has a photo of her climbing one of these routes back in those days. Sport climbing was therefore ‘established’ in Mossel Bay around 40 years ago.
My first task was to replace the old expansion bolts with new stainless glue-ins, as Mossel Bay is a coastal environment. Covid lockdown started at around the same time, and lockdown provided the catalyst to get me going. I was not ready to be caged indoors and quickly worked out a way to get from home to the St Blaize trail before dawn. Invariably I’d watch the sun come up with a drill and glue gun in hand, ready to fight the plague (and feed the climbing addiction).
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