My parents, Bob and Molly Craddock, had climbed in North Wales in the 1940’s, and brought a few climbing guides and books with them to our new life in Australia. Needless to say, as a growing boy, I eventually persuaded them to take me climbing and thus set off on what was to remain an obsession for the next 50 or more years of my life.

Even when we’d been climbing for a few years, there was just one duplicated guide to Victorian climbs, with a handful of climbs at Sugarloaf and hanging Rock. Today, rock climbing in Australia is covered by hundreds of guidebooks and many websites, and climbing is a major recreation.

The following pages don’t attempt a comprehensive overview of climbing in Australia. They simply give a personal perspective based on my rôle as a ‘pioneer’ at Arapiles in Victoria, and at Killiecrankie on Flinders Island, Bass Strait.

Just Tatters! is a piece of personal writing about an absurd misadventure on our first trip to Killiecrankie, while The Protection Racket is an essay on climbing protection I wrote for Rock magazine in 1991.

Link to the Victorian Climbing Club...

Link to Chockstone, the Victorian climbing website...

Link to Rock magazine...