By Louise Fisher
On the Queen’s Birthday weekend, after a week of miserable rain, the sun finally shone and over fifteen CAWA members made the journey down to Willyabrup to take full advantage. The group travelling in my car were entertained by the bouncing Buddha on the dashboard – until it drove Ross to distraction and was then cocooned in a sunglasses case. After that, entertainment was provided by the sat nav’s ignorance of the new highway. Arriving on Saturday morning things started slowly with one group warming up on Hope (14). Paula encountered the resident python but all anyone below heard as she yelled (shrieked?) was “take” so her close encounter was more prolonged than she would have liked. We later moved onto Inner Space (17) and Ang made her way up English Ethics (20) and Fat Chance (20).
Ross and Peter led One for the Road (19) and a couple of other lines before moving onto Storm Bringer, just right of Inner Space. Ross had some difficulty with the sequence above the second bolt (karmic revenge for the indignities Buddha was subjected to perhaps). Peter had better luck and a grade of 22 was agreed upon as suitable – tallying with previous chatter on the forums.
On Sunday the good weather continued and more climbers joined us. Phil led Stainless Steel and Sirius before moving on to a climb on Steel Wall that Kylie assured him was “around a 20”. They subsequently agreed that she might have underestimated that one somewhat. Ross and Dena sampled some of the more obscure delights to be found in the Stormcock area including High Reel (14) and Sombre (17/18).
Sunday night and Monday morning saw the rain return and so climbing plans were reluctantly shelved and a trip to the local coffee houses and wineries substituted before heading back to Perth.