Stevie from Gozo Adventures is a world class climber. He’s climbed all over the globe from big walls to boulders and picked up some wild stories to tell his clients as he teaches them how to improve their technique. Without ropes or safety gear, he practically walked up the beginner routes at Mġarr ix-Xini, a stunning protected valley carved into the southwest of Gozo (Malta’s second island). He looked really cool.

Glancing down, the bright blue, half-egg-shaped helmet Stevie had laid at my feet did not look very cool. Now I hope you don’t think me vain, but knowing my first time climbing outdoors was going to be immortalised in this very magazine, I wanted to feel like a regular Adam Ondra (who had actually been climbing at Mġarr ix-Xini not long before I had). Instead, I felt like a toddler who’d been told to put a raincoat over their Halloween costume.

“You’ll probably be okay without it on these routes but it’s always better to have it,” said Stevie, making sure I was properly harnessed and tied in.

I relented and started up the wall. Searching for places to to put my feet and things to grab, a new sensation flooded over me. Long gone were the bright blues and oranges of my local climbing gym telling me exactly where to place my limbs. Climbing outdoors was a mental game and I was winning. Stevie kept reminding me to use my toes and find creative ways to twist my body into the cracks of the limestone, which, in reality, had an abundance of holds, but I felt like a codebreaker finding them anyway.

I wedged myself into a very beginner friendly chimney (chimney is probably too strong a word for it) and couldn’t seem to get my legs to straighten anymore. Whatever way I was trying to bend them, however much I wriggled, I couldn’t seem to move. My arms were starting to shake and I felt the impending doom of a fall approaching. Long gone were the nice blue mats of my local gym too, all I could see was limestone.

“Push! Push hard!” Stevie was shouting from the ground.

With as much strength as I could muster, I pushed all of my weight into my right foot and thrust myself up, arms reaching wildly for the next hold, when my head slammed into a piece of rock above me. The impact shivered down my neck and spine and for a minute I felt like a cartoon who had had an anvil dropped on them, the sounds of an accordion playing as I shifted my neck from side to side making sure I still could.

Stevie said nothing but I could practically hear him thanking God that he told me to put on the helmet. I could also hear my mum in the distant past telling me that I’ll catch a cold if I don’t wear my jacket and that my pink ghost costume was still very scary. I guess some lessons you have to learn twice.

Though I wasn’t in Malta to learn, or relearn, any of life’s great lessons, it’s hard not to be humbled in a place as old and storied. Peeking over the valley where I was climbing was the Rotunda of St. John the Baptist and its third biggest unsupported Cathedral dome in the world. There’s nothing like the austerity of 18th Century Catholicism to remind you when you’ve been an idiot.

Over the next few days, I’d come to know this unique blend of history, wildlife and adventure that Malta has to offer well. My bike rides and abseils were characterised by views of Neolithic temples and stories of ancient olive trees that leant them an air of mystery and exploration. Far from the day-trippers and sun-loungers, I started to appreciate the strangeness of trying new things in very old places.