Hi Roo,

People have walked way past where they should have gone left off the track and not got there at all. If you can, get someone who has been there before to climb with you on your first trip out.

Enjoy,

Toc.

Park your car. Walk down the road towards the winery entrance. On the right of the entrance is a dirt track with a boom gate accross it (which means in effect you just keep walking straight ahead). Go on down and you turn left a little way on and walk with a burricane wire fence on your left. The track leaves the fence and you just follow it on down. There is one split in the track where it forks off to the left but you just keep going. About 15-20 mins further on keep an eye out for a cairn on the left hand side of the track. At this point vere left into the bush and down to the first boulders – Soltice Boulders I think. The slabs from here are located slightly up and accross the gully, you should find the little track climbers have made. Basically, when you walk in the climbing area is all on the left of the track.

Have fun. It gets real hot in there sometimes, particularly the slabs as they face the sun.

Hi Roo,

The description in the 2002 Perth guidebook is exactly as follows:

The Darlington Boulders area is located approximately 30km east of Perth in a side valley of the Helena River. Follow your street directory to the junction of Mills Rd and Nelson Rd in Darlington. From here follow Nelson Rd for 500m south (No Through Road) towards Darlington Winery. Park in the large bay on R, just before the winery entry gate, taking care not to block the firebreak access.

Walk 30m toward the winery and when the road turns L to the entrance, continue straight ahead and around a pole gate. The track then drops down, turns L sharply alongside a fence and continuously descends down the valley. At the Y junction take the R option, staying on the R bank of the creek. Continue for 200 metres to the top of first steep rise, the Brutus boulder is 30m left of it. Continue for 10 more minutes until the track descends very steeply, at the bottom of this descent is the turnoff to Upper Darlington (hidden cairn). To get to the main area continue for 300 metres further and you will encounter two cairns on the L side of the road, the path from the first cairn leads to the Ironing Board boulder, the path from the second cairn leads to the Gully Area (see map). The total walk in to the main area takes 25 minutes. The climbing areas are described in the order that you will come across them.

(In other words it does not say to go towards winery and turn L like you say, unless you are quoting from the old 1996 guide).

See CAWA web site (this is where I copied the above description from):

https://www.climberswa.asn.au/climbwa/crags.asp?region=Around%20Perth&crag=Darlington_Boulders&sort=NAME

Shame you you didn’t have a go. Darlington was my favourite Perth local crag. the eastern slabs are the best area at Darlington.

Bored Canberran.