Latest / Wander the World with Pippa Hudson / Wander the World: Exploring rock climbing in the Western Cape
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Cape Talk WhatsApp paper on seven to two five six seven,
- 0:06Speaker 1: one five six seven. It is time to wander the world,
- 0:09Speaker 1: and today we're wondering very much in our own backyard
- 0:11Speaker 1: because we are exploring some of the most exciting places
- 0:14Speaker 1: to go rock climbing in the Western Cape. And before
- 0:17Speaker 1: I introduce my guest, I wanted to throw this open
- 0:19Speaker 1: to the audience. If it's something that you do that
- 0:21Speaker 1: you're passionate about, and you want to talk to us
- 0:23Speaker 1: about your favorite climbs and the parts of the Western
- 0:26Speaker 1: Cape that you think every climber needs to visit, we'd
- 0:29Speaker 1: love to hear from you. If you want to share
- 0:31Speaker 1: from us your most treasured memory of climbing, anything like that,
- 0:34Speaker 1: please do send through a WhatsApp to seven to five
- 0:37Speaker 1: six seven or one five six seven. If you are
- 0:40Speaker 1: already deeply involved in the climbing community, then my guest
- 0:44Speaker 1: is going to be no stranger to you. I suspect
- 0:46Speaker 1: because our guide for this conversation is somebody who knows
- 0:49Speaker 1: our mountains very very well. Indeed, Tony Lawrence has been
- 0:52Speaker 1: involved in climbing and mountaineering for more than forty five
- 0:55Speaker 1: years now. He is passionate about everything to do with
- 0:57Speaker 1: the sport of climbing. He is the publisher and editor
- 1:00Speaker 1: of SA Mountain Magazine. He's also a regular contributor to
- 1:03Speaker 1: international climbing journals, and just this last month has released
- 1:07Speaker 1: the most beautiful new hardcover book called Great Rock Climbs
- 1:11Speaker 1: of the Western Cape, which showcases seventy five classic roots
- 1:14Speaker 1: and Tony, thanks for popping into studio in the midst
- 1:17Speaker 1: of I know a frantic schedule at book launchers in
- 1:20Speaker 1: support of this book.
- 1:20Speaker 2: Great to have you with us.
- 1:23Speaker 3: I preper thank you.
- 1:26Speaker 2: It's a huge pleasure Tony.
- 1:28Speaker 1: Before we talk about the book, let's talk a little
- 1:30Speaker 1: bit about your own climbing journey, because I gather you
- 1:32Speaker 1: were only thirteen years old the first time you got involved.
- 1:35Speaker 3: Yes, indeed, I was thirteen. I was at school. Yeah,
- 1:38Speaker 3: I was useless at mainstream sports. So our school had had,
- 1:44Speaker 3: you know, these various clubs, and one of the clubs
- 1:46Speaker 3: was a club that took kids up into the uneasy
- 1:50Speaker 3: scrambles up into the mountains, is you know, the Mountain.
- 1:53Speaker 2: Club Care And that's where the seed was planted.
- 1:56Speaker 3: That's where it all started.
- 1:57Speaker 1: Yeah, with the easy scrambles. I have to say, looking
- 1:59Speaker 1: at some of the punt rafts in this book. You've
- 2:01Speaker 1: gone way beyond easy scrambles since then. But I mean
- 2:03Speaker 1: that's the way to get somebody's interest, peakeed and let
- 2:06Speaker 1: them start with the the easier, more approachable routes before
- 2:09Speaker 1: they move on to the big stuff. How rapidly did
- 2:13Speaker 1: you progress from scrambles in the mountains to climbing up
- 2:16Speaker 1: vertical faces?
- 2:17Speaker 3: Well, in those days, starting climbing then and starting climbing
- 2:21Speaker 3: is not the same game at all, because in those
- 2:24Speaker 3: days we didn't have what we call now sport climbing,
- 2:27Speaker 3: which is climbing with bolts on crags, which is not
- 2:32Speaker 3: rock walls. In those days, we didn't have any of that.
