Welcome to the show

Being the last weekend of the school holidays there was every chance the roads would be chockers.  Meaning that later in the day the cars would slow to a snail’s pace, as the throngs of holiday makers head back up to Perth.  So it made sense to pick a place to climb that was closer to home and would also avoid us travelling in the same direction as all the people heading home.  The obvious place was Welly Dam and despite not arriving till seven, I didn’t see any cars at the mountain bike trails nor at the quarry when I arrived:

There was however this strange object, which wasn’t there the last time we climbed here.  I just assumed it was a bar for kids to play on, but Dan suggested it was maybe a bike rack although not the sort that either of us had ever seen before.  I was also a little confused by the inscription on the two sides, Wambenger Trails.  Having looked it up, it seems this the name for the trails round Collie and it means brush-tailed phascogale.  A small native marsupial that is supposed to be relatively common around Collie, but it is also a bit of an elusive creature:

I’ve seen them a couple of times before round where we live.  They are mostly carnivorous and quite ferocious when they hunt.  While the phascogale is so much smaller than a chicken they have been known to go for them, which is possibly why they visited our place in Capel where we had ducks and chickens galore.  Steve was driving down from Perth to join us but early on car trouble struck with a coolant hose bursting.  He wasn’t in his usual car in which he would have had a wide selection of things to help fix the problem:

However, being the ever resourceful fella he is he did have climbing tape, and that was enough to seal the hole well enough for him to make the journey back home.  This was the shorter distance and more sensible option.  So it was up to Dan and myself to bag a few routes, with less rests in-between climbs than we would have had if Steve had made it.  I kicked things off running up Raging Torrent, a climb that is poorly understood and as such gets a bit of a bashing on the climbing website called The Crag.  My reward was not only enjoying this fine line but also finding a few orchids at the top of the face:

Several patches of Common Donkey Orchids were in bloom, and a bunch of sun orchids were getting ready to blossom.  This resulted in a slight interlude, as I scrambled up to inspect the local flora before Dan got to climb.  While he has climbed here a fair bit he really couldn’t recall any of the routes, so when it was his turn he went for one that looked fun without really knowing what it was.  Just Do It was a good choice, and while there was a bit of wet rock next to it the line was dry.  In fact the whole place is finally starting to dry up after a wet winter, so wet that some people thought the reservoir would fill up and dam would spill.  When this happens it is quite spectacular:

Unless we get a very wet October, which isn’t looking likely, there won’t be enough flow left this season to fill the dam and allow it to spill.  The last time that happened was back in 2014.  That said August was particularly wet and there was a huge inflow from the rivers, and now the reservoir is sitting at a healthy 91% full which is more than any year since 2014 (https://www.watercorporation.com.au/Our-water/Rainfall-and-dams/Dam-levels/Wellington-Dam).  Talking of not filing up, I had just climbed A Walk in Central Park and it was nine thirty, and we still had the place to ourselves.  The last few times I’ve climbed here, the place was getting pretty crowded by this time:

Dan’s stamina isn’t what it used to be, mostly due to a lack of contact time on rock resulting from COVID restrictions over east.  So he was very grateful when the kettle went on to make a cuppa, allowing him to reset his energy levels.  This seemed to work a treat and for his next lead he bumped up the grade and made clean work of Pole Voltz.  Thoroughly enjoying the less powerful and more delicate and technical climbing it offered.  Just to the left of this route is a rambling line Steve had been keen to lead today.  This is his own creation called Scraggly Daggly Do, and follows an easy blocky crack line.  Dan and I passed this line up leaving it for Steve to enjoy next time:

On top of Pole Voltz I spotted more sun orchids, and this time they were in bloom allowing me to identify them as the Scented Sun Orchid.  All round there were heaps of flowers out and as I drove back home today the air was filled with the perfumed scent of the acacias.  This made me think that Lisa and I should head up this way to hike round one of the trails in the next week or two.  Before it gets too hot and dry, and the orchids start to disappear.  It was my lead next and as we both seemed to be climbing well, and also due to Dan raising the bar, I jumped on Red Alert:

For most but not all the routes today we pulled the rope through after each lead, allowing us both to jump on the floppy end.  It was as Dan was setting off after me that the number of people arriving started to increase, and one group in particular was fascinated with what we were doing.  So much so that Dan may become Facebook or Insta famous, as several of them videoed and photographed his prowess on rock.  They also posed in the foreground so they too could be part of the social media fame, should it come.  I took a couple of sneaky images of them just prove I’m not making this up:

This is the kind of thing that has dampened the lure of Welly Dam for me this year.  To avoid this occurring it is best to get here early, climb hard and fast and leave before the tourists arrive.  Fortunately today the place never got too crowded, at least not to the same standard of other trips this year.  For our last route Dan jumped on T3 and he was again being keenly observed and recorded, but when it was my turn the people still about left us to do our thing while they did theirs.  While this influx of people isn’t great the climbing still is; so while I may bellyache about them I’ve no doubt we will come back here again soon: