Of course we got wet, the foot holds below the Overhanging Buttress are underwater, and we did use a couple of pegs on the Overhanging Bastion - this was to descend the overhang as we didn't know and couldn't see what was either below or round the corner. We usually roped for such routes, especially in winter, knowing only too well colleagues who'd been lucky to survive big waves - the winter sea is no place in which to go swimming off to France loaded with gear. And too much Christmas Pudding and booze the previous evening at Pete's place. You might say it was chickening-out of hanging around getting cold and damp and seeing Alvarez fighting up those extremely strenuous-looking overhangs. And with our Swanage traverse ( Traverse of the Gods) still in mind, we continued - and continued - and continued. So while waiting for Al to start climbing, we pushed round the corner to look. John recalls, ' the first pitch is overhanging and quite intimidating and we were freezing cold hanging around, so I shouted up to Pete asking what was round the corner. He set off upwards with Al Alverez belaying and Rusty Baillie and John Cleare were to follow as the second rope. It is New Year's Eve 1967 and Peter Biven is keen to show off his classic climb Moonraker to his friends. A little of Barnacle Traverse Continuation (F6b) and then the exhausted climber is faced with the monstrously overhanging White Rhino Tea (F7a) as a grand finale At its end you drop down into Cavewoman (F6c) with its pumpy traverse and claustrophobic exit up a calcite chimney. After a good rest and a stroll, it is on with Oz Wall Traverse (F6b+). To keep things safe the route drops down to join the later stages of Gluteus Maximus (F7a) and deposits the climber on Terminal Zawn ledges. Deliverance to the second half of Rainbow Bridge is via a rope bridge where the wild jug rail of The Wave Variation (F6c) awaits you. Magical Mystery Tour I (F6a+) is reversed into Rainbow Bridge (F7a+) and Look before you Leap (F6b) is down-climbed into The Cauldron (F7a+) sea cave.

Forty-two years in the making, this climb is a link up of ten existing climbs. Its history involves a cast list, which reads like a Who's Who of British sea cliff climbing. Like its namesake movie, The Wizard of Oz is a technicolor journey of an epic nature.

Rhino records wizard of oz