April at Mt Arapiles and in The Wimmera

It’s been eleven days since we last checked in on the ninth of April, when it was raining quite steadily. It's been pretty dry since that wet couple of days, but the grass in the campground here at the lake has responded to the moisture in the soil. Here's a photo showing the edge of our camp set-up merging with the surrounding environment ...

We’ve had an interesting time with a mixture of action and inaction and adventure and (a slight) misadventure. We’ve farewelled our friends Justin, Stu, Bob and John, took a hike around an obscure section of Mt Arapiles, pushed the pedals of our bikes to The Mount and back, had a drive to the Grampians - witnessed once again the power of wildfire - and done some climbing.

The day after our previous post, rain was forecast and threatened all morning without producing anything. We decided to take a punt and headed over to The Mount in the middle of the afternoon. Happily, the rock was dry so Di elected to lead a lovely, long pitch called Skylark, which we’ve done a number of times. It’s consistently good climbing with abundant protection and goes on and on for a whopping fifty-five metres. Graded 16 (about 5.7 in the YDS grading scale) it’s one we highly recommend. I followed that with a route called Greasy Burritos, which our guide calls “worthwhile” and “not as slippery as it sounds”. It doesn’t get a star but is a fun little twenty-eight metre route. One thing about the brilliant select guidebook that Glenn Tempest and Simon Mentz have produced for Mt Arapiles is that every climb in it is worth doing. We thought that was enough for the day and, with a promising forecast for the next day thought we’d save some energy.

The next morning looked decidedly gloomy but we thought we’d head over to The Mount with the expectation that it would clear up. Just as we got out of the car a light drizzle started to fall so we thought we might as well have a walk. Justin, Stu, Bob and John had arrived a bit earlier than us as it was their second-last day of climbing before heading home. We spotted them on The Atridae as we wondered past. In the photo below Bob is the figure at the top left, setting up his belay at the top of Hell For Leather (John is at the bottom); at the top right Justin is belaying Stu, who is following him up Surface To Air ...

The Atridae

On we wandered, climbing a little pinnacle along the way ...

... discovering that even this obscure bit of rock had some routes on it and even an old descent anchor still in situ ...

Yes, the photo is the right way up! (You can tell by the grass at the bottom.) The anchor has been used to rappel down to rig climbs below, and has a rope attached as a hand rail for getting off the back.

It was fun finding little bits of easy rock to scramble over along our way ...

When you wander around off the beaten track a little, you realise how The Mount is really one big, complex warty lump of rock with endless nooks and crannies. Here’s Di standing on another open slabby section between small bits of scrub ...

Yes, there is a bit of soil clinging to its surface which grow some sizeable trees. We loved the way this one had found its little niche and even large branches resting on the ground were still leafy and green ... 

But it’s a tenuous proposition. Those bigger trees have deep routes but much of the vegetation on The Mount springs up when a good season comes, only to wither and die a few years later after the normal dry patterns re-establish themselves. 

Here’s another view from the shoulder of The Mount.  The Bluffs are visible on the left, with Wimmera wheat fields spread out below ...

Our haphazard route took us out to the summit road. The Power of Growing Things presented itself in the form of this mushroom pushing its way up through the hard-packed road gravel right on the edge of the tarmac ...

We decided this bit of an excursion would be enough exercise for the day and we could happily spend the rest of it reading and relaxing back at camp. Lovely!

The next couple of days brought beautiful weather and we had a great lot of fun, climbing the moderate classic Kaiser/Resignation via a harder variant we hadn't done before, followed by a trip to the summit to do three pitches. Here's Di following the first pitch of an easy but delicious route called Touchstone ...

... and then leading up towards the divergent finishing pitch Touch Type ...

She's about to move up and slightly right for a neat little bit of thin climbing past a couple of bolts. The regular route continues more or less straight up before moving gradually left to the top left corner of the buttress to finish. We just had to rappel back to the ledge I'm belaying from in this photo to do that pitch as well.

 The next day we took time out to go to Horsham for a bit of shopping and get the washing done before getting back on the rock the day after. We decided to explore the Heckle/Jeckle area with a New Zealand couple who were camping next to us and we'd become friendly with. None of us had been to this area  before and we were having a good time until our fun was brought to an unexpected halt. 

