Ascents in Kawakawa Bay as Red point by John Pitcairn

Out here for urgent track safety work. Great long route, let down by a dirty top third (take a brush). Lowered Jonno then brought G up, time flew by.

Quite dirty, gave it a scrape out and garden on descent, looks much better now.

A nice ramble. Cleaned on abseil, left 4 bomber pieces in for Gareth's freshman trad lead.

Access for cleaning.

Lugged the trad gear out, warmup. Crack pretty clean.

Superb climbing, bomber jams, plenty of no-hands rests if you look for them. Started to rain just after Gareth began seconding. Lowered him, waited it out with raincoat, pulled a second rope up and rap-cleaned it by down-jammimg with one hand (RH face a bit wet and mossy). Sloped off back to camp through wet bush.

Bloody great. Right face could really use a scrub. Gareth seconded clean, good effort. We could see and hear Katie and Joe up at the crux on the Odyssey.

This is so good. Took quite an effort after no climbing for 2 months. A clean of the right face would help find more rests.

A Saturday evening faff around gaining access to the tops of Super Natural and Bi Curious George to fix ropes for cleaning. Linked P1-2 only, considerable rope drag at the dirty top out. Replaced the old hand line snaplink above Super Natural with a stainless maillon. Ran out of time and did no actual cleaning.

Warmup. The first of the two good pitches for the route (P5 is the other). Bloody nice.

Very dirty and now annoyingly retro bolted for the lower slab section. Did a little scraping of footholds on lead, tackled the crux above the world's dodgiest looking tricam, scraped out the crux crack on descent (it takes a very sane #5 brass offset). Needs a good scrub. Still really good, classic if cleaner.

Climbs a bit easier after last month's clean, did a bit more on the way down, still a lot of lichen in bottom section. Will revisit, it's a great route.

A little more cleaning on lead. The crux crack is starting to stay more open, but the face is going to take a while, and the lichenous bottom will be last.

Fixing a rope for cleaning. Bottom 15m still very dirty and sketchy after previous cleaning sessions rained crap down on it. Excellent belay by Rosie.

After 27 hours of cleaning, it's a whole different climb. Plenty of holds and good gear (take cams 0.3 to #2, a double set of nuts, plus RPs or small offsets to avoid runouts). I had 20 pieces in. Long, absorbing, and probably not for beginner trad leaders. Get on it.

Needs a bit of a garden again, probably once a year.

Sun broke out halfway which prompted quite a speedup. Staying clean enough, though you'll always have to dig out the thin crack a little around the crux.

I still bloody love this even after a visit to Arapiles. Still clean enough. Scrape the thin crack out a little for gear at the crux.

Better than High Hopes. Could use a clean but not too bad, maybe 18 as is. Nice view of parties on cruxes of After The Sunset and The Odyssey.

The bottom retrobolt is not too bad apart from the first bolt. Took the cave access chains off, a fall from the first crux would be through those and they are excessive anyway. The crack and corner above is great with a couple of cruxes, but VERY dirty right now, was more or less a ground-up again, will be back to clean it after winter. A must-do when clean.

Consistent all the way. A lot of lichen makes it hard to spot the feet and at times you are on lichen slopers. High priority for a clean. Topped out through some dead bushy stuff I didn't remember being there, couldn't find the anchor, then discovered a tree had died and fallen right onto it. Considerable swearing while balanced on more lichen. Got anchored then spent a while wrenching the tree off and sent it down. Rap cleaned. This will be bloody great after a good brush.

Misread the initial moves up to the arete and made it harder than it really is, ha. Angela definitely out of her comfort zone seconding pitch 1.

Got out there early before the hordes arrive and start queueing. 5 years since I last led this and every move seemed new. One long pitch is the way to go, but if so your seconds need to be aware of the rope stretch at the low crux (which is not 16).

Back to get it, a hell of a fight. Suckers you by starting easy then getting slowly harder until you're packed into a strenuous jam/undercling with very high feet out at the crux. The step around/down (maybe there is another option here) to the vertical crack needed a lot of willpower, then took an age to protect it while wrecked. The "trad belay" seems dodgy due to a hollow sounding block and limited options, kept going to anchors with solid rope drag, belayed with poor comms. Harder than Hecklers I reckon, need more opinions.