- 2:34Speaker 3: So you would start with scrambles and easy rock climbs,
- 2:38Speaker 3: mainly with the Mountain Club, et cetera, and then you'd
- 2:42Speaker 3: go out with people you know, and then you would
- 2:44Speaker 3: you would sort of improve like that. Nowadays, of course,
- 2:47Speaker 3: with all the indoor climb engines, sport climbing as they
- 2:50Speaker 3: call it, it's a it's a it's a lot simpler
- 2:54Speaker 3: to get into, you know, you know, to rock climbing,
- 2:58Speaker 3: and also it's a lot easier to improve quickly.
- 3:02Speaker 2: Yeah, what else has changed.
- 3:03Speaker 1: I mean, I'm thinking of safety mechanisms and harnesses and
- 3:07Speaker 1: bolts and ropes, and the way you climb today, I
- 3:10Speaker 1: would guess probably looks quite different from the way you
- 3:12Speaker 1: climb back then.
- 3:13Speaker 3: Yeah. Sure, when I started climbing, we didn't have harnesses,
- 3:17Speaker 3: we didn't really have good shoes to climb in, and
- 3:21Speaker 3: the actual gear that we used was very sort of
- 3:24Speaker 3: old fashioned. Yeah, and like limited. Nowadays, of course, the
- 3:30Speaker 3: gear is really high tech. The harnesses that you get
- 3:34Speaker 3: these days, the shoes, the rubber is really sticky, and
- 3:38Speaker 3: the gear that they've got is very high tech for
- 3:42Speaker 3: like these the camin devices, etc. Which we didn't have
- 3:47Speaker 3: in those days.
- 3:48Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 3:48Speaker 1: So I mean forty five years, obviously you're going to
- 3:51Speaker 1: see a lot of change and development. And I mean
- 3:53Speaker 1: it sounds like the sort of safety awareness is on
- 3:56Speaker 1: another level now.
- 3:57Speaker 2: In all your.
- 3:57Speaker 1: Years of climbing, Tony, have you ever had near missus
- 4:01Speaker 1: or injuries or falls or anything like that, or or
- 4:04Speaker 1: has safety been something that you've you've kept on top of.
- 4:07Speaker 3: I think, you know, climbing is quite a broad game,
- 4:10Speaker 3: so you can you can put yourself where you want
- 4:14Speaker 3: to in the the risk part of climbing. You can.
- 4:18Speaker 3: You can top rope, you know, for all your life
- 4:21Speaker 3: and it's really really safe. You can lead. You can
- 4:23Speaker 3: lead on sport, you can lead on trad climbing with gear,
- 4:25Speaker 3: you can go alpine climbing, and you can decide where
- 4:28Speaker 3: you want to to place your risk. So I've never
- 4:33Speaker 3: really had any close calls. But yeah, really, but you
- 4:42Speaker 3: know I wanted to say about climbing. Yeah, sorry, that's
- 4:48Speaker 3: what I'm getting to fall in. So you know, when
- 4:52Speaker 3: I started climbing and in the seventies and the eighties
- 4:54Speaker 3: and what thereabout, you didn't really want to fall because
- 4:57Speaker 3: the gear wasn't really good. But now it's sports climbing
- 4:59Speaker 3: on bolts, et cetera. Falling is a part of the sport.
- 5:01Speaker 1: Okay, so learning to fall the right way is part
- 5:05Speaker 1: of the skill.
- 5:06Speaker 3: Exactly need to fall right, and not any learning to
- 5:09Speaker 3: fall physically. But you know, but mentally as well.
- 5:14Speaker 1: I was going to ask you about that because I mean,
- 5:15Speaker 1: there's such an interesting description in the forewords to this
- 5:18Speaker 1: book that Andrew Clerk rights where he sort of spoke
- 5:22Speaker 1: about that issue. But what makes climbing so compelling and satisfying?
- 5:26Speaker 1: And let me just read to you. In fact, it
- 5:28Speaker 1: says it serves no practical purpose, it offers no tangible reward.
- 5:32Speaker 1: Yet we return to it again and again. And you know,
- 5:36Speaker 1: I loved his description of why you do it, and
- 5:38Speaker 1: the mental challenge is a huge part of that. It's
- 5:41Speaker 1: not just about being able to say I got to
- 5:42Speaker 1: the top of the climb.
- 5:44Speaker 2: You want to tell us a little bit more about.
- 5:45Speaker 3: What mental challenge. You know, when people ask me about climbing,
- 5:49Speaker 3: they always say, oh, do you climb? Are you going
- 5:51Speaker 3: to be so strong? You don't have to be strong
- 5:52Speaker 3: at all to start climbing. Anyone can can start climbing.
- 5:55Speaker 3: But the most important thing is the head. If you
- 5:59Speaker 3: haven't got the head for you know, for heights or
- 6:02Speaker 3: to get off the ground, you're not going to go anywhere,
- 6:05Speaker 3: you know. So it starts in the head and it
- 6:08Speaker 3: remains in the head always. So when you climb in,
- 6:11Speaker 3: when you climb in on bigger stuff, harder stuff, it's
- 6:14Speaker 3: always a mind game. So the mind plays. The mind
- 6:17Speaker 3: will decide whether you're going to whether that's going to
- 6:19Speaker 3: work for you or not. And then afterwards, the fitness,
- 6:22Speaker 3: the technique, the strength will obviously help, but the mind
- 6:25Speaker 3: is the huge, you know, you know, player.
- 6:29Speaker 2: The biggest ball that you've got to get over.
- 6:31Speaker 1: So full confession, my mind is not up to the challenge.
- 6:34Speaker 1: I'm terrified of heights. I mean, I drove over Band's
- 6:37Speaker 1: cliff this weekend and just the drive was enough to
- 6:39Speaker 1: have me feeling physically nauseous.
- 6:42Speaker 2: Is it possible to overcome that kind of fear?
- 6:44Speaker 3: You know, I think everyone is scared of heights, obviously,
- 6:49Speaker 3: you know, it varies. Some people are completely paralyzed, and
- 6:52Speaker 3: that's not a good thing if you want to climb.
- 6:55Speaker 3: But I think all climbers have a great respect for heights,
- 6:58Speaker 3: you know. So if you you know, if you're on
- 7:00Speaker 3: a big wall or even a small wall one hundred
- 7:03Speaker 3: meters up or fifty meters up, it feels very high
- 7:05Speaker 3: off the ground. But if you know how the system works,
- 7:09Speaker 3: et cetera, you are still scared, but you keep it
- 7:13Speaker 3: under control. You know.
- 7:15Speaker 1: That's obviously the fear is there for a reason. But instinctively, yeah,
- 7:20Speaker 1: it's something I think I would struggle with. And then
- 7:22Speaker 1: you know, my daughter's a member of the Mountain Club
- 7:24Speaker 1: at UCT and goes off to the gym to climb,
- 7:27Speaker 1: and you know it scrambles up as if without a
- 7:29Speaker 1: second thought.
- 7:30Speaker 2: So thank Evans, it wasn't inherited.
- 7:32Speaker 1: Now, I mean, Tony, your passion for the sport has
- 7:34Speaker 1: taken you all over the world before we come home
- 7:37Speaker 1: to the Western Cape and talk about some of the
- 7:39Speaker 1: roots you've featured in this new book. Where have been
- 7:42Speaker 1: some of your favorite places that you have climbed, almost
- 7:44Speaker 1: memorable individual climbs that you would highlight.
- 7:47Speaker 3: You know, wherever you go in the world is always
- 7:51Speaker 3: something good, Like you know, the UK has got unbelievable climbing,
- 7:56Speaker 3: the States as well, Europe, all over Italy, France, Germany,
- 8:00Speaker 3: you name it, they've got fantastic climbing. There's the ops
- 8:02Speaker 3: as well. If you want to take it to a
- 8:04Speaker 3: higher level, do you go to the East? This Thailand,
- 8:06Speaker 3: there's Vietnam. Of course there's a Himalaya, but that's another
- 8:09Speaker 3: whole story. That's big mountains and yeah, there's I don't
- 8:14Speaker 3: have a particular favorite place because they all have something good.