While I was pulling a rope though a top anchor, a rock in the crack was dislodged and came down about ten metres, hitting Di on the foot. Although the blow itself hurt, Di didn't feel too bad and was happy to continue climbing at first, so we did another couple of routes. However by the time we finished those she was very sore and I was worried that she might have broken something so we headed off to the Wimmera Base Hospital in Horsham. After a reasonably short wait in Emergency, Di had X-Rays which suggested that nothing was broken. (WHEW! A lucky escape.) The doctor told her that she should keep weight off it as much as possible for the next 48 hours, with elevation and ice for good measure. It was pretty bruised. Here's a photo of the underside of the foot where the bruising has drained to ...

We had a quiet time around camp the next day: Di with her foot up, duly iced; me with the job of keeping the caged bear happy!

The next morning we decided to take a trip to the Grampians. We wanted to see how extensive the fires were that had gone through in January. It was a very sobering experience. Here's a view across to Hollow Mountain, which was pretty much the epicentre of the fire ...

Remarkably, the dwellings  and outbuildings in the small settlement of Wartook seem to have escaped unscathed in this maelstrom ...

Some areas were totally scorched ...

... while other spots show a bit of greenery still clinging to otherwise obliterated trees and shrubs ...

The Australian bush is well adapted to fire, however. The next two shot show the regeneration that is already underway ...

Di felt she was up to getting back on rock again after her two days of invalidity, so we headed off to do a long easy climb that we hadn't done before. She was very pleased to find that she was moving well and it wasn't hurting her to put weight on her foot. We had quite a long day out in the end and by the end of it the foot was getting a little sore again.

Not wanting to push our luck, we decided to have another quiet day yesterday. We managed to have a Skype with our grandkids in Cairns and another with my brother in Winnipeg before heading to Horsham to get a couple of things. Di needed a new pair of pyjamas and she wanted to see if we could get a hot water bottle for those colder nights in the camper trailer. We got home in time to have a gentle bike ride, with a coffee in Natimuk on our way back. Here's the route we took, with the elevation profile at the bottom:

It looks hillier than it is: the total elevation gain and loss over the thirty kilometres of our ride was actually only 150 metres! The colours of the paddocks make very interesting viewing. You might notice that the "Imagery Date" is 4/4/2013, so almost exactly a year ago. This suggests that autumn last year was a lot wetter than it has been so far this year. Mt Arapiles is the lumpy bit at the left end of our loop, where we zigged and zagged a bit over bush tracks.

We had a good day out today, doing another climb we hadn't been on before: Oedipus Rex. The guidebook says "the superb first pitch is both embarrassingly tricky and seriously run-out". Di did a great job leading this pitch and did find quite a lot of gear - no doubt modern protection works better in some places than what was around when this climb was first put up way back in 1968.

The route finishes with a strenuous pull through a roof, and Di got this series of photos of me coming to grips with it ...

Sorry, there's no photo of me pulling up over the lip: Di decided it would be good to attend to her belaying duties at this point!

Finally, here's a photo she took while I was dismantling the final belay at the top ...

Hi Mom!

The Natimuk Market was just packing up as we came through town and we managed to grab a few goodies to bring home to camp. Another fine day playing hooky in the Wimmera. And that's about it for now ...

Cheers

Doug and Di

Wet Weather Blogging!

Wednesday 9th April

It’s wet here in the Wimmera. Although we don’t get exact data from the Bureau of Meteorology for Natimuk, 13 millimetres of rain fell in Horsham yesterday. It hasn’t yet rained this morning but the Bureau is is calling for “rain at times”, and my Weatherzone Plus app says it is 90% likely - with between 10 and 20 mm of wetness supposed to drop from the sky. 

Don't you just love technology?

An aside before going further. In an earlier post I forgot earlier to include a photo from when we did our bike ride in Moruya. On the way to Congo we noted a whimsy of locals: nailing teddy bears to trees. Here’s an example:

Crimes Against Teddy Bears

We don’t plan to climb today. And we may be looking for alternatives the next few days as well if the BOM has their modelling right:

Not to worry. There's plenty of time left to get on those climbs we want to do before leaving. One of the good things about being retired and on the road is that you don’t have to fit in your fun around work and “Home Duties”. If something - like the weather - gets in the way of immediate plans, you just wait a while. 

