Bombo Quarry

Bombo Quarry was always full of romanticism, as it was a little Mecca for very hard rock climbs in the eighties.  The hip and famous crowd climbed there. The climbers from the Illawarra and the Gong.  Names like Fret still ring in my head.   

Basalt columns are enticing to climb on. The lines (routes) are so clearly delineated. Finger cracks, jambing and wide stemming.  That sort of climbing never settled with me. 

Now the infamous climbing cliff is fenced off. Claw wrote about how it had been taken over by a shit farm.  A human waste processing plant might be a more politicaly correct term in the modern age.  The climbs that made history for a short time now forgotten behind a barbed wire fence.  

A dad and his two kids ride past and he makes a dad joke. Checking in with his son to see if he had flatulence. The three laugh and ride on and punch through the wave of smell.  

I find the place harsh. A little desert next to the ocean.  Hordes of tourists visit daily with hundreds of cameras. There are always plenty of tripods reminding me that landscape photography is a growth industry.   

On days the swell is large, the place becomes deafening with pounding waves crashing on the basalt shore. 

It’s no surprise that I find this place difficult to connect with and even harder to photograph.  But that doesn’t stop me trying.  

Bombo Quarry near Kiama. Photograph and text copyright © Len Metcalf 2018