Straightforward enough once you burn it into non-volatile memory.

Towed a #5 up here but it's only really useful to protect the wide start until you get a good high hex. A few jamming/offwidth skills will go a long way. Stays fairly clean, and there's a bolted anchor.

Vegetated down low, lichenous higher, needs a better clean. If cleaner I think it would be quite good, has a nice physicality to it with some committing moves. Mind the chossy bits at top, but there is gear, and don't miss the anchor out left (the traverse to that is protectable by a #3).

Much better after the clean at the bottom, but a lot of dirt will continue to rain down on it I think. Mind the somewhat chossy stuff up top, though there is good gear to be had. Squeeze between the kōwhai and the rock for a better belay experience, then extend yourself down from the tree anchor. You can rap off the shackles on the hand line and get down to the bottom of Taniwha Crackdown on a 60m rope, assuming you want to trust the hand line.

A bit of an evening adventure, starting as far right as possible. Traverse gear is reasonably sparse but you're not far off the ground.

Group Sex Panther. Started up late in the day, led as one pitch with some nervy moments avoiding the loose block at midway. Settled in at sunset for a lengthy belay session bringing up three seconds, watched the moon rise, then we all had a headlamp strobe disco on the ledge. Back to camp around 8.30pm. Thanks to Matt for the extra rope.

Warmup. Meh.

A 2m sling might help manage the rope drag induced by the shared bolting at the top.

Not bad. Don't know why I found the start so hard last attempt.

Waiting for 2 parties in the queue ahead of us on Guardians. Tricky start.

The low end of 19. Always a slight sense of disappointment when the monkey jugs disappear for the crux.

Made a hash of the pull onto the slab. Some kind of weird heel scum.

First outdoor visit for Chris, so why not make it a multipitch? Did P1-2 on gear with one bolt at crux. Shoes still not as sensitive as I'd like for that. Loose rock at top of P2 is a bit worrying. Had thought we might be able to get across to top pitch of DHMK to finish, but that looked sketchy and hard. Hot hot hot, rapped off.

Setting up a top rope on Peach Teats for Rosie. Grass, dirt, climbs OK but needs a trowel.

Setting up top rope. Actually this is pretty good for a NZ 13. There's a crux and everything.

And removing it.

Better than average but perhaps not worth a star.

Unfinished business. Was expecting a fight, but cruised it. Really good.

Overlooked by all the punters on the squeeze routes.

Went easily now the gritty feet have cleaned up. Going right to the sloper-undercling thing is a bit harder, but still no more than 18 and not stiff.

Warmdown 2. Use the right arete at the low crux and it's on the soft side of 17.

A quick repeat after some discussion whether the grade is soft. If you stick to the line of bolts and don't divert left into Sundowning or reach out to the jugs 1m right of the crux higher up, there may be one or two moves at 21-22 there. That really makes it an eliminate...

I think it's 19.

After a morning spent accessing and removing the loose block on Sex Panther.

The good start protects well on fist sized gear, the good end on finger-sized, nothing for 10m in the middle but that's an easy ramble. A lot of bad helicopter action going on below.

Has a lot of character. The kowhai tree has grown a lot in just a few weeks.

It's not 2 stars but it's definitely worth doing. There is sufficient gear in the "runout" cave section if you use your eyes and brain.

Adventure climbing in failing light. Spiderwebs, bushes, lichen, runout, tree anchor, wouldn't have it any other way. Needed a wee swim after, brrr.

Stuffed myself in too far at the start. The kowhai is an arse and really needs a prune. Found even more gear through the "run out" cave section. Went and looked at the terrifying upper bluff rockfall.

Warmdown 1. Would probably be a decent slab, but pretty dirty. Anyone want to scrub it properly?

Much easier than it looks from the ground.

Used the Angela high-step beta at the crux, which keeps you out of the trench and more mobile. Great fun, good gear, nothing bigger than #3 needed.