Something that we find so remarkable about being in this part of the country is the way grass sprouts so quickly when rain comes, and the way the some of the eucalypts burst so suddenly into flower. It can be quite a transformation over just a few days.

And, as if by magic, the bird life changes accordingly. Already there are more rosellas around camp than when we arrived five days ago. Di is sure the lorikeets will also arrive in numbers over the next few days, when those eucalypts come out in flower. Going by past experience she’s probably right. Incidentally, as I sit composing this, the Long-billed Corellas are swarming around the camp with their charming sociability, and the rain has just started to fall again. Maybe that is what is making the corellas so talkative.

The other day Di took a stroll down by the lake and took a few photos. Here’s one of the corollas:

Not the best photo, but I wanted to show the long, curved beak.

And here is a pair hanging out amongst their mates ...

The last time we were here there were plenty of Black Swans swimming in the lake. They’re still here but now their standing their ground ...

That photo makes it look like there's still quite a lot of water in the lake. The panorama that Di took testifies otherwise ...

That panorama covers quite a distance and when I looked closer I could see some folks out on the lake bed, a photo in a photo so to speak ...

For those of you who are interested, that's Mount Arapiles in the background. Di took these photos the day before yesterday and we haven't seen "The Mount" since.

Unfortunately the rain is unlikely to be enough to restore the lake level to what it was in 2011-12, when there were people wind-surfing, water-skiing, fishing and even sailing. It probably needs to get back up over the 2 metre level mark on this gauge for that to happen ...

This old behemoth of a tree stump ... 

...was mostly submerged when we were here after the big wet in 2011. A year later it was still in the water but by autumn of last year it was just at the water's edge. Now the water is probably 100 metres away. What's that white stuff draped over the right end? Well, it's actually wool, and strewn across this part of the dry lake bottom there are large patches of wool laid down perhaps 10 - 20 mm thick. This is the lee shore of the lake and it appears that the wool has been blown here across the lake and collected. Yes, there are a lot of sheep around this area, although the Wimmera is mostly known for the growing of wheat.

On previous trips we haven't noticed Royal Spoonbills here before, but there are plenty of them scouring the lake as well. So far Di hasn’t managed to get a close enough photo to include; hopefully we’ll be able to post one before we leave here. We also hope to make some photos of Freckled Ducks, which are currently populating the lake. Phil at the Arapiles Mountain Shop tells us that the lake is closed to shooting because of the presence of those ducks, which are protected due to their endangered state. Although it's a worry that the Freckled Duck is endangered, we are very pleased that there is no shooting here this year. We found it quite confronting last year, especially with the number of guns that were still going off when it was almost pitch dark.

In camp itself, along with the Long-billed Corellas there are Willy Wagtails, Superb Wrens and Crested Pigeons in abundance.

Here's a photo of a Crested Pigeon (not one of the best due to low light levels, but taken just beside the camper):

Crested Pigeon

Just after I started typing this, Di came back from visiting Justin, Stu, Bob and John - friends from Hobart - who are staying in one of the cabins here at the lake. They have a limited time so they thought they’d head over to The Mount to see if they could get a climb in. Sure enough, as if just on schedule, the rain started to fall almost immediately after they left. And it’s still falling. Which reminds me. We are very fortunate with the quality and quanitity of information produced by our national Bureau of Meteorology. Recently Evan, our son-in-law in Cairns, alerted me to their latest annual report on the state of Australia’s climate. Pretty technical, but some of the graphs are very interesting. Highly recommended.

Speaking of climate reporting, I was gobsmacked to read in the Mercury online yesterday an opinion piece bagging our current government’s head-in-the-sand stance on climate change. It wasn’t so much the facts themselves - everyone who pays much attention knows that Abbott and co don’t want to know - but the fact that The Mercury would print such a piece at all, let alone so prominently. Our little Hobart paper hasn’t been know to expose the weaknesses of Australia’s right when it comes to issues of social justice and environment in particular. I wonder if there is a new editorial policy in place.

It’s about time for me to wrap this up. We’ll head out for a walk in the rain and see what the birds are doing, then come back and have some lunch. It would be fun to potter around on the bikes too, but that isn’t going to happen today. The reason: I didn’t think to cover the saddle of my bike with a plastic bag before the rain started falling yesterday morning and we headed off to town.

