Church Rock, Thirlmere..

Well, a scorching week of weather in Cumbria; and Claire and I got the chance to make the best of it today. Despite both of us having so much work to do it is stupid; we went to Church Rock in Thirlmere to get a bit of climbing in before we head north on belated honeymoon next Friday.

It's only a 10 min walk to the crag from the church in St. Johns in the Vale and it was a lovely morning - hot and sunny but with a nice, cooling breeze and we had the crag to ourselves. Neither of us had climbed in a month or so, so nice easy routes were the order of the day. First on the list was Confidence - a nice 1* Diff. The climb is a little bold at the start - however all the holds were there and once worked out it went very nicely indeed. One feature of this crag is the fact that an outdoor pursuits centre have installed belay bolts on top. This meant that I could clip in, relax and see Claire as she came up. No problems at all for Claire and she was soon at the belay.

After a quick instruction in abseiling; I showed Claire how to do it by abbing down and then walking back to the top (only a 2 min walk) to watch. Claire took to her first abseil like a duck to water and was soon down.

Next on our list was Carrick's climb; which took an improbable line at Diff through some overlaps. There were a couple of moves on this that were a little committing and I dithered a bit before committing - it's all their and Claire waltzed up and found it easy - GRRRR. Another abseil and we called it a day....lovely setting and a lovely morning - followed up by lunch at the Mill Inn!

Hopefully the weather will hold - will be updating the blog from Scotland next weekend onwards whenever I am able to.

Go well