It has been four years since Lisa has been to the homelands, and today a long overdue trip back came to fruition. I dropped her off in Capel to catch the bus. And within a minute of the bus having left, Josh and Rongy rolled into the carpark. Rather than head straight home, and seeing I had taken the entire day off, I took advantage of the opportunity to get an afternoon climb in. We decided on somewhere easy to get to and with a few routes that would be suitable to continue to ease Josh into leading:
It was an obvious choice, and a place I haven’t been too for a wee while. Indeed it has been more than a year, at which time I came here with Jamie and Tomski. Since that last trip Meelup Regional Park has been ravaged by a bushfire. That was in January of this year, and the scars are still abundantly obvious. This does however allow a very clear view of the ground on either side of the path in, and as I looked at some spent orchids Rongy spotted very fine above specimen. An Autumn Leek Orchid (Prasophyllum parvifolium), a species endemic to the south-west of Western Australia:
Normally as we walk towards the crag, the inland side is shrouded in bush. The blackened branches are still standing, but it looked bare and also felt a little strange being able to scramble over to the other side without battling against the scrub. Our rationale for starting on the southern face, in the shade, was that we would save the northern face for later so we could climb in the sun as it went down and cold crept in. There are a few stiff lines here that always catches Rongy and my eyes, but we avoided being drawn in by them and instead eased into the climbing:
Rongy had no memory of climbing the short but fun, wide bottomless cracks. They are very memorable as below them the ocean will often be lapping away. Today the swell was enough to only allow access to the most landward crack system, and only then because there was a convenient large boulder from which it was possible to step into the crack. This time of the year, and with the moisture that hangs about, these crack can house thousands of small flies. I have no idea what flies they are, and while they do no bite it is not overly enjoyable having a thick cloud of them swirling round you as you climb (as shown above):
Despite the close encounters Rongy enjoyed the line, as did Josh who also liked his first experience of Castle Rock, well rock. It is once again different to other places in our little corner of the continent. Despite the monotony of rock type that can be experienced across vast expanses of Australia, down our way we have a surprising variety of rocks. This fine grained granitic gneiss isn’t the same as the gneiss of Moses Rocks, not just lighter in colour but it also does not have the same distinctive banded pattern that can distinguish gneiss from granite:
This rock also has some stunning fluted formations not found elsewhere, that can be seen on the face in the image below. Smooth, rounded features that on the steeper territory demands an unusual, for the area, and powerful climbing style. It is these steeper lines that usually draw Rongy and myself in, but today we mostly stayed on the easier angled terrain. Above I, like Rongy, jumped on a line I have not led before. Lou who may not get out climbing again, having lost her way due to burying herself deep in books and research papers, could have claimed the first ascent on the line:
She/we didn’t record her ascent of the line, way back. And subsequently someone else came along, picked the line off, and published their ascent as the first (known) ascent. The climb has a feisty start for the grade, so just goes to show how well Lou was climbing at the time. Josh found the start tricky, but was put off and came down full of optimism for a lead himself. The obvious line being the one I sent Tomski up, some fifteen months previously. Josh had to focus his mind to get up the route, but climb it he did:
As he and I sat atop the crag, with Rongy climbing below us, we were rewarded with a birds eye view of a large seal making its way northwards along the coast. So close to the shore that if we were stood on the boulders we had started our afternoon of climbing on, we may well have been able to touch it. Rongy missed out, but it was his turn to lead next and he picked one of the routes on the steeper wall, with plenty of large rounded holds that make you work hard to hang on. A tad too much for Josh, so he saved himself for what was to come next:
That included moving round to the northern side, to enjoy a couple more relaxed lines in the setting sun. Our theory seemed good, as the air temperature started to drop, but the lowering sun didn’t offer too much warmth. It was my lead next so I picked off one of my routes, which for a while perplexed Josh as he made his way up. He got up, however his brain, or maybe it was his tiring body, was telling him he had reached his limit. So as Rongy set of for one lucky last lead, Josh headed off to the water to keep up his tradition:
Lisa was about to board the plane as Rongy started up his route, so he gave her a last wave goodbye. Then continued heading up Lou’s favourite climb, which makes me think that we can maybe tempt her out again with the promise of climbing this line. Rongy went up as the sun went down below the horizon, and the air temperature dropped again. But I doubt it was as cold as the water, judging by the gasps and other noises coming from the water’s edge as Josh gingerly made his way into the ocean, and then rather quickly back out:
Sandbagged 