- 8:20Speaker 1: Yeah, So when you plan a holiday, I mean, do
- 8:23Speaker 1: you plan around a particular climb or do you go
- 8:25Speaker 1: I'm going to go to country X and then I'll
- 8:28Speaker 1: find what climbs I can do.
- 8:29Speaker 3: There a bit of both really, So normally when when
- 8:32Speaker 3: when we when we plan a holiday. It's quite a
- 8:35Speaker 3: joke because some of my non climbing friends they say,
- 8:37Speaker 3: so are you going to go climbing or you know,
- 8:41Speaker 3: are you are you going to go on holiday climbing.
- 8:47Speaker 3: It's a bit of a joke, but yes, we do
- 8:49Speaker 3: always plan our holidays around climbing.
- 8:51Speaker 1: Okay always Just for anybody coming in midway to this conversation,
- 8:55Speaker 1: My guest is Tony Lawrence, who is a long standing
- 8:59Speaker 1: passionate supporter of climbing and mountaineering in this country over
- 9:02Speaker 1: forty five years experience, and is the publisher and editor
- 9:05Speaker 1: of SA Mountain Magazine and now has just produced this
- 9:09Speaker 1: most beautiful hard cover book called Great Rock Climbs of
- 9:12Speaker 1: the Western Cape. Now the subtitle is seventy five Classic
- 9:15Speaker 1: trad Routes. And I heard you reference trad climbing. For
- 9:18Speaker 1: the sake of those of us who don't know anything
- 9:20Speaker 1: about the sport, can you explain what trad climbing is.
- 9:23Speaker 3: Trade climbing is route. Trade climbing is traditional climbing. That's
- 9:28Speaker 3: the trade stands for, and it's when you place your
- 9:30Speaker 3: own gear in the rock and it's removed when you
- 9:34Speaker 3: pass pass through that section, okay, as opposed to sport climbing,
- 9:41Speaker 3: where the bulls are in the rock and they are
- 9:44Speaker 3: permanent fixtures.
- 9:45Speaker 2: Right, that's okay.
- 9:46Speaker 3: That's the main difference that this book is only on
- 9:48Speaker 3: trade climbing without any bolts.
- 9:50Speaker 2: Okay.
- 9:51Speaker 1: Now, I mean, as I've mentioned, you've been involved in
- 9:54Speaker 1: this for so many decades, Tony, You've published countless guides
- 9:57Speaker 1: and updates. And you speak in your introduction the book
- 10:00Speaker 1: where there's a lovely section by the way, on the
- 10:02Speaker 1: history of the development of climbing in South Africa. But
- 10:04Speaker 1: you mentioned, you know, the difficulty you had as a
- 10:06Speaker 1: youngster finding decent maps and guides to the trails, and
- 10:10Speaker 1: how you want this book to be the book that
- 10:12Speaker 1: you were looking for when you went into the library
- 10:14Speaker 1: all those years ago. Having said that, how do you
- 10:17Speaker 1: possibly begin to condense forty five years of knowledge and
- 10:21Speaker 1: experience and locations and decide which ones get included and
- 10:26Speaker 1: which ones left out? Shall we talk a bit about
- 10:28Speaker 1: the sort of the criteria of the climes you featured
- 10:30Speaker 1: in this book.
- 10:31Speaker 3: Yeah, you should have come to the launch.
- 10:34Speaker 2: Explained, you would have had to go up a rock,
- 10:36Speaker 2: there was no way.
- 10:38Speaker 3: Yeah. So it's basically the quality of the roots that
- 10:44Speaker 3: was a big factor. Look, there are thousands of climes
- 10:48Speaker 3: in the Western Cape, and there are hundreds and hundreds
- 10:51Speaker 3: of really good climbs, but you obviously can't bet hundreds
- 10:55Speaker 3: and hundreds of climes in the book. It'll be you know,
- 10:57Speaker 3: it's two thicks. So I had to shave that down.
