Having wrested all the immediate and accessible pleasure from the limestone crags of Spain, sights were set on Sardinia. Arrival at Alghero was heralded by a chilly damp drizzle that intensified as the plucky climbers neared Cala Gonone. Eventually the town of Dorgali loomed out of the fog and the team loaded up on the climbing staples of bread, pasta and wine. Then there was the steep winding descent to Cala Gonone and a flurry of phone calls to locate the apartment which was conveniently located next to the Blues Roadhouse Pub, the hub of the meagre local nightlife.

The appearance of the resort should have improved the next morning but there was a slightly desolate air to the place in the cold grey light of dawn. This was not helped by the weather which remained damp with leaden skies. Undaunted the team nipped up the road to La Poltrana to sample some climbing. This is a huge natural limestone scoop above Cala Gonone and boasts a wide variety of routes. As it was the first day and having devoured most of the wine the night before an easy start was deemed sensible and large number of routes in the grade range 5-6a were racked up. The limestone was of the pocketed slabby variety and the routes were all very similar and many of the other routes were still streaked by water from the long wet spell and so were unclimbable. It was very good quality rock but eventually the very similarity of the routes began to become wearisome so a decision was made to pack up. This gave an opportunity to explore Cala Gonone and it really didn't have much to offer. There is a school that believes visiting places out of season has great advantages such as fewer crowds, lower prices and more tranquillity. The problem with this theory is that it ignores the point that the season exists because of the good weather that is otherwise fickle and also out of season everything is shut. Cala Gonone was essentially a ghost town that had packed up for the winter leaving a shell behind.

The next day the crag next door to Poltrana, Budinetto, was attacked. The approach to the crag was described with reference to a collection of ramshackle pig pens and two scruffy dogs. Surely these must be the only dogs in the world mentioned as route markers in a climbing guide? Budinetta was extremely similar in style and aspect to Poltrana though the routes were slightly shorter. Poltrana had some nice 35m 13-clipper routes. A similar selection of 5s and 5+ routes were accumulated and we adopted scruffy dog #2 who had a very pleasant afternoon being indulged with drinks of water and stale ham sandwiches.

On the Tuesday the team sallied forth by foot to Biddiriscottai which is essentially a sea cliff cave. This was fortunate as there was some rain and Biddiriscottai is notoriously rain proof. The rock there was steeper and more featured than the previous crags and also boasted some nice tufas and flowstone. The crag was initially empty but after a while the rain forced all the other climbers to congregate there and so having done most of what they wanted to do the team eschewed the crowd and pootled off to the pub for a reviving Margerita.

Wednesday had been planned as a rest day that was just as well because it teemed with rain all day. Our heroes leapt into their car and shot off into the deluge to see some sights. This was not a wholly successful experience. They went to a cave to see the largest stalactite in Europe but found that they had just missed the start of the tour. So they decided to have lunch in a nice Sardinian town. Restaurants were however very hard to find and a determined and very wet tramp through the town of Orgosolo by one of the more intrepid team members revealed nothing. On reporting back to the car the decision was made to drive to Orosei which had looked more promising earlier. The car soon filled up with a steamy fug and eventually a slightly dubious restaurant was found. The food and wine were good though and spirits rose like a Zepellin. Arriving back at the apartment in the early afternoon the whole team simply went to sleep, to emerge in the early evening for more beer and nibbles at the pub.

Thursday saw the team raring to go after such a lethargic experience the day before and so went off to Cala Fuili. This had some steeper climbing of vary inconsistent grading. Nevertheless there was something about the place that was inspiring and the relief from the slabby sameness of Poltrana led to the hardest routes yet being done. It is also worth mentioning that this was one of the few times in the history of climbing that Andy made a mistake. He forgot his climbing boots before coming out. This may be a minor incident, trivial to most people, but to a man of Andy's legendary competence it is the equivalent of Michael Howard singing "The Red Flag". Nevertheless since the crag was just down the road from the apartment it was only a few minutes work to rectify this gaffe and see Andy fully booted. A good crop of decent steep routes were racked up, capped by Andy flashing Ferry 2 6b which had an awesome technical fingery start.

Friday saw a return visit to La Poltrana where attention was focussed on the main bowl of the crag. This had dried out considerably since the first visit and this allowed the climbing of some of the big multipitch routes. A furtive scan through someone else's guidebook (definitely recommended as the Rockfax miniguide is very limiting) revealed some excellent continuation pitches to some of the lower routes. Nick started up Cucu in fine style only to discover that that two of the lower bolts had been chopped. With a flurry of Europhobic effing and blinding he persevered and completed the route cleanly. Clare and Cheryl meanwhile had adopted another stray animal, a cat this time, which perked up enormously when Cheryl fed it a can of tuna.

The departure time on Saturday meant it was not really feasible to go climbing so an early start was made in order to clean the apartment and have an early lunch in Alghero prior to departure. The only noteworthy event of the day was Andy finding that some incensed local had let down his tyres where he had left the car on a residential road close to Stansted.

Overall there was a feeling that Sardinia has a lot more to offer and that going to Cala Gonone only scratches the surface. There is a great deal of climbing there but it is a big place (approximately 1.9 Belgiums) with many windy roads and thus it would waste a lot of time driving to visit many outlying crags. It is definitely worth a return trip but it would be better to buy a more comprehensive guide and think of relocating to somewhere more central.