At Chimera, our gym has a range of different routes (also known as problems) to climb, from beginner through to advanced. These are colour coded to make it easy to spot the right routes for you. So, there is something for everyone, no matter what your ability or starting fitness level. It’s a lot more fun than running miles and miles on a treadmill.
Climbing is great for strength building, improving balance, flexibility and co-ordination. But the best part is you are doing all that in a fun, social environment, whilst having a laugh with like-minded people.
The best thing about climbing is that there is always someone on hand to offer a bit of advice and help you go from novice to pro in no time. The mats are a really friendly place, and before long you’ll have your own crew to climb with and have forged life-long friendships.
No expensive gear is needed - you can easily rent shoes from reception. Turn up, watch a short safety video and you are good to go.
Go on, give it a go, give yourself a push and you could be amazed at what you are capable of. Open 10am - 10pm in the week, and 9am - 6pm at the weekends. If you want to save time at the centre, pre-register online here.
New to bouldering? Don’t worry - everyone was new once. Bouldering is climbing without ropes over safety matting and is a fantastic way to get fit, build some muscles and have fun. No need for an induction, just turn up and climb. At the weekends, while adults are welcome at any point, the quieter times are once the kids clubs have ended at 2pm, so if you are looking for a bit of peace and quiet, try and arrange your visit for the afternoon.
All three walls are open seven days a week. Monday to Friday, they all open at 10am and shut at 10pm. At the weekend, Canterbury opens at 8am until 6pm, while Chatham and Tunbridge Wells open at 9am until 6pm.
There are restricted opening hours for under 12’s - they can climb until 6pm in the week and 2pm at weekends.
Bouldering is a type of rock climbing. It is where you climb smaller walls or rocks without a rope. Instead, there are big crash pads under you in case you fall.
Yes, absolutely. Everyone over the age of five can come and climb. We do have strict supervision ratios though. One adult can supervise two kids, but if the adult wants to climb they can only supervise one child. Everyone under the age of 16 needs to be supervised, and everyone under the age of 18 needs their waiver signed off by an adult.
You don’t need any previous climbing experience to supervise kids.
Loose, comfy clothing is best - any sports clothes or baggy jeans or leggings.
Yes absolutely, the more the merrier. To save time we suggest you pre-register if you haven’t been before which you can do by clicking the link here. Other than that, turn up and have fun!
Yes! You can traverse to get started (climbing along rather than up) and when you feel more confident you can start to climb a little higher each go. You don’t have to get to the top, you can just practice one move at the bottom until you feel comfortable.
Primarily, routes are categorised by colour so stick to the easier colours (yellow, orange, purple) to get you going. Once you are a pro, you can look at the grading chart for each wall via the TopLogger app - we use the Fontainebleau grading system at Chimera.
Yes we do. Please click here for the Ukrainian and Russian translations of our rules.
"What a great place. The staff really make it as they are so welcoming, helpful and enthusiastic (especially the Aussie chap!). Really nice atmosphere, busy but not overly, able to climb all the routes as and when. What I really liked was watching some awesome climbers do their thing then give it a go myself whilst a 5year old was zipping up the wall next to me. I'm not looking forward to how the body feels tomorrow but really glad I went and would definitely recommend and go back."
Tunbridge Wells Centre
