This week has been glorious. Beautiful warm sunny days and all that was supposed to change as the weekend commenced. If I was a conspiracist, I would think that some higher being was purposely throwing the poorer conditions at us on weekends when the majority of the population don’t work. But I’m not and added to that, as Saturday approached, it started to look not too bad. The break of day was lovely, allowing me to start this post with a stunning sunrise image. Something that it feels like I have not done for a while:
Before leaving the house did one final check-in with Lisa, to make absolutely sure she didn’t want to head out for a wander. Sadly, however, she hasn’t been all that well of late and the energy and motivation levels just weren’t there. As I was driving into the sun I couldn’t resist taking another image of the glorious sun, which was just about all I could see and even putting the visor down didn’t help. The sun was still very low in the sky, as I headed east, which may provide a hint to the locals of where I was heading:
With Lisa not having been well this week, I felt like I was at a loose end in the evenings and ended up spending the last four evening watching the Olympics sports climbing. I simply have to mention the horrendous commentary that was provided, I mean you would think they would pick someone who understood the sport and could pronounce the terminology correctly and apply it at the right time. That aside it was fun to watch other than the speed climbing, which really doesn’t float my boat, and it inspired me to get out and crank hard:
The obvious place to do this was Welly Dam. I also chose this destination as one else was available to climb and it is easy to set the rope up here. On arrival I was a little surprised to find not a single port-a-loo but a whole row of them. I knew this place had been getting popular, but based on the amount of people I have seen here this felt a little over the top. It did however indicate that I would pretty soon find that I wasn’t going to be alone here. But for the first line at least it was quiet:
Another indicator that this place has been busy over recent months was the mob of kookaburras that flew in soon after I arrived, and I counted at least six. I have seen them here before but usually only one or two, I’m guessing that they have twigged that more humans means more food will be on offer. The humans did come, but only one car at a time and they all seemed to follow the same pattern. It started with them making not so subtle remarks of surprise and amazement that someone was climbing the cliffs, feeling the need to take an image of me:
They would then walk off to find a place to view the dam wall mural from, no doubt taking more images before returning to their car and driving off. I didn’t mind that one bit, while the Olympics sport climbing may have been a very popular spectator sport I’m never that keen on climbing in public places. With a wintery weekend forecast, it seemed that the visitor numbers were kept reasonable low today. But I feel that as the warmer months come on climbing here won’t feel the same as before, with the added crowds:
I mentioned that the Olympics had inspired me to go hard today. It’s easy being an armchair critic and warrior, telling the people on the screen that they need to try doing it this way or that. I was guilty of that. Even more so last night, as we had friends over and we seemed to be encouraging each other in the offering of advice to people who can no doubt climb so, so, so much harder, longer and better than we will ever be able to. My thought of going hard, was also in part encouraged by the thought of dry rock:
I had foolishly thought that a week of sun would have been enough to dry the place up. Of course it wasn’t and the first line I wanted to jump on was soaking. As were a few others I had in mind. The water from weeks of rain was slowly seeping out from the soil in the hill behind the crag, while the image above shows this I really took it because of the Fairy Wren. Some lines still had water visibly running down them, and on the first few dry looking lines the rock felt damp and cold. The perfect conditions to make you over grip, and make the climbs harder and more tiring than they should be:
I adjusted my sights a little. I still felt that I went reasonably hard, relatively speaking, with an average grade of a smidge over 20. I also stayed true and managed my usual solo trip target of six lines and climbing each one twice. After the last climb I coiled the rope and walked down, and could feel that I had done enough. Back down I came across the first people to stay and use the picnic area, a small group of elderly people who were sipping on a hot cuppa, and very politely one of them asked if I could do “one more climb please”. Normally I would jump at the chance for one more climb, but today I simply apologised and we settled for a little chat instead:
Sandbagged 