Moving to Australia

Hi there! 

My boyfriend and I are moving to Australia for the better part of 2019 and are trying to decide on the best place to spend our time. We're both carpenters and will be looking for jobs in the trades, but want to make sure we can get out and climb as well. 

We were originally thinking about Melbourne, but have just about convinced ourselves that somewhere else might be a better option since we'll be there mostly for the late fall/winter. Perhaps not the best time for Arapiles?

We've heard some good things about Brisbane, but aren't quite sold, yet. Sydney is on the list as well.

Any midsized towns close to climbing we should look into? Boulder/Bend style, perhaps.

Any suggestions or guidance are greatly appreciated! 

Hi Sarah,

I'm originally from Brisbane, so here's my biased opinion.  (And I have clearly chosen to migrate to another hemisphere so take it with a grain of salt)

It's Australia - it really doesn't get that cold in winter, and winter is typically pretty short anyway.  And then summer is fucking hot and sweaty.

As far as where to go - it depends. (Of course)  Do you want to mostly work? Mostly climb? Are there other things you want to do/see there? (surf, hike etc)  Maybe you just do week long trips to Arapiles/Blue Mountains and live somewhere else that suits your day to day life.
Australia is (in general) short of skilled trades, particularly in construction.  But I know real estate prices have recently dropped significantly in Melbourne and Sydney (Brisbane is stable) which may have affected new construction.  I actually don't know, just thought I'd mention it.  Women are fairly rare on job sites so expect some bullshit.

The only smaller centre I can think of that may work for you is Nowra, south of Sydney.

As far as cities go Brisbane is decent for climbing.  It has a couple of decent gyms and an urban crag (Kangaroo Point / KP) which is ok.  The climbing isn't amazing, but it's an urban crag, lit at night, on the river with free bbq's in the park at the base - so totally worth climbing at.  From Brisbane:  Frog Buttress is a couple of hours drive for good single pitch crack climbing.  North an hour or so around the Sunshine Coast there are a few options - hard cave climbing at Coolum, and single and multi pitch sport and trad on the Glasshouse Mountains.  And then a few other places a bit further north or south that are weekend trips rather than day trips.

You've probably heard about the bolt situation re hangers on sport climbs but just in case:  A lot of sport routes are just bolts ("carrots") so you need to buy a rack of hangers to place on the bolt then clip.  The other aspect to this fun system is that you typically need solid gate biners on the bolt end of the draw.  Wire gates don't have enough volume and it is possible for the hanger to rattle off.  And the first bolt is often higher than a sane person would put it.

thecrag.com is a good online source of beta

Hope that is of some use.
Have a great trip and have a "works burger" for me.  (It's the only thing I miss)

John

The Blue Mountains due west of Sydney (up in Katoomba) is one of my all time favorite places in all the world and accessible by train and has hostels.

+1 for the Blue Mountains but the rental prices might scare you away from Sydney. 

I'm totally biased but Melbourne all the way (or rural western victoria if you are not into bigger cities).  As already said carpenters make excellent money in Australia.  In general the climbing crags in Australia are more spread out and less common than on other continents.  However what is there is fantastic.

Mt Arapiles is a world class crag with a density of good trad routes hardly matched anywhere else in the world.  The Grampians is just nearby.  The Blue Mountains has spectacular sport and trad climber, in a stunningly beautiful environment.  But it isn't that quality of Arapiles.  Big long routes eg 300m+ are uncommon in Australia, but decent 4-5 pitch climbs are common in the places mentioned.

Any midsized towns close to climbing we should look into? Boulder/Bend style, perhaps.

There is pretty much only one 'climbing town' in Australia.  That is Natimuk.  A tiny farming town near Arapiles that has grown to embrace their immigrant climbers.  But it is still a tiny farming town and unless your move was 90% about the climbing then it wouldn't be the top of the list.

The Blue Mountains has numerous small towns that are very close to climbing.  More work and only an 90minutes to Sydney by car or train.

John Simmonds wrote: You've probably heard about the bolt situation re hangers on sport climbs but just in case:  A lot of sport routes are just bolts ("carrots") so you need to buy a rack of hangers to place on the bolt then clip.

Ahhh the carrot bolts, one of the greatest inventions from Australia (not really). They have a big hole with a narrow slot on one side. The idea is that you put the big hole over the bolt, slide the hanger down so the shaft of the bolt sits in the narrow slot, then clip a big solid gate biner to keep the whole thing from coming off the bolt. I mean, it’s pretty obvious if you just think about it.

When I was younger and much, much dumber, I went climbing in Australia (this is not the dumb part). On one of my first climbs after I landed in the land down under, my ex-girlfriend (who’s Australian) put a stack of those removable hangers in my chalk bag and “off you go!” to let me warm up on a little 5.10. “What do I do with these things?” I asked about the strange looking hangers, “You just put them on the bolt and clip them”, “oh, ok.” I made my way up to the top with just a tiny little bit of struggle, happily clipping a bunch of those carrot bolts along the way. At the anchor I clipped the rope in, and asked for take to be lowered. As soon as the rope went taught, all the little hangers I clipped pop off the bolt and slid down the rope to my belayer/ex. Instead of sliding the shaft of the bolt down the narrow slot and clip the big opening of the hanger, I simply put the big opening over the bolt, and clipped the narrow slot. Like I said, I wasn't very smart. Good thing I didn’t fall off on that warmup! I did wise up a little bit on that trip, I haven't spoke to my ex ever since.

As far as the original question, I’d vote for Sydney. Granted I was in Australia close to 15 years ago and things could’ve changed a lot, but my experience was that winter in Arapiles was a little too wet for climbing even if it doesn’t get super cold. Stuff around Sydney was definitely more climbable in winter. Arapiles/Grampian is also a ways from Melbourne, so it’s always a trip to go anywhere to climb. Whereas Blue Mountains are much closer to Sydney, and you even have some bouldering and sea cliff right in Sydney to climb on too.

You could spend your entire year climbing here and never have to climb a route with carrots on it. If you have no idea how to use TheCrag or read a guidebook and just want to randomly climb stuff that would be a different story. There's plenty of decent climbing on bolts with hangers or glue-ins. Even better - head to Frog or Arapiles for awesome trad. Arapiles is a long drive from Melbourne though. If you decide on Brisbane (where I am based) you have Kangaroo Point (an old quarry with quite a few decent routes) right in the middle of the city and it has lighting so you can go there after work and get some laps in to train for weekend adventures to Frog (trad, 1.5hr drive south) and the Glasshouse Mountains (trad and sport + lots of multipitch, 1.5hr drive north) and many bouldering locations in between. If you can afford the rent Sydney would be good as the Blue Mountains has so much quality climbing you could never climb the same route twice and still not do everything you want to in the year you are here. Pretty much every city will have work for skilled tradespeople.