I returned to Alien Rock last night, but not to the church. After my harrowing near-death experience last week (never mind that it was somebody else’s death I was near), I decided to dodge anything belay-related. Alien has a second gym in a non-descript warehouse completely given over to bouldering, which suited me just fine under the circumstances.The climbing was challenging for the color-impaired; no tape is used to indicate routes, just colored rocks. Even some with better color vision than mine might reasonably have difficulty separating pale, chalky orange from pale, chalky red from pale, chalky pink. But the natives were friendly (as I have almost always found climbers to be) and I’m sure to be back.

I haven’t been to the huge climbing arena at Ratho yet, which saddens me as it’s only a couple of miles from my workplace. But there doesn’t seem to be any bus or similar method of getting there, and we haven’t got a car. Time to look into getting a bike.