First of its kind bouldering gym set to open doors in Toowoomba

A new gym – the first of its kind in Toowoomba – is set to help members reach new heights. Get a first look inside the exciting new facility here.

Daniel Cowling puts his bouldering skills to the test.

Like a lot of mothers Beth Cowling began her sporting journey as a passionate ‘sideline supporter’ of her son before getting more actively involved.

Unlike a lot of mothers her journey went a lot more vertical and will soon be the owner of an exciting new gym in Toowoomba.

Beth and her husband Christopher will open Climb Toowoomba, the Garden City’s first full size bouldering gym and one of the largest of its kind in south east Queensland, with 390sq m of climbable wall space in August.

“My son started climbing from a very young age and got into the competition side of things,” Cowling said.

“We followed along as parents do to different competitions and I ended up volunteering as a judge for Sports Climbing Queensland and Sports Climbing Australia.

“My husband works for a company in Harristown so we were constantly driving up from the Coast in school holidays while he works and my son was complaining there was nowhere to climb, so we decided to open up a space ourselves and give something to the community.”

It was the community that first enticed Cowling to try her hand at bouldering and she fell in love with the sport.

“You’re sitting in the climbing gym, spending hours there watching everybody else and someone just said hey why don’t you just get up and give it a go.

“I said no I can’t do that and then I thought you know what I can, let’s just give it a try, it doesn’t matter if I only climb once it’s a start.

“After that I just started using my time rather than going to the gym afterwards I would just climb what I could.

An artist's rendition of how Climb Toowoomba will look.

“We will have staff there to help, take people through an induction and training, but one of the great things is the community.

“If you’re stuck on a problem or not sure how to do something it’s a place where you can always safely ask the person next to you and they’re happy to help.”

With walls specially built by Climb ICP allow the gym to be a constantly evolving experience.

Climbs or problems as they are known in the bouldering space are set on walls up to 4.5m high with varying degrees of difficulty across the gym.

“One of the best things about the gym is we are trying to create a space for families to come together and do something fun and active,” Cowling said.

“We have easy problems right through to hard problems, there are seven different colour grades so we can have an easy climb right next to a hard climb.

“It’s what we call Beta in the climbing world – the Beta is how you complete a problem (climbing to the top).

“We have our route setters who come in and change the problem every week so a section of wall changes each week and we have a whole new gym over eight weeks.

“Their job is to set a problem for someone to figure out but you always find that young kids and older people won’t do it the way you expect them to, that’s called Beta Breaking and it’s absolutely amazing to watch.”

Climb Toowoomba is also a safe space for neurodivergent children and adults.

Early access memberships are now available.