The Rock Adventure Centre — Attraction in Newtown

These guys rock! That's the number 1 most terrible pun ever. So sorry... Lovely friendly staff and super helpful if you want a few tips. We are really what you'd term 'beginner climbers' having climbed for fun and fitness rather than seriously. However we are fit (and I pole dance) so we were excited to try some overhangs, learn some technique and try out our grip strength on the campus board. We passed a good 2 hours just on the bouldering wall and the finger boards etc,: 2 kids of 14 years old and myself. It would be good to have a few more longer bouldering routes mapped out with the coloured tags so you could easily find a few more routes tailored at your own level, especially since we were mostly using the 2 easier categories out of the 4. However generally it is a well-equipped place and they really do their level best to accommodate a huge range of abilities and ages. We often just go for a bouldering session however I highly recommend the climbing walls - they are excellent and diverse. You can also go solo as they use auto belays if required. We now make it a weekly thing for a bit of fun, cross training...

My daughter had her 10th birthday party here on Sunday. What a great place. While the lovely staff trained and played a few climbing games with the children upstairs, the parents where able to get a coffee downstairs. The staff took great care of the children and even the parents got involved assisting the children as they climbed and repelled the walls. After training of course. The venue had an upstairs party area which was great as it gave you a little privacy to sing happy birthday open presents and eat the party food. The whole facility was ours for 2 1/2 hours during the party. The Rock provided everything we needed to hold the party, soft drink, ice cream cake, lolly bags all included in the fee, all we had to bring was party food and napkins. They even heated up the food for us. A really great facility to hold a birthday party, highly recommended if you want to try something different that the children will remember for a long time. Ohh and they slept well...

Took the kids here today. Staff were busy talking about how drunk they got at Fatboy slim to help the children. I was disappointed to be told that they won't help the kids on the ropes and there is only 2 walls the kids can climb without someone helping them on the ground. I found the place to be dirty and in need of an update. The toilets were gross, hair everywhere over the floor and a full bin overflowing even though we were the first ones there after opening and only customers there the whole time. Please make it clear on the website that children need to have an adult each to support them. Or tell us before we pay. I assumed the staff would be helpful and be with us, teaching the kids what to do, but like I said they were too busy talking behind the counter loudly about partying. Waste of...