- 11:00Speaker 3: And I didn't do that alone. I did ask respected climbers,
- 11:06Speaker 3: you know, what they thought were their favorite or classic roots,
- 11:11Speaker 3: et cetera, et cetera, and then sort of over time
- 11:14Speaker 3: I of whittled it down to.
- 11:18Speaker 1: Yeah, certainly, okay. And the list takes us from from
- 11:24Speaker 1: hikes here in the Cape Peninsula into the Cedarburg, into
- 11:26Speaker 1: the Winter Hook, the Bunhook, to Toys Cliff area, the Hexa,
- 11:29Speaker 1: the Mountains Montague, I know, is a part of the
- 11:31Speaker 1: world that you're very fond of. So there are a
- 11:33Speaker 1: couple featured there and beyond. Looking at the index and
- 11:37Speaker 1: the introduction, what struck me first before anything else in
- 11:40Speaker 1: this book was the names of these these roots. You know,
- 11:43Speaker 1: there is a high called Champs Else, there is one
- 11:46Speaker 1: called Touch and Go. There are hikes called Dracula Frankenstein
- 11:51Speaker 1: and so he climbs not hikes. Emphasis here there's King Kong.
- 11:55Speaker 1: I mean, the names are absolutely delightful. I don't even
- 11:57Speaker 1: want to think about what the one called hallucination. But
- 12:00Speaker 1: be like, who gets to name a route?
- 12:02Speaker 3: So that people who first climb their route, okay, they
- 12:05Speaker 3: get to name it, or the first person to do it,
- 12:07Speaker 3: they get to name it. And it's normally named after
- 12:11Speaker 3: the experience or something that's happened in their life, or
- 12:14Speaker 3: music that they really like, or a favorite movie or
- 12:18Speaker 3: whatever the case is. So it's quite broad the reason
- 12:21Speaker 3: why they would name it. But the first people to
- 12:23Speaker 3: climb the route get to.
- 12:24Speaker 2: Name it, okay. So I think the stories for another day.
- 12:28Speaker 1: Behind the origin of the bullshoot and the jokers, smoker,
- 12:33Speaker 1: defletomas and gazing. There must have been bats involved in
- 12:35Speaker 1: that one, okay, I mean, just a marvelous side a
- 12:39Speaker 1: side there to check out the names of these hikes.
- 12:41Speaker 1: Now Anne is asking, with all due respect, I think intended.
- 12:45Speaker 1: If you've been climbing for forty five years, does age
- 12:47Speaker 1: start to become an issue? Do your creaky joints make
- 12:49Speaker 1: climbing more difficult?
- 12:51Speaker 3: Yes, it does, It does you know that. But the
- 12:53Speaker 3: nice thing about climbing is that as long as you
- 12:57Speaker 3: are healthy and you don't get too big, you can
- 13:00Speaker 3: always climb. You just have to bring the grade of
- 13:03Speaker 3: the climbing down so you're not going to You can
- 13:05Speaker 3: always walk, you just have to walk slower. You can
- 13:07Speaker 3: always climb, you just have to climb easier, a bit slower.
- 13:10Speaker 3: But you can still climb as long as you just
- 13:12Speaker 3: keep yourself in check and your health stays good.
- 13:15Speaker 1: Tony, you mentioned the word grade, and for those who
- 13:19Speaker 1: don't know how Hykes climbs are graded by difficulty, it's
- 13:22Speaker 1: a numerical scale. Can you first explain what is the
- 13:26Speaker 1: sum total of the grading scale available and then talk
- 13:29Speaker 1: to us about what range is covered in this book.
- 13:31Speaker 3: Okay, so in South Africa we have that scale. So
- 13:36Speaker 3: if you go to the UK, it'll be a different scale.
- 13:38Speaker 3: If you go to America it'll be a different scale.
- 13:39Speaker 3: If you go to Europe it'll be a difference. Every
- 13:41Speaker 3: country has their own scale, and normally in guidebooks you'll
- 13:45Speaker 3: have a comparison chart so people can who come from
- 13:50Speaker 3: from wherever, they can look at this grading system and say, okay,
- 13:53Speaker 3: well it's normal. It's equivalent of this, and it is
- 13:56Speaker 3: an open ended scale, but it's it's like pretty much.
