UKC

Known for its wilderness, waterfalls, mountains and coastline, New Zealand's South Island offers a smorgasbord of adventure sports for the globe-trotting tourist. Tourism has been growing exponentially in New Zealand in recent decades and annual visitor numbers now almost match the population of the country. Despite this, outside of the most popular tourist hubs it's still possible to get away from the crowds and enjoy the remote valleys and coast that the South Island has to offer.

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In reply to UKC Articles:

ahhhh home   Lived away for a good few years now but have such fond memories learning to climb in the Port Hills, Mt Somers and many other superb crags dotted around. Sure there's not as much of an abundance of crags, but having a crag all to yourself, all day, only 20 minutes from your front door definitely makes up for it.

In reply to UKC Articles:

Great write up and quite right that an article doesn't do justice. More content like this please.

In reply to UKC Articles:

Good article, definitely agree about the paucity of info in route descriptions!

Just to confirm that Charleston on the upper West Coast is definitely worth a visit: great granite sea cliff climbing, some of the rare good NZ rock. In the same area, on the inland side of the road there is also an increasing amount of limestone river side climbing, around Bullock creek and other areas, which apparently is a bit more adventurous in its approaches, but gives 2 different rock types to go at in the same area.

In reply to damowilk:

I was going to say Charleston granite and the limestone sport too are worth a visit and definitely the limestone sport is getting visited by locals. I think the week-long SI rock tour spends two days at Charleston as well.

Also the Darran granite batholith is split by the Main Divide fault which is sliding apart inexorably over thousands of years. The other half went Notth and ended up as the Paparoa mountains. Quite a number of excellent granite mountains up there, one 10 pitch grade 19 (gives an idea of scale), but as usual access is a bit tricky (I will try and improve it )

In reply to SenzuBean:

Sounds great, will I be able to see any of it from the Paparoa MTB trail in a few weeks, or is it quite distant still? Always good to know some quality mountain multi pitch in NZ.

In reply to damowilk:

I don't know for sure (haven't been up that side yet), but looking at the map you get very close to the paragneiss, but I don't know how well those peaks look. Most of the granite is probably 20km~ North I think, so maybe visible on a good way if the other peaks aren't in the way. It would be interesting to know what you can see if you get a view

In reply to damowilk:

Really adventurous, got lost for 6 hours. 

In reply to UKC Articles:

As this article mentions, there has been a huge increase in tourist numbers in NZ in the last few years and, setting aside all the long-haul flying that involves, the negative impact on the environment at the local level has been very noticeable so I'd like to make a plea.   To those of you who decide to visit New Zealand, please make the effort to tread lightly on the place when you're there.

A few examples of things that would help:

Learn how to shit in the woods properly or in the toilet in the campervan.  Not behind that obvious tree next to the layby or beside the walking track.

Please don't use place name hashtags with your photos - it just makes crowds of people want the same shot.  The department of conservation are becoming the department of bigger car parks.  They've got better things to be doing with their money.

Pay for a shower at a campground - please don't take your shampoo into that clean stream or lake.

Spread yourselves around.  Some tourist hotspots are really creaking at the seams and locals are getting sick of it while other places would love to see a few more people.

NZ isn't the Alps or Britain - it doesn't have the size, population and infrastructure to absorb the extra load.  It's delicate and still relatively clean but it's heart-breaking to see the rate at which its environmental capital is being burned in pursuit of the tourist dollar.

In reply to UKC Articles:

I enjoyed that, Callum, thanks for writing it. Will have to get back down to NZ soon!

In reply to UKC Articles:

Good write up Calum, I also enjoyed reading that and picked up a few new spots. Nice one. 

Incidentally we met at Top Forks hut over Christmas, hope you're having a great time over here. You've definitely ticked off more than more people could in such a short space of time!

no mention of chinamans bluff near Glenorchy! some amazing climbing out there, ravages of time was one of my favourite routes while living in NZ. 

In reply to UKC Articles:

I'd say that 25 in ewbanks is generally accepted to be 7b

Grades from 22 upwards on older routes can seem pretty stout. There was an unwillingness in the old days to put a higher grade and also a lot of sandbagging. I've seen euro visitors to crags here in Sydney get shut down on 21 -24s thinking it was only 6c or 7a+. Modern routes tend to be more consistently graded. It's also down to style, a short bouldery route here can seem impossible if you can't do the one hard move.

In reply to AdrianC:

This is all very valuable advice indeed, and deserves a bump.