A damp forecast resulted in me bailing on a trip to Perth to climb with Mario. The five to six hour round trip for a possibly wet rock experience simply didn’t seem appealing. Instead of the excitement of going somewhere new, and as there was the promise of a dry’ish morning locally, Wilyabrup seemed a good plan. With a front edging our way I left Lisa to head to the beach for a plunge in the two plus meter swell, which I hear was “entertaining”. And I drove down preparing for the fresh to strong north westerlies, with gusts of up to 50km/hr. Some may consider standing at the top of a cliff in those conditions is not particularly safe. But I am sure that was not the reason I found myself going solo once more:
Being physced by the fingery crimping we enjoyed last weekend at Eaglestone Rock, I was keen for something similar. The only face that I felt could compare was Steel Wall, which conveniently also has a bunch of bolts along the top to set up anchors. And being as atmospheric as it was today, I made good use of these being tied in the whole time as I moved about along the edge setting up the ropes. I didn’t have much success with throwing the rope down, it blew horizontally and ended up resting on top of the crag to my left. So the raps down included needing to coil the rope, carry it down with me, and feed it out as I abseiled down:
It was a great choice, I love the lines on Steel Wall and the windy day resulted in the rock being super dry. While the rain fell out to sea, the humidity seemed to be really low resulting in every hold, including the small slopers, felling very grippy. I wonder if a couple of the images I have included might have people wondering why. The car keys were on the post as I arrived and reminded me of when I lost mine at The Roaches in England. It seems I made no reference to that unfortunate incident in my ditty about all my visits to that magical place. So below is a brief recount and I still don’t understand the logic of a certain individual:
My keys had a tag on them, so it was possible to get them back to me. Bear in mind this was decades back, so the tag was not electronic and mobile phones were yet to be a thing for the common folk. The individual who found them decided it would be better to take the keys home and then trace me, instead of leaving them somewhere obvious like happened today at Wilyabrup, or at café, pub, or police station just down the road. This decision resulted in hours of hunting all over the crag and eventually needing to have my car towed 300 plus kilometres home. I hope the owner of the keys in the first image has a less arduous and frustrating experience:
As I was wrapping up for the morning Mick rocked up with a couple of clients, so for convenience he made use of me to ensure the abseil line and top ropes actually got to the deck. It is always nice to catch up with Mick and I was of course happy to help. Other than seeing them I had the place to myself, which didn’t surprise me and suited me fine. If you look above I left Mick and his clients to it, allowing them to enjoy having the place all to themselves as I had. And now I should explain the image of the gloves. These had been left either by a group or some abseilers, I’ve never seen the need to use gloves myself so offered them to Mick. He was not interested so unlike the car keys I took these home where they ended up in the bin:
Heading out solo I generally climb pretty quickly, and it was only coming up to ten as I walked out. There have been a few news articles to suggest that the wildflower season in some more inland areas has been disappointing. So seeing I had finished early and would be driving past a couple of potential orchid sites, I thought well why not and I could check to see if spring had sprung into action at our local spots. I didn’t come across any first time sightings but as Elspeth from work said, when we spotted our first Cowslip (Caladenia flava) of the year, you have to celebrate the first sighting of the new season. That said I haven’t included any images of that Cowslip, nor the others of that species that I spotted today:
My first two images were taken at Ambergate, where I found a few orchids that were getting ready to flower. So for something different I have included images of the orchids I found that were just about to open up, as opposed to orchids I found in flower. The first image is an easy one to identify and there is nothing else like it, being a Rattle Beak Orchid (Lyperanthus serratus). However, the above one is not as straight forward. Definitely a Spider Orchid (Caladenia), but there are close to 140 species in the south west of Western Australia. Taking an punt, based on what I have found at this reserve before, I’d hazard a guess that it may have been a Swamp or Rusty Spider Orchid:
My next stop was way more mosquito ridden, and I do need to be careful as there are reports of Ross River Virus having been detected this year. At Ruabon Nature Reserve I had more luck with orchids in flower, finding both the Yalgorup Donkey Orchid (Diuris porphyrochila) and Kemerton Donkey Orchid (Diuris cruenta). Differentiated by the colours, with the former flower having generally less, if any, yellow and including a deep purple labellum mid-lobe. The flower of the latter is not as darkly coloured being more of a rust brown in colour, other than the yellow “ears” that are tinged rust brown. The colour and pattern of the back of the petals of the above orchid also gave the above one away, being a Purple Enamel Orchid (Elythranthera brunonis):
The bud of the above orchid looks a little like life rafts, but when opened up will become the very distinctive Flying Duck Orchid (Paracaleana nigrita). Duck orchids are often found alongside hammer orchids, this place is no different and below with its much taller stem is the King-in-his-Carriage Orchid (Drakaea glyptodon). So tall that I didn’t get a decent image with the bud and small heart shaped basal leaf. Last weekend when Howsie recounted details from a book he was reading, I suggested that the elbow orchids mentioned may have been hammer orchids as they have an “elbow” joint in them. That was the case, but since my find at Eaglestone Rock I now know there is an actual and completely different Elbow Orchid, and I am still wondering if I’ll drive all the way back to see it in flower in summer:
Sandbagged 