Rock climbing in Australia

The best places to go rock climbing in Australia are around Melbourne and Sydney in the southeast of Australia, around Brisbane in Queensland, Moonarie to the north of Adelaide, plus the Island of Tasmania.

Melbourne is situated in the state of Victoria, and there are 3 great places to go rock climbing here, which are Mount Arapiles, The Grampians and Mount Buffalo.

Mount Arapiles is located near the town of Natimuk in Victoria State, which is around 300km from Melbourne. Mount Arapiles is a spectacular island of hard quartzite rock and is often described as the best trad-climbing area in Australia. Few other areas can compete against Arapiles for the sheer quality, quantity and diversity of trad-climbing across all grades. A comprehensive guidebook for this area simply called “Arapiles Selected Climbs” is available to buy from our shop.

The Grampians is a vast, mountainous and forested park, which is stunningly beautiful. The Grampian is the largest rock climbing area in Australia though it is spread out over a large area with some of the crags in remote locations. Here there are many multi-pitch routes providing some great adventure climbing. The majority of the routes are trad though there is the occasional bolt/peg where no other protection is possible. There are some sport routes though these tend to be in the higher grades.

Mount Buffalo is a granite plateau in northwest Victoria that is 1,500m above sea level and provides alpine style climbing. The climbing here is split into two very distinct styles; a 300m deep gorge and slabs on top of the plateau. The gorge gives long, steep, crack trad climbing, whilst the slabs provide delicate bolt protected sport routes.

The Blue Mountains are the best place to go rock climbing near Sydney, which are located just to the west of the city. Here there is a combination of both sport climbing and trad rock climbing on sandstone rock. The climbing area is large and provides everything from single pitch routes to long multi-pitch routes across all grades. A comprehensive guidebook for this area called “Blue Mountain Climbing” is available to buy from our shop.

There are 11 major crags within a few hours’ drive of Brisbane that offer some great and varied rock climbing. Nearly all the crags offer different rock types and angles, with both bolted and traditionally protected routes available. The type and style of climbing varies from single pitch routes at Kangaroo Point Cliffs which is located in the heart of Brisbane, to Mount Tibrogargan, which has long multi-pitch routes in the mountains that are up to 245m long.

Frog Buttress is one of Australia’s best single pitch trad climbing areas with nearly 400 routes. The cliff is around 500m wide and is made up of densely packed rhyolite columns up to 50m long. 

A comprehensive guidebook for this area around Brisbane is called “South East Queensland Climbing”, whilst there is a separtate "Frog Buttress Rock Climbing Guidebook". Buy both of these guidebooks from our shop.

The large Island of Tasmanialocated to the south of Melbourne is the home to some of Australia’s best and spectacular rock climbing. There is great variety of climbing such the Dolerite crags at Launceston’s Cataract Gorge, to granite sea cliff climbing at Freycinet to conglomerate sport climbing at Adamsfield. There is easy access climbing near the main cities of Hobart and Launceston, to remote alpine multi-pitch climbing on Frenchmans Cap and Mt Geryon.

The Climb Tasmania Guidebook is a selective guidebook covering over 850 of the best sport climbing and Trad rock climbing in Tasmania at 25 different crags. Buy this guidebook from our shop.

Moonarie is a great adventure rock climbing destination and is one of Australia's most spectacular crags. Moonarie is situated on the rim of Wilpena Pound, a bowl of layered quartzite sandstone rock in the Flinders Ranges of South Australia, 450km north of Adelaide.

The climbing at Moonarie is all about trad with superb rock and loads of fantastic quality routes, with a good range of intermediate to hard routes (F6a+ and above or UK HVS and above). The hard sandstone rock naturally accepts trad gear though some routes do have the odd bolt, plus there are a few sport routes. Moonarie, A rock climber’s guide is the comprehensive rock climbing guidebook for Moonarie that is available to buy from our shop.