Trip Report: Rocklands, South Africa

Accomodations

Rocklands has lots of accommodations for climbers. You can stay cheapest at the campground, or you can rent a little cabin, like my climbing partner / husband Zac and I did. Wherever you stay, all the climbers run into each other. It seemed that there is always a night crew at the braai at the campground, and you can get a beer at the little bar there. Then everyone goes to the Hen House, located at Alpha Excelsior (where we stayed), in the morning for breakfast and coffee.

Alpha Excelsior is also where people go if it’s raining. One of my favorite days, by the way, was a rainy day when we found ourselves sitting around the same table with two Swiss French guys, a man from Singapore, one from Austria, a guy from Netherlands, two from England, and one from South Africa, all talking about economics. So no matter where you stay, you will end up bumping into everbody else.

Most of the time, you can find people going out to the bouldering sectors you want to go to the next day, and most of the time, people are happy to combine pads. I will say it was nice having at least one traveling partner though, on the rare occasion that no one else was psyched on where you wanted to go.

Eating Out

If you go to Rocklands, DO NOT MISS Muisbosskerm in Elands Bay on the coast (South of Lambert’s Bay). Get 15 people or more, and this guy opens an outdoor place on the beach for all-you-can-eat fresh fish. Plan to get there as soon as it opens, and don’t eat beforehand. There are multiple open fires going and multiple platters of food brought out in waves. It’s right on the beach, and you can purchase a bottle of wine at the bar to go with your meal. Amazing.

Finding Wifi

The best wifi that we were able to find in Clanwilliam was located in the De Kelder Pub. It’s free, and as long as not too many people are surfing at once, you can get your emails sent.

Cooking, Coffee, and Grocery Store Protocols 

South Africans eat meat, meat, and more meat. There is lots of cooking over open fires in these brick-pit things called “braais”. You put your meat, potatoes, carrots, and bell peppers in these little cages or in a tinfoil dish thing, associated with picnics and potlucks in the states, put them in the open fire, and have conversation while the food roasts.

Get your coffee in Cape Town at the mall. There is no such thing as half and half for your coffee. Get your produce weighed by the guy at the scale before you get in the check-out line. Try the Double Delight cookies, and let go of your cravings for a nice mixed greens salad.

Now, Back to Step 1

Plane Tickets and Travel (with Crashpads)

The standard question is, “So how long did it take you to get there?” The answer is, from the USA, it’s like flying to Europe, twice. I downloaded movies and serial shows to my iPad and did my very best to lose track of time, not keep track.

So if it takes so long to get there, why go??? Because again, Rocklands, South Africa offers some of the most interesting, varied, and aesthetic bouldering out there.

You can get tickets cheaper if you are willing to deal with a more complicated itinerary. We paid to go more directly. That still required four flights, and a long journey across the Atlantic Ocean that ended on the very southern point of South Africa, in Cape Town.

We were allowed to check our crash pads. (You can rent them in South Africa, but they can be pretty beat up.) We called them “sports equipment” at the airport, and got through baggage claims with two small Organics, and were able to put small duffels inside them. We kept our shoes in our carry-on luggage.

Driving & Getting Around

We landed in Cape Town, and rented a tiny four-door Toyota (with just enough room for bouldering pads in the back seat) at the airport. You need something to get you the two(ish) hours north to Clanwilliam, the closest town to Rocklands. The gearshift is on the left side. So we shift with our left hand…and then the blinker is where the windshield wipers are. It takes some getting used to. Turn lanes are the worst, and the slow lane is the shoulder of the road (people drive highway speed on the shoulder…a true test of driver grit and steel), and the passing lane is the normal traffic lane. Flicking high beam lights means “Get out of my way,” and flashing the hazards means, “Thank you.”

Really Basic Basics

Klapstaad is the same as Cape Town…just in case you decide to drive the scenic route to Cape Town and wonder where your signs went.

The Rocklands Bouldering Guidebook

The Rocklands Bouldering Guide by Scott Noy is something you will want to order well in advance of your trip, because it contains information that you will want to help with the planning of your trip (especially the info at the very beginning of the book—e.g., little maps, what to do on your rest days, directions from the airport to Rocklands, etc.)

As a guide to climbing in Rocklands, however, the book is a bit lacking. It has amazing photos, but it’s heavy on pictures and light on maps. It’s not the most user-friendly guide to help you find specific problems and navigate the different sectors of Rocklands. So there is room for improvement, but it is still worth picking up a copy.

Language & Social Dynamics

The language is Afrikaans. I am told that it is a mixture of Dutch and the African language. If you speak German, supposedly, you can get around in Afrikaans. But most people speak English, which can still be difficult to understand because it is heavily accented.

Apartheid is no more, but it sometimes felt awkward to be white. 99.9% of the time it’s black people who pump your gas and wait on your table (while rarely do you see black folks eating out, nor is it common for them to own a car). They weigh your produce at the store, and they work construction on the roads. I never once saw a white person hitchhike from town to town, or holding a road construction sign, and every single day we saw groups of black men, women, and children walking the shoulders of the roads. Obviously, this was normal to everyone, and wasn’t awkward for anyone except for me. Clearly, we aren’t holy here in the states, and personally, I thought experiencing this stuff was valuable because, among other things, it invited me to take a fresh look at our lives in the U.S. and wonder about the similarities and differences of our own social fabric.

Is it Safe There?

South Africa has a reputation for crime, so it’s understandable that a lot of people have asked me how safe Zac and I felt while we were there. The answer is that we did feel safe, we just tried to be careful.

South Africa is experiencing the slow process of healing from the cultural wounds racism breeds, and unfortunately, much of this this takes the form of violence. And if you are a person with money and a car, especially a white person, well, then you probably don’t want to run out of gas in the dark.

We met a climber from Singapore who, during his evening drive from Cape Town to Clanwilliam, fell asleep at the wheel (really easy to do, by the way, after a humungo international flight). He rolled his car and was super beat up, and lucky to be alive. Apparently, someone found him and dropped him off at the hospital, but they took all the money from his wallet while he was unconscious.

Cape Town, and certainly Clanwilliam, are not nearly as dangerous as say Johannesburg or other parts of South Africa. It is obvious which streets are sketchy, making them easy to avoid, and talking to our waitress one night in Clanwilliam, we found that she and her family had moved there to get away from crime. So this is good news for travelers. In normal day-to-day interactions, people were nice and welcoming, and we never felt threatened.

When to Go and How Long to Go For?

If you want to perform at the top of your game, you might want to plan to be there for more than a month. Just like anywhere, it takes a minute to get your wheels under you and learn the vocabulary of new areas. Plus, the best climbing seasons are spring and fall, both of which are subject to multiple days of rain in a row. We were there for 3 weeks, and I felt it was a smidge too short. In fact, this was my only regret about the whole trip.

Bottom Line

Rocklands is wonderful. So save up your money, block off some time, and Go.

 

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