Look whose birthday it was today (sorry Craig I just had to use that photo!), and seeing the sun had come out from behind the clouds for a day we also just so happen to have gone up to Welly Dam:
The initial reason for the trip was to meet up with Ali and Ben, they are from Perth but don’t hold that against them. I know Ben through work and seeing they were down our way we organised to meet up for a climb. As it was their first time at Welly Dam and seeing the main wall was in shade and feeling cold, we started on the carpark slab which provided a gentle introduction to the place:
After Ali walked up Old School Ben had a crack at B Young, which I thought we had given 17 after being bagged out for initially wanting to grade it 15. Just so happens I gave it a 16 in the guide, but now I wonder if the direct line it is even a tad tough at 17. No matter the rock was warm and dry and importantly we had fun on it:
With a few of us turning up with cakes there was plenty of sugar to keep us energised. So we climbed in-between drinking tea/coffee and eating good food. That said we did hit every route on the slab making the most of the sunny spot:
We kinda sprawled across the tarmac and being such a nice day had plenty of spectators who watched in fascination (or was it more wonderment of whether we had any brain cells) as we scaled the rock. Steve was happy as he managed to use his tri-cams on Irish Stew, before then following Lou up the fun little The Crack placing only two wires claiming there were no other placements yet when Craig led it and stitched it with six wires:
We were then forced to move to the dark side, and while it had warmed up a tad there was still the need to don jumpers and hoodies. I did notice that there was also a bit of disregard for safety as indicated by the tin pots that lay scattered on the ground rather than protecting our noggins. The sugar must have got to us:
The birthday boy found a perch to hang out on with his son and watch on while we continued to climb. Craig has not been out much lately and so after five or so climbs kicked back and relaxed. I was feeling kind and didn’t bag him out seeing it was his birthday, but that didn’t stop me cajoling everyone else:
Ben however as on fire, and it seemed that whatever route we threw at him he managed to climb in good style. He managed a clean lead of Block and Tackle going up the final moves via the left-hand variant that I personally find a bit too sketchy. So we then threw him onto Pocket Knife and he even managed to surmount the flake on-sight. We also had a play on Raging Torrent and A Walk in Central Park so were not too taking things too easy:
As with all good things they must unfortunately come to an end and as we ate into the afternoon people slowly headed off back home. But we were not sad as it had been a lovely relaxed sunny day and we were all feeling pretty pleased with ourselves:
Sandbagged 