Where rocks rule

Cathedral Rocks National Park is of course a mecca for rock lovers.

But rocks ain’t just rocks, impressive though they be; they are also habitat, as here, for mosses and lichen and orchids.

Individual rocks – or should I call such big ones ‘boulders’? — exhibit very particular features, like this one, which sports a kind of centurion helmet.

The majority of them sit calmly in credible piles, moss-capped and comfortably non-threatening.

Other clumps are incredible in their composition; now how or why does that rock balance as it does?

My hesitancy in climbing higher towards the summit of Cathedral Rocks is not helped by having to pass so close to huge boulders so precariously perched above me. The balance has to give at some point… erosion may be slow, but it’d be just my luck to be there when it reaches that tipping point.

I can see the Woolpack Rocks in the distance, and I know I managed to get to the top of those on another trip, from a different campground.

But here I give up at this point, while my more intrepid friend continues. I am not a rock-climber — a crevasse bridger, a knee scraper, a leg stretcher — and this is enough of a view for me.

It is more the closeup subtleties of the rocks and their accompanying plants that I am most interested in. I just wish I could read the distinct hieroglyphs that the moss and lichen form. Can’t be random…

Occasionally, I can; I mean this is clearly a heart, right?

And even if the plants don’t speak to me, the boulders give me an ephemeral treat in providing a canvas for shadow play — which would not have been evident amongst the undergrowth otherwise.

Thanks, for so many reasons, for rocks!