The Australian White Ibis (Threskiornis molucca) is by no means an uncommon bird. Once a wetland bird, it has learned to live in our urban jungles by scavenging food from our rubbish tips and bins. Thriving on what we throw away. This changed foraging approach, purely driven by our wasteful lifestyle, has earned it a number of unkind names including the dumpster diver, tip turkey, and most commonly known the bin chicken. That aside to see a flock of the size we saw driving out today was an unusual and impressive sight:
Admittedly the flock included the Straw-Necked Ibis (Threskiornis spinicollis), another of the three species of ibis native to Australia. Another quite a common bird to see, but unlike the Australian White Ibis they have not adapted to a wider variety of food and are only rarely opportunistic scavengers of our refuse. Despite a forecast of a hot day, we were not heading out early. The sun beat on our backs as we walked towards the coast. Aiming for a crag that like the Australian White Ibis does not get a particular good rap:
It is however something different, and as with every little crag we have along our coastline there are a few gems if you are prepared to give it a go. Today Sam, along with Josh, were prepared to do just that. Sam hadn’t been here before, but with the new mini-guides out he was able to get a feel for the place before we arrived. Nothing too tall and mostly straight forward climbing, has earnt the crag the name of Beginners Wall. A good place for those who are learning and those who don’t get out too often:
Having learnt better than to suggest he goes on second, while he gets his head back into things, Sam took the pointy end. Easing into it on a couple of the lower grade routes. Josh meanwhile seemed more than content to have a rope above him, hinting he may change his mind as the morning wore on. It didn’t. Not that Sam complained. He has a hankering for enjoying the added intensity of being in control of your own safety and having the rope below you. This is probably the crag I have come to the least, so needed to reacquaint myself with it:
There are several routes I have put up with the likes of Steve and Lou, and looking up at them I questioned the grades we gave them. Neither Sam nor Josh seemed inspired to jump on these, and as I am in sensible mode at least for another couple of months we passed them by. However, as we checked them out another possible line came to view, and so became Sam’s cherry popping first ascent shown above. Done in the best fashion possible, on-sight. Having no knowledge of what lay ahead as he climbed, so became Rope Cutter (11):
Just as he was about to get started, Josh bouldered up a scrambly line to get a bird’s eye view of the line Sam was about to attempt. Dislodging some rather large blocks that tumbled downwards. They missed Sam and me but nicked the rope enough to open up a small hole in the sheath. Not so much we couldn’t use it, but enough to encourage me to finally decide to retire it. After all it has seen a lot of action over a quite a few years. In fact, while I feel it is fine, I am surprised no one has suggested that maybe we shouldn’t use it anymore:
Unperturbed Sam lapped up line after line, as the routes I suggested progressively got trickier. We did however make sure we gave him the end of the rope that hadn’t been nicked. Seven lines down, and his arms gave way. By now all of us were happy to wrap it up. Although maybe not quite so happy to leave the sea breeze behind, as we started to bake the further inland we wandered. Another grand day out, and on my return I added some refuse to our bins but not the sort that would be of interest to any bin chickens:
Sandbagged 