Handsome Upper Cliffs

Tuesday 27 June 2023

On a recent visit to Handsome Cave I realised I had forgotten how nice the sandstone features of the cave were and the honeycomb rock (tafone) was quite something. I also discovered there were more cliffs further up, and the main objective this day was to walk to them.

On reaching the open area with buildings, two dogs came running at us, barking loudly and a bit worrisome, however they soon quietened down and one of them came on the walk with us. He was told to go home, but it was not long before the dog was back and leading the way.

After taking in the features at Handsome Cave, we proceeded up the somewhat overgrown old track to a second cliff line and then beyond that to reach a sandy rough vehicle track. This was followed to the rock climbing area and the large cliffs there. It is known as Handsome Crag by the climbing fraternity and has 61 routes, see the link here. The sites notes indicate that it is not used as much since the easiest access road was closed off, and there was not much sign of aay pads to the cliffs.

The walk took us 4¼ hours for the 8k walked, including lunch.