- 14:01Speaker 3: I wouldn't say it's absolute end, but it's the graph
- 14:04Speaker 3: is very steep right now, it's like undred. It's like
- 14:07Speaker 3: it's like running one hundred meters in nine point eight.
- 14:09Speaker 3: You're not going to get nine. You know, it's going
- 14:11Speaker 3: to take a long time for it to get even
- 14:13Speaker 3: slightly slightly faster. It's the same as climbing right now.
- 14:17Speaker 2: Okay, so what's the most difficult highest grade climb?
- 14:20Speaker 3: So what I've done with that book, and one of
- 14:23Speaker 3: the sort of criteria that I used to choose the roots.
- 14:26Speaker 3: I didn't want to put any very hard routes, you know.
- 14:29Speaker 3: I wanted all all the roots in that book to
- 14:32Speaker 3: be climbable by passionate trad climbers. You didn't have to
- 14:38Speaker 3: be the world's best tad climbers to climb this book.
- 14:41Speaker 3: So I captured at grade twenty, which is not which
- 14:45Speaker 3: is a respectable grade in trad climbing, but in the
- 14:53Speaker 3: big world of trad climbings, it is still a relatively
- 14:56Speaker 3: sort of easy grade, and if you compare it to
- 14:59Speaker 3: the really hard stuff, but it's still quite a respectable
- 15:03Speaker 3: grade to climb.
- 15:04Speaker 1: Okay, so accessible but with some more challenging us. And
- 15:08Speaker 1: then I mean, who is your intended user? Is this
- 15:11Speaker 1: book intended for those who are already climbing to go
- 15:14Speaker 1: out and discover new occasions and extend their climbing repertoire
- 15:17Speaker 1: or do you anticipate that a novice will also be
- 15:19Speaker 1: able to utilize it.
- 15:20Speaker 3: I think it's I think it's it's very broad. I
- 15:23Speaker 3: intended to be a book to be found by kids
- 15:27Speaker 3: that want to learn out of time and like I
- 15:28Speaker 3: found those books in the library as you mentioned, Yeah,
- 15:31Speaker 3: it was like wonderful for me to find this in Wow,
- 15:33Speaker 3: look what's going on here? Yeah, that was a big
- 15:37Speaker 3: thing that I want to do, you know, to put
- 15:39Speaker 3: across but also for climbers who want to go, I
- 15:42Speaker 3: can climb the best in the Western Cape. You know,
- 15:45Speaker 3: they can be from the Western Cape, that can be
- 15:47Speaker 3: from a country, that can be from abroad.
- 15:49Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean you I mentioned, you're in the middle
- 15:51Speaker 1: of a very busy book tour which is taking you
- 15:53Speaker 1: all over the country. And I said to Tony when
- 15:55Speaker 1: he walked in, you know, what's the why host a
- 15:58Speaker 1: book launch in case at en or Joe Berg for
- 16:00Speaker 1: a Western k book, and his response was because the
- 16:02Speaker 1: climbers come here specifically to climb our mountains. And I mean, Tony,
- 16:06Speaker 1: do you hope that that will apply to increasing international
- 16:09Speaker 1: climbing tourists.
- 16:10Speaker 2: I can call it that way.
- 16:11Speaker 3: Yes, I think, sir. I think if look, if you
- 16:14Speaker 3: go to the UK, they have a series of books
- 16:17Speaker 3: like this one which also feature the best rock climbs
- 16:22Speaker 3: in the UK, which is what I used when I
- 16:24Speaker 3: went to the UK to climb, as like a Bible ticklist.
- 16:28Speaker 3: And I'm hoping that this will serve as one for
- 16:31Speaker 3: climbs coming. Yeah.
- 16:32Speaker 1: Yeah, Now before we'veut out of time, I have to
- 16:35Speaker 1: mention the photography, and I mean again, my fear of
- 16:38Speaker 1: heights makes it difficult from me even page through some
- 16:40Speaker 1: of these extraordinary photographs capturing some really hard to reach places.
