The on again, off again traveller is back in town. So I won’t say this is the last climb in the south west of Western Australia before Rongy and Sarah hit the road. I have done that before and been proven wrong to many times. Plus we have made tentative arrangements to get out again on the weekend. After my last trip here with Howsie and Mikey I managed to aggravate my shoulder and I was resting it up. So for those that follow all my words you may be asking why am I climbing before my big trip, which was to start in just a few days away:
“Was to” being the operative words. It was not my shoulder that put paid to the trip, but Dan’s. Managing to dislocate his, while paddling on a surfboard to catch a small wave literally just a few days back. This meant we only had one fit and functional experienced sailor resulting in too much risk for our planned sail. The intention had been to sail eleven hours from Victoria to Deal Island in the middle of the Bass Strait. Anchor up and climb the big granite cliffs. So much bigger than what Rongy and I were climbing today at Moses Rocks:
I have literally just been chatting to Dan and we are already talking about next year’s trip to Deal Island. So in the words of Johnny Logan ‘What’s another year’, and Dan and I can treat this proposed trip a bit like the last one we had planned for April 2020. That was delayed by two years to the day because of COVID, but we got there in the end. There seems to be a running theme here, a bit like Rongy and his goodbyes, that aren’t really goodbyes. That was a lot of words to say I’m back on rock, after what has felt like a long break:
It was in fact only eighteen days since I had touched rock. The twinges from my shoulder had subsided, and I felt risking a climb would be OK. And it was. Although there was one climb I decided not to follow up, due to the physically demanding nature. Being the one below and my most recent creation here, called The Bunyip. This was probably only the second ascent, and Rongy agreed the grade of 19/20 seemed reasonable. Putting to bed the discussions on the day of the first ascent with Craig, Howsie, and Ash that it was another sandbag route:
Today we were climbing on Rongy’s gear, as I had lent my rack and ropes to Dan and Jo. They were over for a family Christmas and had all headed south, where they intending to get a one day’s climb in the mighty south coast. Dan managed to pop his shoulder before they went climbing, rubbing a bit more salt into the wound. But this did mean I got to help christen Rongy’s latest acquisition, a set of five C3 cams that he got for a steel. I even managed to climb two routes only using his new shiny gear, hopefully I didn’t scratch it up to much:
Despite not being as tall as the up to 150m high granite cliffs on offer on Deal Island, which has been placed on hold. Moses Rocks, or more precisely the section called Rumpoles Rocks, was good to us today. We had a thoroughly enjoyable time, and even spied yet another possible first ascent. I sadly jumped on it as the last climb of the morning and didn’t have enough gumption left to pull the moves over the roof, so missed the on-sight glory. At least we now know it goes, so I’ll hopefully be back in the not too distant future to bag that one:
Sandbagged 