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Only five minutes walk from the centre of Launceston, the Cataract Gorge is one of the city's main tourist attractions. It is also the main climbing area of the city. It consists of short, high quality, dolerite cracks and faces. Recently there have been increasing numbers of bolted climbs appearing, mainly on the aretesarêtes. As well as both sides of the main gorge there is also excellent climbing at Duck Reach, as well as numerous other buttresses on both the North and South Esk rivers, such as Willow Jungle, Riverbend, Grap Fureau and Castille Crag.

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Short dolerite buttresses - mainly cracks with some bolted faces and aretesarêtes. A single rope and a medium sized rack of wires and cams will do the trick. The bolted routes are a mixture of glued in carrots and eye bolts on the newer routes.

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• Cataract, North Esk and South Esk are excellent comprehensive guides by Bob McMahon and Gerry Narkowicz published by Climb Tasmania.
• Craglets, if you can still get a copy, has good, although not quite comprehensive, guides to several of the areas and is better value.
• Climb Tasmania Selected Best has photo topos and descriptions of the best routes

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