Niccolò Ceria (19) from Valdengo Italy just came back from his first trip to the popular bouldering destination of Rocklands, South Africa. Here is a short summary.

After five years of waiting, this spring I booked my ticket for South Africa. The trip, lasted five weeks, passed really fast but we had enough time to visit a lot of sectors and to see many lines which I had wanted to try since years.

In my opinion, the place is awesome with beautiful boulders set in a stunning landscape with amazing colours.
In some places like "the pass" the rock is a nice sandstone which presents incredible shapes like the features of "Caroline" and other sick lines. In other sector the rock is not as perfect as the pass but it always remains a really good kind of rock.

Many lines dazzled me and climbing some problems like "El corazon", "Moiste mooise", "Sky", "Caroline" or "Sitting in a corner with depression" was really a pleasure, not only for their stunning shape or holds, but also for the lovely moves that they can offer to a climber. This mix of good things put them at the top of my quality ranking problems together with the best lines I have seen in Europe so far.

The most impressive thing which hit me is for sure the fact that you can climb on this world class problems completely engulfed in a great natural place which Rocklands is. For this, I really hope that the problems between climbers and private areas could get better than now, and I hope people could start to be more respectful towards this natural paradise and especially towards the private soils, to allow bouldering in this marvelous land.

Here is Niky's ticklist for the trip (Niky's grades):

• Royskopp 7C+/8A
• Black velvet 7C+
• Nutsa 7C+/8A
• Green mamba 8A
• Out of balance 8A
• Witness the Sickness 8A
• Shosholoza 8A
• Brown shadow 8A
• Fat eagle can't fly 8A
• Au bord du l'eau 8A
• Pendragon 8A
• Black shadow 8A+
• Oral office 8A+
• Sitting in a corner with depression 8A+ (2nd asc?)
• Madiba 8A+
• Sky 8A+
• Derailed 8B
• Power of one 8B
• The vice 8B
• Moiste mooise 8B
• El corazon 8B
• King of limbs 8B
• Golden shadow 8B+

Niccolò Ceria is sponsored by: Five Ten, Peter Bouldering and Salewa