We arrive at Castle Hill complete with a bouldering pad hired in Christchurch and set off to the Quantum Field area. Castle Hill is a large area of grey limestone boulders and rocky outcrops about 1.5hrs drive West of Christchurch and is a mecca for climbing. Set on an alpine plain at around 800m above sea level inbetween two mountain ranges the aspect to the climbing is probably one of the best in the world.

We'd been advised there were some nice warm up problems on the top of the initial hill. The warm up problems were pretty tough for just warming up. After eventually warming up and ticking a few of the "warm up" problems we went to try and find something a tad easier. We drop down the back of the initial hill to the Run and Jump Slab. As the name suggests you had to run and jump to get established onto the slab. Once on you could pick your route up the holdless slab on perfect foot smears. We continued to pick off problems throughout the morning below a hot unrelenting sun and lovelly blues skies.

After lunch, keen to sample as much of Castle Hill as we can we take the short walk to the Spittle Hill area. The climbing here is slightly different and the rock tends to have more features providing a slightly different style of climbing. The days efforts and sun start to take their toll and we eventually retreat to the campsite a few kilometres further up Arthur's Pass.

Keen for an early start the next day we fail at the first hurdle and get up late. Evidently tired from yesterday we leave as soon as we can and after registering at the Flock Hill Lodge we start the walk up to the Flock Hill climbing area which sits further up the pass on the flanks of the opposing mountain range to Castle Hill. The guide we have doesn't cover Flock Hill and we spend our time there working and climbing problems as we find them. The rock here is again different in its appearance. With amazing features and often a lava effect.

For lunch I insisted we go to a nearish town called Sheffield for the "World Famous Pie Shop" which turned out to have some pretty amazing pies followed by amazing carrot cake. Satiated we headed back for one last stint at Spittle Hill and removed any skin we had left on our hands and ensured ours bodies would sleep well from exhaustion.