We came across the same hairy caterpillar, which I spotted at Bob Hollow a few weeks back, on the path into Wilyabrup. Sadly Howsie was not able to assist with identifying it, as I told him of my struggles the last time when I spent well over an hour trying to research it. That said one thing I am fairly sure of, is that despite the intricate and colourful patterns it does not mean that it will necessarily transform into a beautiful butterfly. As with many things in life, making assumptions can lead to the wrong conclusions:
Butterflies like their less endeared relatives, moths, belong in the insect order Lepidoptera, which means “scaly winged” in Greek. Unlike the adult stage of life, when in their larva stage the features of a butterfly and moth caterpillars seem to be interchangeable. In Australia out of the hundred odd families in this order only about half a dozen are butterflies, and the rest are moths. And while not relying on these statistics to reach my conclusion, from the species I did find during my research I’d hedge my bets and suggest it is likely to be a moth caterpillar:
Of course once an adult there are a number of easy ways to identify a moth from a butterfly. The most obvious visual cue being the way if holds its wings in the resting position, but also the fact that butterflies are diurnal (active during the day) and moths are generally nocturnal (active at night). On a similar theme, because I climb people often feel I should be able to rattle off a heap of pull-ups without breaking a sweat, and that is another incorrect assumption. This week Lisa managed to convince me to join her for what she calls a shed session:
This incorporates lifting weights and doing body resistance training, working our legs, core and upper body. Now while I can do a few pull-ups, as I have always called them, I can certainly not do heaps. And of all the exercises we did, this was the one that hit me the hardest. I change my grip when I do sets of pull-ups and it was not until I started this post that I found out the different grips provide two different exercises, called of pull-ups and chin-ups. For the first your palms face away from you and for the second they face towards you:
While I didn’t know the name changed, I was certainly aware of the different muscles groups each works. Something I believe is important to be conscious of as you do weights or resistance training, allowing you to focus on the right muscles and sense how they feel to avoid going too far. But you may be asking why, with all the climbing I do, am I not able to do more. Quite simple really. I don’t do much really steep climbing, such as the overhanging limestone cliffs of Bobs Hollow, and I use a lot of core and footwork allowing me to transfer the weight to my legs:
Something Craig is illustrating quite well in the above video, however as I started to form this post in my mind that wasn’t going to the reason for including the video. My original intention was to give you an idea of just how noisy the wind was. We took a punt today and it paid off, while the wind was up we watched the bands of rain hitting the coast to the north and south of us as we enjoyed dry rock, and the sun when it did pop out. Below Craig is huddling not because he is cold but due to his forearms being in pain after following up the line I led:
Both Craig and Howsie don’t get out as much as I do, so it was to be expected that their arms would tire before mine. As such I let them tell me which lines to climb, allowing them to enjoy routes they wanted to do with the safety of a rope above them. My first climb was a ripper with great exposure, being the video, that they both thoroughly enjoyed. My second was a more sustained and harder route. And it was that one that resulted in Craig cradling his arms, and Howsie cursing himself as his arms gave way part way up the route:
I suggested Howsie find a comfortable armchair and kick back, and once Craig’s arms had recovered enough I belayed him on the last line of the day. And as we have so often before we finished up Hope with packs on. It was lucky three of us were out. The wind made it impossible to use audible cues to advise key safety messages. And on some climbs when you reached the top the belayer was not visible. Today the third person helped in that regard by being able to move away from the base of the cliff and use visual cues to communicate. And when it comes to safety in climbing, that is something you really should not make assumptions about:
Sandbagged 