Adventures on Lundy

By Ruth Creamer

Lundy being an island not to be underestimated for its adventurous nature, certainly lived up to its reputation in more ways than one. The adventure started as soon as the cars were parked up at the quay early Saturday morning. The fifteen strong group boarded HMS Oldenburg for what was to be a very choppy crossing from Ilfracombe to the Island, sailing at the time the rear end of a hurricane was passing over the British Isles.  During the crossing, we were privileged to witness a training exercise performed by an RAF Sea King helicopter off the stern of the boat which nothing more, proved to be a welcome distraction for all those passengers suffering the effects of sea sickness.

Upon arrival and after the long slog uphill, there was a full afternoon ahead and so a smaller group went off in search of our first crag. At this point, the full Lundy experience began to unfold.  Is the crag in the bird ban? Is the crag tidal? Roughly locate the top of the crag using a combination of zawns, small boulders and tuffs of grass and once you are convinced you’re in the right place, commit to the steep grassy bank descent festooned with vacated puffin holes before finding a suitable anchorage for an abseil.  Racked up and rearing to go, abseil over a blind cliff edge in the hope that the crag reveals itself before your eyes just as the guidebook suggested.  No matter what the grade of the route, an attitude of desire and commitment was required to even find the start.

With a few warm up climbs completed, everyone was soon settling into their respective accommodation, fourteen in the Barn and one in the campsite with a pending overnight forecast of gale force winds and heavy rain.   The Barn did offer the chance to practice some abseiling past a knot from the rafters, always a useful skill to practice especially because it was raining at the time.

After a first wet morning and hence a delayed start, parties of climbers slowly drifted from the Barn out onto the 3 mile long island in search for the crag to then return many hours later with tales to tell.   The Marisco Tavern, being only yards from the Barn, proved to be a valuable location for such tales and for making speculative plans for the following day.  The sequence of events followed much of the same rhythm throughout the week with the end of day regaling of tales, passing on of beta, checking of forecast/tides/birds and chatting about where to head the next day.  Whilst most parties went in search of climbs of varying grades, some were taken by the island activity of ‘letterboxing’ where by following a series of clues, a small box could be found that contained a notepad, an ink stamp and occasionally, a rabbit!  The letterboxes were hidden over the length and breadth of the island and sending seekers into areas which would normally not be visited.  The island has a lot of interesting history with wreckages and ruins all over.

The other islands residents include goats (you smell them before you see them), sheep, horses, highland cattle, pigs, geese (on one morning were outside my tent at 5.30am) and a vast number of sea and moorland birds.  It would also be hard not to notice the beautiful flora and fauna whilst wandering around.

Over the course of the week and with potentially eight days of climbing to be had, an impressive number of crags were visited by all or some of the group.  There was an impromptu mass GMC raid on the Devil’s Slide, one of the South West’s most famous HS’s; Threequarter Buttress, containing one of the best exposed Severe’s around, was climbed by most on separate days; an adventure into Arch Zawn with six climbers and ropes going in and six climbers and six ropes only just making it out; a 70+ year old being taken climbing on Seal Slab by a strong team; a VDiff 5a variant accidentally being climbed by two parties; a visit to one of the few non-sea cliff venues, The Templars; and a pairing climbing on a freshly post-bird banned Immaculate Slab which should be renamed ‘who needs chalk when you have guano?’.

On the whole, many of the climbs felt more deserving of the number of stars the guidebook gave with some good clean and interesting lines getting only one star.  This only helped to support the view that the three starred routes provided the pleasurable and iconic climbing experience that only Lundy could offer.