A little while later ...

We had our walk. The lads returned from The Mount without getting in a climb and decided to use their time in some rescue review ...

It's after lunch now and Di is having her "Nana Nap". I'm dreaming of climbing other places - like Red Rocks in Nevada. We did a great route there in 2005 called Dream of Wild Turkeys (via a 2 pitch variant called Yellow Brick Road) on the Black Velvet Wall. Di took this photo of me about 2/3rds of the way up...

What brings this fabulous place to mind is that our friends HJ and Tammy were just there, and did another wonderful route called Crimson Chrysalis on Tammy's 44th birthday. (What a great way to celebrate a birthday, eh!) It's said that it "could quite easily be the best 5.8 in all of Red Rocks". HJ sent a few photos,  including this beauty ...

That's about it for this post. Hopefully we'll have done some climbing locally rather than just in our imaginations the next time ....

Small Town Memorials

Does the title of this post ring a faint bell for you? In trying to come up with something to get me started, I realised that the major theme of the past three days has been small towns. Passing through, stopping here and there. We deliberately took a longer route to get to our destination, partly to get off the main roads, partly to see some places we hadn't been through before. So, we passed through lots of small towns.

Getting back to the title, when I first met Di she had a slim volume of poetry on her bookshelf by Geoff Page.  Here is the eponymous poem of that memorable little book, published in 1975:

Smalltown Memorials

No matter how small

Every town has one;

A few names inlaid;

More often full-scale granite,

Marble digger (arms reversed),

Long descending lists of dead:

Sometimes not even a town,

A thickening of houses

Or a few unlikely trees

Glimpsed on a back road

Will have one.

1919, 1920;

All over the country;

Maybe a band, slow march;

Mayors, shire councils;

Relatives for whom

Print was already

Only print; mates,

Come back, moving

Into unexpected days;

A ring of Fords and sulkies;

The toned-down bit

Of Billy Hughes from an

Ex-recruiting sergeant.

Unveiled;

Then seen each day -

Noticed once a year;

And then not always,

Everywhere.

The next bequeathed us

Parks and pools

But something in that first

Demanded stone.

I guess the poem stuck with me. There are some gems in that little volume and I recommend hitting the link to it I've inserted above.

After spending a couple of days poking around the Moruya/Batemans Bay area while we had a bit of work done on our camper trailer we set off a bit later in the afternoon than we'd anticipated. We were pretty keen to get up and over the main range before the forecast heavy rain hit, so we didn't waste any time once we were on the road. There was a bit of road works happening on the steep slopes of Clyde Mountain that held us up briefly ...

,

... but no problems with bad weather conditions. 

Once up this obstacle the first place of interest is the old town of Braidwood, which has preserved much of its historical architecture. This might have been what helped us decide to eschew the motorway once we reached the plateau, and head further inland instead. It was a bit of a punt, but luck seemed to be with us. Traffic was light and we motored along for a couple more hours before passing through Harden and on to the adjoining hamlet of Murrumburrah where we discovered free camping in a park just off the main road. Brilliant luck, as we got the canvas up just before a big thunderstorm hit.

Here's what the day's journey looks like on Google Maps:

Lightning flashed off and on through the night and it rained enough to leave quite a few large puddles all around us. We finally packed up the next morning at about 10:30 when the rain eased to a steady drizzle. It was fun passing through towns like Cootamundra, famous as the birthplace of the great Don Bradman.

A little more than an hour later we found ourselves in Junee, a well-preserved historic railway town. It was so attractive we decided to stop and have a look around. Here's a beautiful hotel built in 1896 :

There is a lovely little square in front of the old railway station (which is still in use), probably built so that folks had plenty of room to manoeuvre their horses and buggies. Here's a panorama of the railway station that doesn't really do it justice ...

There was even a train stopped at the station ...

Junee was built as a railway town to serve the surrounding farming district, and the station houses a huge café still operating today ...

It was really a bit early for lunch but we decided it would be good to enjoy the atmosphere of this old café so we stayed for a bite before pushing on.

