Josh foolishly said he was up for an early start when we made plans to head out to Moses Rocks. He was however in luck, and being a Saturday morning I already had in mind to offer Lisa a lift to the beach, for her first light ocean dip, before heading out. I left her on the beach with the self-named Peppy Plungers, whose numbers were slowly dropping just like the water temperature. Driving to Capel for the agreed rendezvous with Josh, light had already crept into the sky. And it was another cold, crisp, can clear sky start to the day:
It has only been six weeks since I was last here, but the beach access had taken a noticeable change for the better. From the carpark it was previously possible, if you were that way inclined, to drive onto the beach. It is however a year round soft beach and I have seen a few people really struggle to negotiate the exit up the steep dune. Carving the place up and generally making a mess. So while those people may be upset with the work undertaken, I personally like the dune restoration that has limited the beach access to foot traffic:
A lone fisherman was packing up and walking off the beach as we walked onto it. Claiming that he was giving up because all he was doing was feeding the fish. This reminded me of when Lisa and Elseya used to fish of our local beach many year back. They used to refer to their trips as feeding the fish, and they never caught anything. The fisherman did however advise there was a big one out there, and sure enough as he pointed in the general direction the familiar top of a whale briefly rose above the water as it was migrating northwards:
Being the first of July, whale watching season has officially started. I was hoping to see one and the wind and swell conditions indicated that if they were out today we had a chance of seeing them. We watched this one make its slow paced journey in the opposite direction to where we were going for a while. Then a bit further along the beach stumbled across some unusual tracks. They had us a bit stumped as to what animal had made them, and I made a note to check them out when I got home. But for now our tracks took us to the rocks:
I asked Josh if he had any preference of routes, and he didn’t really mind but did say he had never climbed in the zawn. To make sure it would be safe today we sat at the top looking down, watching the waves come and go for a while. It certainly was not ideal conditions. The boulders at the base were all wet and green, and the base of most of the walls also looked slimy. However, the waves did not seem to be reaching the far corner, and as the tide was receding this could only improve. Josh was keen, and I didn’t need any extra encouragement:
Due to the circumstances our attention was drawn to the slab on the back wall. Offering generally lower grade routes and being accessible from the small corner that we huddled in, as we attempted to avoid getting wet. This we managed mostly, although Josh was severely sprayed just before he followed me up the first climb. Only the first three or so meters of the first and second climbs were wet, after which the wall dried up providing delightful climbing. The third line to the far left, was however slimy and sketchy for more than half the route:
As I fiddled the gear in at the start a couple of reasonable waves hit, and I spent the rest of the morning in wet shoes. But that is all part of sea cliff climbing and added to the experience we were both after, and had willingly had put ourselves in. After that slimy ascent we went down for one more, a steeper route up the side wall. Again accessible from our little nook, but certainly more challenging. As I sat atop that climb I hoped to see another whale, but the winds had picked up and the white tips of the waves made whale spotting near impossible:
As I struggled to spot any gentle giants, below me Josh’s arms were struggling with the steeper terrain. Digging deep and taking a slightly more meandering path, to allow a rest or two, he made his way up. It was however now time to leave the soggy zawn, and head to the main wall to get a couple more routes in. Here we stayed dry being high above the ocean, and for the last line the sun had swung round to the north. Just enough to bathe us in warmth and while lovely, despite the chilly start to the day neither of us had at any time felt cold:
Nearly every move of the last climb was accompanied with a grunt, and Josh was ready to accept that his arms were toast. While we never saw another whale, we were however more than happy with the fun routes we had played on. Plus, to our surprise we came across another set of tracks like the ones we had seen in the morning. Not completely convinced, but based on the paired larger rear prints being just ahead of smaller staggered front prints I reckon it was a Southern Brown Bandicoot (Isoodon obesulus):
Sandbagged 