Sandstone, big overhangs, short walks in, and a pub you can walk to from camp. Three days of climbing on the October long weekend, co-hosted by Michael Rowley and Joni Sytsma.
460routes catalogued
32crags
3days climbing
~4hfrom Brisbane
Bring bolt plates. Most of the climbing at Glenreagh is on carrots, not ring bolts. Some routes have rings; most do not. Without plates you cannot lead here, so this is the one thing not to leave at home. If you do not own a set, say so before the trip and we will sort you out.
The plan
Drive down after work on Friday. Climb Saturday, Sunday and Monday, then home Monday afternoon. Broadly one wall a day, because moving ten people and their ropes is slow, but we walk between sectors freely and Saturday now has a second stop. Revised 22 August after a call with Michael.
Saturday 3 October
Fun Parlour
Morning.
The crowd pleaser, and the warm up. Short routes, big overhangs, and the biggest spread of good moderates anywhere here. Room for everyone to spread out and swap ropes.
Fort Knox
Afternoon, Pooh Wall and The Alcove.
Michael's addition. Pooh Wall is the one for most of us: 12 routes, seven of them in the 15 to 19 band, six of those sport, and nothing on it harder than 18. The Alcove next door is the opposite, a median of grade 23, so it is where the sharp end of the group goes while everyone else climbs Pooh Wall.
Michael's call, and the reason the day changed: Fun Parlour will run out of climbs in about four hours and people will want to leave. Fort Knox is 10 to 15 minutes further on, so the move costs almost nothing.
Sunday 4 October
354
Eleven lines in our band, six of them sport, and one of the easiest crags here to get to once you are on the right road. Home to The Wrong Lime: grade 19, three stars, and although it is trad, theCrag says great protection the whole way. In the shade until about 1pm. A separate crag from Fort Knox, not a sector of it.
Nobody on this trip has climbed 354. Not Michael, not Joni. It is on the plan because the route data says it should be and because it has more climbing than anywhere else we are going, which is a good reason but not the same as a recommendation. Waihoo is at the top of the same hill, so if 354 disappoints we walk up rather than drive home.
Monday 5 October
Waihoo
Short day. Hero Wall is two minutes from the car, so we can climb until midday and be on the road without a walk out. Seven lines in our band across four sectors, five of them sport.
Why Waihoo is deliberately last
Everyone has a four hour drive home on Monday and some people have somewhere to be. A crag you can leave from, rather than walk out of, is worth more on the last day than on the first. Hero Wall is two minutes from the car.
And 354 is a separate crag from Fort Knox, not a sector of it, which is why Sunday is 354 alone. They are two different drives and two different walk-ins, so they will not share a day. Fort Knox now has its own half-day on Saturday instead.
None of this is fixed
Michael's words, and they are worth repeating: at the end of any day we can change the next one as a group. If 354 is dull we walk up the hill to Waihoo. If Fun Parlour still has climbs in it at two o'clock we stay. The plan exists so nobody stands in a car park at 8am deciding, not so we are held to it.
Two dates worth knowing
Daylight saving starts at 2am on Sunday. You lose an hour of sleep on Saturday night, and from then New South Wales runs an hour ahead of Queensland.
Monday is a public holiday in both states, which makes it one of the busiest days of the year on the Pacific Highway northbound. Leave before lunch and you will have a much better afternoon.
Route finder
Every route we have data for, 460 of them across 32 crags. Filter it to your grade and see what is actually there.
What the numbers say about the climbing here
Checked against the 351 graded routes we have data for, and the reputation holds up. Only 4 per cent are below grade 13, so there is little truly easy terrain. Grade 19 is the single most common grade in the whole area, with 39 routes, and 15 to 19 accounts for 44 per cent of everything. Median route length is 12 m, the longest is 35 m, and only 18 routes anywhere exceed 20 m. Short, and thick with moderates.
The other half of that: 46 per cent of routes are grade 20 or harder, which is why picking the wall matters. Plenty of good climbing here is simply out of reach for most of the group, and a wall can look excellent on stars alone while offering the club almost nothing.
Walls and sectors. Most of the big walls here are not one cliff but a parent area with several named sectors, and the routes live on the sectors. Waihoo has six, Fort Knox has eleven, Wonderland has six. The tools below roll a wall up to include all of its sectors, because that is what you are choosing when you pick where to drive. The sector is shown beside the wall.
Loading routes…
Route
Grade
Stars
Type
Length
Crag
Pick a wall
The rules are written down (see DECISION_RULES.md in the repo). This is the same test, made clickable. Tell it your group's grade band and how many people are coming, and it ranks the crags by how many qualifying lines each one has. A brilliant wall with three routes is a bad day out for ten people.
Try:
Getting to the crags
Parking and walk-in for each wall, and whether an ordinary car will get there. Where theCrag only gives part of the directions, it says so: the printouts we built this from cut long descriptions off partway, and half a set of directions is worse than none.
Fun Parlour Not confirmed
Sun and shade. Several routes are specifically noted as good on a hot day, including Shady Retreat and Wedding Cake Island.
From camp. About 10 minutes from the campsite.
theCrag says 10 to 20 minutes, approaching from the west via Glenreagh, with Sherwood Creek Rd heading off about the middle of the village. The rest of the directions were cut off when the page was printed.
Fort Knox Not confirmed
From camp. Another 10 to 15 minutes on past Fun Parlour, so 20 to 25 minutes from camp.
Parking. Michael, 22 August: keep driving past Fun Parlour, go over the hill and turn right, follow that road for 200 to 300 m, and park there.
Walk up the hill from the car to the crag. Fort Knox is the parent wall; the sectors we are going to are Pooh Wall and The Alcove. Michael has climbed here before and gave these directions from memory. He did not say what sort of car the last stretch wants, so that one is still worth asking him.
354 Any car
One of the easiest crags to access, with a good selection of well protected climbs. Mainly sport, with a few crack lines that are great trad climbs.
Sun and shade. In the shade until about 1pm.
From camp. About half an hour, and it is not the half hour the map will offer you.
⚠ Getting there. You cannot drive to 354 from camp in a straight line. The roads through the middle of the forest are four wheel drive tracks and want real clearance. Michael's route, 22 August: main road south from Glenreagh to Nana Glen, left into Nana Glen, then left again onto a small road, and that road takes you out to the trail to 354. That way in is two wheel drive. The road names are the one part Michael could not recall, so treat the turns as the shape of it and check with him on the day.
Parking. Park at the last hairpin on Waihou Rd.
Walk 150 m up the road, then head up the hill through some big white gums, looking out for the cairn. Up and left following the trail, and once you reach the ridge head left, past some boulders, then straight up. The last part of the description was cut off in the printout.
Sandstone, lots of steep rock, and new route potential. Ninety second walk in.
Sun and shade. Faces south, so in shade much of the day. Afternoon sun.
From camp. Not established. Waihoo sits at the top of the same hill as 354, so plan for it to be more like the 354 drive than the Fun Parlour one until somebody confirms it.
Parking. Park 1.3 km west of the Waihoo Road / Sherwood Forest Road intersection, in a small pull-in on the left hand side of the road.
Walk up the mountain bike track for about 90 seconds, up a little rock step, then duck down left and you are at Hero Wall. Hero Wall itself is 2 minutes from the car. Directions to the lower caves were cut off in the printout.
A mix of sport and trad, but all the routes are well equipped with lower-offs and solid bolts.
Sherwood Buttress Any car
walk 5-10 min
theCrag describes the smoothest drive as out along Coramba Rd from Coffs Harbour, with the last few minutes on good unsealed road, and calls it an easy drive in any type of car. Allow about an hour from Coffs.
Wonderland High clearance
walk 10-20 min · gentle
⚠ theCrag warns the road to this crag has been washed out in recent years and wants a high clearance vehicle. Treat it as unsuitable for a club trip where people arrive in ordinary cars, unless someone has driven it recently.
Sun and shade, which matters more than it sounds in October
354 is in the shade until about 1pm and Waihoo faces south, so it is shaded much of the day with afternoon sun. Both are good picks for a hot weekend, which early October on north coast sandstone can absolutely be.
Fun Parlour is more mixed. Several routes there are noted specifically as good on a hot day, Shady Retreat and Wedding Cake Island among them, so there is somewhere to go when the sun comes round.
How far each wall is from the tent
From Michael, 22 August. These are drive times from the Recreation Reserve, not from Coffs.
Fun Parlour — about 10 minutes.
Fort Knox — another 10 to 15 minutes past Fun Parlour, so 20 to 25 all up. This is what makes Saturday's two-stop day cheap.
354 — about half an hour, the long way round via Nana Glen.
Waihoo — not established. It is at the top of the same hill as 354, so do not assume it is a short one.
⚠ Do not try to cut through the middle to 354
The roads through the middle of the forest are four wheel drive tracks and want real clearance. An ordinary car will not get through, and a navigation app will happily send you down one.