A few more hours of driving took us through towns with names like Coolamon, Lockhart (another pretty little town), Jerilderie, Finley, Tocumwal and Numurkah. The latter wasn't really en route, but Di wanted to divert via there as it was where her paternal grandmother lived before moving to Tasmania. Sure enough, the first thing we saw as we entered town was the Numurkah war memorial ...

We looked closely but there was no-one by the name of Lapthorne (Di's grannie was Florence Lapthorne) represented on the memorial. After years of driving too far for too long when we're on  the road, we've finally decided that we will take a good break every couple of hours and walk around a bit when we're doing long drives, so we took a stroll around Numurkah. Sadly, it wasn't one of the more attractive towns on our journey. About the only building that we found which had retained a sense of grace was the old courthouse ...

By this time we had left the rain behind. We'd picked a spot the night before that we thought would make a good overnight stop, but because of our late start we had our eyes peeled for something a bit less far down the road. We spotted a lovely little park in Echuca, but overnight camping was not allowed. We decided to push on a little more briskly to Tarrick Tarrick National Park to allow us time to find something else in case that didn't work out. (The slight worry was that it is a dry-weather-only road, and, according to our parks guide, suitable only for "small vehicles" - whatever that means. It turned out to be perfect. We arrived well before dusk. No problem getting in and we had the place all to ourselves, after about seven hours of driving (I admit that we were travelling a little faster than recommended for some of the time ) ...

This morning we spent a couple of hours wandering about enjoying the park before we left at about 10:15. The park features a beautiful forest of Callitris Pines and a couple of gently-rounded granite domes. There were wallabies around camp and bigger kangaroos bounding about as we drove in and out of the park. Di even saw some galahs to photograph, so you get cockatoos ...

... and a kangaroo (two if you look closely) ... 

in this post!

In the previous photo you can see evidence of the granite slabs and domes I mentioned. Here's an image of the top of Mount Terrick Terrick ...

Nestled in shady and sheltered spots were lots of gorgeous little orchids. Here's an example ...

Back out to the highway at Mitiamo, turn west for 25 kms, then north on the Loddon Valley Highway for 10 kms to Durham Ox. West on the C267 for 21 kms to Boort, then southeast on the C266 to Charlton, and another delightful surprise. This town was badly affected by flooding in 2011 but must have a brilliant sense of community spirit. There was wide speculation that the town might never recover but what you will see if you ever visit is a vibrant little community that seems stronger than ever. As we entered town we noticed a sign that said "Travellers' Rest", and parking for large vehicles. We thought we might stop and look around, so we pulled into a shady flat spot. It turns out that this travellers' rest area has been built in the area where the old Charlton Sale Yards were ...

They've got a great little park straddling the Avoca River complete with a pedestrian swing bridge. The first thing that really caught our eye was this four metre long sculpture ..

It turns out that it was from the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, and celebrated the participation of Kenya (apparently swordfish abound off the coast of Kenya).

The town has provided a great little area for passers-through to stop and have lunch in the shade ...

... a free camping area complete with a campers' garden ...

After doing a loop through the park, across the river and back along the main road our attention was caught by this neat little car on the footpath ...

It was sitting outside a shop called "Gallery 79". We got talking to the guy who ran it. The shop had been totally ruined in that big flood of 2011, just a year after he'd moved in. You'd never know it now. Here's what it looks like today ...

Unfortunately, I didn't get any photos inside: we were too busy talking with the fellow who runs it. His name is Geoff Coote, and he's a pretty neat guy. His current passion is steampunk, and he's made some amazing creations. In case you don't know what steampunk is and don't have the time to find out right now, here's a brief summary: Steampunk is modern technology—iPads, computers, robotics, air travel—powered by steam and set in the 1800’s.

If you'd like to find out more, here's a link. We did spend a bit of money in the shop: a little something for someone special, can't say more here because we don't want to give the game away now, do we?

If you ever find yourself passing through this corner of Oz make sure you allow yourself a little time to meet Geoff and savour the delights of his creativity.

After our hour in Charlton it was really time to get to where we were headed. We stopped briefly in Horsham to get some groceries, then at the Arapiles Mountain Shop to pick up Di's climbing shoes that she had sent in for resoling and then off to Natimuk Lake. So, here's what today's few hours of driving looks like on the map ...

And here's where we're at for the next three weeks in case you'd like to drop by ...

And now it's time for bed

~

there's climbing to be done in the morning!