As competitive rock climbers, my kids train a lot! We spend more time at the gym than we do at home. Once the virus hit and the gyms closed we were all forced to take a break. If I’m being honest, I am so grateful to not be in the gym during the cooler winter months passing time just sitting on my ass in the cold. It all really disagrees with me. Sitting, pissing away time that I could otherwise be of use. Each day packing several meals, water bottles and snacks to eat on the run. Have I said how much I hate that lifestyle? I love my kids and want to support them in their endeavours and they are not quite old enough to go on their own so I’m stuck having to continue in this way for now.

Having a break from the routine of life on the go, we are all feeling the peace of no schedule and some downtime, especially me. We realised, not long into isolation, that the kids do still need to train and be healthy and fit. We ventured down the hill from where we live to an old military barracks that we heard had great walls to climb. We tried it a couple of times and they did manage to get some good climbing in. Unfortunately, the word got out about the wall and it became more crowded. Social distancing and the clean, pristine walls were out the window, so we decided to not go anymore.

We started researching how much it would cost and how much space we would need to build our own wall. Obviously, its not the same as going to multiple gyms, having a coach and well set walls but it would allow them to climb and stay strong. Selfishly, I hoped it would replace some of our gym visits in the future. One can hope. It became, a family building project with everyone taking part. Maths, science, wood shop all rolled into one.

We had to have some climbing friends over to help us raise the 500+ pound monster, keeping our distance of course. It was a bit surreal to have people in our garage after 8 weeks of not socialising. How odd, that having conversation in person felt so awkward.

In the end, it took us more money than expected and we are still waiting on holds to be delivered many weeks later – everyone and their uncle is building their own corona virus climbing wall – but it is finished!