- 16:48Speaker 1: How have you collected the illustrations from?
- 16:50Speaker 3: Well, that was one of the hardest things in the book,
- 16:52Speaker 3: is to bet is to get those kind of pictures.
- 16:55Speaker 3: When I started out, I wanted pictures that reached out
- 16:59Speaker 3: of the page and grab you. I didn't want mediocre pictures,
- 17:02Speaker 3: So I did ask around. I asked friends of mine,
- 17:04Speaker 3: and I asked guys that went out and girls that
- 17:07Speaker 3: went out too, who climbed, to please take pictures, and
- 17:11Speaker 3: I did aim at the ones who I knew were
- 17:13Speaker 3: quite handy, you know, with the camera, and I got,
- 17:19Speaker 3: I got. I've got an amazing, you know response from
- 17:24Speaker 3: from quite a lot of people, A lot of people
- 17:25Speaker 3: sent in pictures, a lot of sending people, a lot
- 17:27Speaker 3: of people sent in like mediocre pictures, a lot of
- 17:29Speaker 3: people sending fantastic pictures. But one guy who really you know,
- 17:33Speaker 3: went all out was Gareth Bird. His name's on the
- 17:37Speaker 3: front color as well, because he really he is a
- 17:40Speaker 3: pro photographer and he's one of the finest climbing photographers
- 17:42Speaker 3: in the Western Cape, and he allowed me to use
- 17:47Speaker 3: as many of my of his pics that I wanted
- 17:49Speaker 3: and need. He actually even went out on some of
- 17:51Speaker 3: the times to take pictures specifically. So I was blown
- 17:55Speaker 3: away and I was really really honored to be able
- 17:59Speaker 3: to have these pictures in the book. And as you
- 18:01Speaker 3: can see, I mean that's that front cover is his pick,
- 18:04Speaker 3: and that's his wife climb and when she was climbing it,
- 18:06Speaker 3: she was pregnant with the oh you know, but they
- 18:11Speaker 3: didn't know that that she was pregnant at the time.
- 18:13Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.
- 18:13Speaker 3: So it's a family portray.
- 18:15Speaker 2: It's a bit of a family portrait. It's a terrifying
- 18:18Speaker 2: family portrait to me.
- 18:19Speaker 1: But I get it, and I mean it is the
- 18:21Speaker 1: most Gareth and anybody else you contributed. It's extraordinary. This
- 18:25Speaker 1: book is even for somebody like me. I have to say,
- 18:28Speaker 1: the chances of my actually ever attempting any of these
- 18:30Speaker 1: climbs would be slim to nil, because I know what
- 18:33Speaker 1: my Pharaoh Heights is all about. But to look at
- 18:36Speaker 1: these pictures and to marvel at what exists in our province,
- 18:38Speaker 1: and to know that this is available to those who
- 18:41Speaker 1: are made of braver.
- 18:42Speaker 2: Stuff than me, is a thing of great beauty.
- 18:44Speaker 1: Final thing to ask you, Tony, is where our listeners
- 18:46Speaker 1: find a copy of the book?
- 18:47Speaker 2: I know you have. Have you gone into the bookstores yet?
- 18:49Speaker 3: Yes, the nine bookstores, it's exclusives, it's Wordsworth and and
- 18:53Speaker 3: in the outdoor stores the City Rock Drifters, Patagonia stores,
- 18:58Speaker 3: out Gone Outdoor.
- 19:02Speaker 2: Okay, so all the outdoor and book studies online.
- 19:05Speaker 1: Published by Blue Mountain Publishers, It's called The Great Rock
- 19:08Speaker 1: Climbs of the Western Cape seventy five classic trade routes
- 19:11Speaker 1: and Tony Lawrence. It's been a fabulous having you with
- 19:13Speaker 1: us to talk to us about your story and the
- 19:15Speaker 1: story of this book, and we wish you many many
- 19:18Speaker 1: more years of happy and safe climbing.
- 19:20Speaker 3: Thanks with us, Thank you,