Michael's way in: main road south out of Glenreagh to Nana Glen, turn left into Nana Glen, then left again onto a small road, and that road leads out to the trail to 354. That approach is two wheel drive.
He could not remember the road names, so take the turns as the shape of it and confirm on the day. The parking coordinates on the 354 card above are the destination; the point of this note is the route you take to reach them.
Two things worth knowing before anyone books a car
Sherwood Buttress is the one confirmed easy drive, described as fine in any type of car with the last few minutes on good unsealed road.
Wonderland wants high clearance. theCrag says the road has been washed out in recent years. It is not on our plan, but it ranks well on the route data, so it is worth knowing why we are not going.
354 is confirmed two wheel drive by Michael, on the Nana Glen approach only.
Everywhere else is unconfirmed, including the last stretch into Fort Knox and the drive to Waihoo. If you have driven any of these recently, tell Michael or Joni and we will put the answer here.
The village
Glenreagh is small enough that the campground, the pub and the store are all walkable from each other. Three places, two streets.
Camp, pub and store
Glenreagh Recreation Reserve
Where
14 Bridge Street, Glenreagh NSW 2450. First left coming into the village, then 450 m on the right
Unpowered needs no booking. Powered does. Someone should still ring ahead and tell them roughly how many of us are coming on a long weekend.
Facilities
Hot showers, toilets, a covered camp kitchen with a fridge, and a beer garden. Family and pet friendly, drive through sites.
The hot showers are real and they are what everyone remembered from last time. Not new, but hot.
It is the Recreation Reserve, not the Showgrounds. Worth knowing if you are searching for it, because the two names get mixed up and only one of them finds the place.
The Golden Dog Hotel
Where
57 to 59 Coramba Street. A few hundred metres from camp, so walk.
Seven days from 10am. Sunday to Thursday until 9pm, Friday and Saturday until 10pm.
Food
Bistro lunch daily 12 to 2. Dinner Wednesday to Sunday only.
No pub dinner on Monday night. Most of us will have driven home, but if you are staying, cook. And ring ahead if a big group wants to eat there on the Saturday.
Monday to Friday 6:30am to 5:30pm · Saturday 6:30am to 6:30pm · Sunday 7am to 5pm
Food
Burgers, sandwiches and coffee, as well as the usual store items
Open at 6:30am is the useful part. Coffee and breakfast before an early start, and somewhere to fill gaps you did not shop for in Coffs. ⚠ Monday 5 October is a public holiday, so ring ahead if you are relying on it that morning.
The pub is on the cliff too
The Golden Dog at Fun Parlour, a grade 17 trad line, is named after the pub. The pub burnt down in the winter of 1991 and was rebuilt, and the Golden Dog statue was added in 2011. Two other pieces of local history are on the same wall: Cold Tap (14) was the first good route climbed at Fun Parlour and possibly in the whole Coffs area, and Funnel Web (17) was the first bolted route in the region.
Beyond the three above, the village also has a bakery and a post office on the main street, and the Golden Dog statue, which is a genuine entry on the Big Things list and about thirty seconds of anyone's time.
Last time it rained one evening and the whole group walked to the pub instead of cooking. It was the best night of the trip, so keep it as a plan rather than a fallback.
Getting there
Glenreagh sits inland from Coffs Harbour, on the road between Grafton and Coffs. Most people will run down the Pacific Motorway on Friday evening and turn inland near Coffs.
It is about 358 km and a little under four hours of driving, not the five hours it is remembered as. Leaving after work on a Friday it will feel like five, so allow for a proper food stop rather than pushing through.
Finding the campground: coming into Glenreagh, take the first left into Bridge Street. The Recreation Ground is 450 m along on the right. That puts you a short walk from the main street, so the pub, the store, the bakery and the post office are all on foot from the tent.
Fuel and shop before you turn off the highway. Coffs Harbour is the last proper supermarket, and the village has very little.
Car pooling is worth organising. Four hours each way is a lot to drive alone, and it is a long weekend so the road will be busy both ways.
Kit
Sport rack. Quickdraws, a 60m rope, belay device, harness, shoes, helmet.
Carrot plates. Australia being Australia. Bring yours.
Trad gear if you have it. Joni is bringing a triple rack, so there is enough for anyone who wants to get on the trad lines. You do not need your own.
No bouldering pads needed. We are not going to The Scones.
Camping. Tent, mat, bag, chair, head torch, and a gas stove even if we end up with a fire. Check the fire restrictions before you count on one.
Sun. Early October on north coast sandstone. Hat, sunscreen, more water than you think.
Cash for camping fees. Do not assume there is an eftpos machine.