About The living rock

This is a blog on the origins of climbing in Australia. And being a blog, if you're interested in chronological order, the story actually starts at the bottom of this longish page. I've published it to share some of my own experiences, along with information I've gathered with the help of many people over the past 10 years or so. It tells a story of the emergence of the idea of climbing in Australia before World War II and continues the story of the development of what is now known as 'adventure' or 'traditional' climbing in postwar Queensland, through my own and other former and current climbers' voices. The time period covered by this contribution stretches from the very beginnings of human interaction with the Australian landscape, switching to mostly Queensland activity after the second world war. Primarily, these observations do not focus on the period beyond the late 1970s when climbing'began to fragment into several, distinctly different elements: sport climbing, in particular, gradually pushed what became known as 'trad' or 'adventure' climbing to the periphery. The detailed story of climbing in Australia from the 1980s onwards is for others to write.

Like all histories, this is a version of events. It does not pretend to be the definitive account (if there is such a thing) and comes from an obvious Queensland perspective. It offers an alternative to the predominant view of Australian climbing history that has tended to assume that climbing as a mass sport started in New South Wales and Victoria. The somewhat episodic examples here provide some insight into the extraordinary range of mostly young men and women who have felt compelled to move beyond the usual pathways to explore the more elusive aspects of the Australian landscape. Although 'modern' Australian climbing began less than 100 years ago, a small number of individuals has been exploring high places here since the European invasion. Indigenous people had already inscribed every aspect of the landscape into their cosmology for millennia. But this is a story about climbing as a European 'invention'. Each climbing community around Australia and beyond has its own stories, its own histories and I hope this encourages others to tell them. Please pass on this web address to anyone you think may be interested or who has information to add (or correct) what I've presented here.

Reproducing images or text

This blog represents a small fraction of the material that I and others have accumulated during this ongoing project. It has relied on the goodwill and trust of many climbers, current and past, who agreed to be interviewed and who have offered access to their private photograph collections. Please respect the copyright on the photographs published here, asking permission from the original owners (through me, if you like) before reproducing any of the material. But share this with friends, by all means.

Picture: On Mount Barney. Michael Meadows collection.