The banter

I see a variety of animals crossing, resting or at times sleeping on the road, as I drive out for a climb in the wee hours.  Kangaroos go without saying, but I also at times see emus, boobook owls, tawny frogmouths, phascogales.  Then there are the non-native rabbits, foxes, cats and on the odd occasion a cow or two that has escaped from their paddock.  Today however was the first time I have come across a white faced heron sleeping on the road.  Standing on the white lines on one leg, with its head tucked under its wing:

I simply had to double back to check it was OK, which it was.  I was a little surprised that it didn’t fly off as I approached it, merely walking off into the darkness.  This was a particularly unusual find, as they normal reside in and around anywhere with water in the day and roost in trees at night.  As I returned some eight hours later I saw no sign of the bird, so can only assume it was okay.  The only reason I can come up with for this find was that the heat of the last few days had knocked it about.  No doubt today’s cool change will have come as a relief to humans and animals alike:

Howsie had arranged to take Nadia, Marnie and Josh out for a climb.  Josh and Nadia had climbed a bit of late, but Marnie hadn’t been out for two years.  This meant there would be a bit of top roping going on, and I offered to help out along with Steve.  Not unexpectedly we were the only ones about, when we got there.  The cool change was indeed welcome and it had also bought some dampness about, with a predication that it might rain later.  Steve and I wasted no time and set up a couple of lines on the shorter routes to allow the others a gentle warm up:

With two lines up everyone had the chance to climb each route.  There was a lot of banter occurring, both catching-up and meeting and greeting.  On days like this it isn’t about clocking up the routes, I knew this but still had to reset my brain into a different approach.  This wasn’t too hard as Rongy, Howsie and my Friday morning trip up to Welly Dam had felt hard and I was still weary from that.  That morning was in complete contrast to today, it had been hot and muggy.  Conditions that had also brought on an onslaught of ruthless and relentless flesh ripping and blood sucking March Flies:

We then moved across to put up a line on both Hope and Glory.  This time Howsie and Steve led the lines and then set up a top rope on each.  With no prior knowledge of these routes Josh managed the two routes, with relative ease.  But he sadly managed to pull a bit too hard at one point, so is now nursing a sore shoulder that is hopefully not too badly strained.  Nadia romped up Hope, which was the one climb that she had in mind to have a go at today.  However, despite encouragement from all, except Howsie who was no doubt trying to stay neutral and in her good books, she declined to attempt Glory:

Marnie had a bash at both, and considering her two years away from rock did really well.  At the roof of Glory either her arms were not physically strong enough or her brain simply was telling her body this is silly.  It reminded me a bit of Alan’s noodle arm episodes, but with a rest or two she managed to overcome the overhang and romped at a steady tired pace up the rest.  Sadly there were no carpet pythons, nor discarded skins, to be seen on these two climbs.  I do wonder if due to all the traffic we see down here, whether they have decided to move on:

We had taken three sets of gear with us, so had enough to run a third line.  But as I said before it was a relaxed pace filled more with banter, which I have to say was flowing very freely, than climbing.  The urgency wasn’t there to keep three lines active, but I did drop a hint that Howsie might like to try a route I put up way back in 2011 that was conveniently next to where we had to top ropes set up.  It has the worse name of any of my routes.  Each name I thought of seemed to be already taken up by a climb on another crag in the South West, so maybe the name of A Pocket Full of Nothing puts people off trying it:

Since I put it up I cannot recall ever seeing anyone on it, nor have I seen any chalk indicating someone has been playing on it.  I’ve led it twice, and in truth it is a route that scares me but I didn’t tell Howsie that.  Where he has got to in the image above, you have to run out the gear on an off vertical wall with slopey holds.  It feel intimidating and pumpy and it is near impossible to see what is above you.  But Howsie enjoys a challenge, and while he battled against the route Nadia and Marnie decided it was time for a rest.  So they found a rock armchair to kick back on and watch the shows unfold above them:

Which Howsie performed in style, and not necessarily all in good style.  He dug very deep, taking at least four falls off the steep wall, and at times the strain in his face made it look like his head was going to explode.  Exhausted he finally conceded that he had to find another way up.  A traverse into and up the wide corner, was followed by a beached whale manoeuvre to make sure the delicate traverse back over the line was protected.  It was all a little comical and completely fitting for today, providing lots more fodder for the banter:

While all this was going on, the others cleaned the ropes and Steve and Marnie then went on to climb Orryjohn.  He had a mini-epic on the start of this route last time we were down, but today he seemed calm and collected.  It also seemed that Marnie’s arms had recovered from Glory and enjoyed another birthday climb.  The timing was great and we all met at the top.  There we found loads of people milling about all eagerly soaking up knowledge about climbing, as part of a training camp being run by the WA climbing association.  On the way back Steve and I reflected on the day and what stood out the most, and he was quick to reply with “the banter”: