Sunday, March 27, 2016

5 and a half hours north of Brisbane

Bundaberg Grand National.
Turtle power! Off to Bundaberg up the coast to the turtle watch. We only just managed to be allowed admission due to a mix up with bookings but were luckily allocated to Group 1. And during the briefing the message came through on the tannoy: 'Turtles hatching - Group 1 to the assembly point!!' We then marched about a K down the beach to find the nest where a number of newly hatched turtles were scrambling around in a holding pen by the nest. More luck - I had my trusty Petzl head torch and was asked to be one of the links in the chain from nest to beach - the baby turtles are attracted to light so we lined up facing the net a few yards apart with our feet apart ready for the off!

Don't squeeze me!
The turtles were under starter's orders - and they were off down the beach. First through, way ahead of the rest, was a bold brash baby turtle - no race number or colours so the commentator was unable to identify this speedy newcomer to the racing scene. And then the rest of the pack shuffling along at quite a pace, apart from a lone back marker valiantly struggling along to make it to the sea before it was consumed by a predator. And indeed until the local turtle watch got themselves organised, foxes and rats were reducing turtle numbers dramatically heading and they were heading towards extinction. These Loggerhead turtles grow to be up to metre in length and weigh getting on for half a ton, they do most of this growing at sea and in fact the male turtles never step (or shuffle) back on to dry land. The females start to come ashore to breed at about the age of 30 years - and, although most of them hang around the Great Barrier Reef just a few hundred miles up the coast, some of them go on interesting long journeys. They've even been found off the shores of Peru (looking for Paddington Bear no doubt!)

4 and a half hours north of Brisbane

Grit the teeth - nearly there!
So back to our exploration of international Parkruns! Not far south of the Tropic of Capricorn is Hervey Bay and the local parkrun is along the seafront very helpfully shaded by trees for most of it's length. Despite the heat and humidity I managed my fastest time for a park run for almost a year - this was Hervey Bay Parkrun number 80 and I was hopeful of beating the V60 previous record of 22 minutes - I did this comfortably and finished in 20.35, however so did the V60 runner 7 seconds in front of me. Will we be here next week to give it another go?

It's easy when you've got a bit of a tug.

Vicky and Lyndall tried the dog walking option - whether or not this improves performance seems to very much depend on the size of the dog. This picture is of Ruby a bit of an all sorts breed of puppy, at 10 months old she's willing but hasn't got much 'pull' yet! We are dog/cat sitting for a few days up here on the coast during the Easter weekend and it's a nice little holiday resort with fish and chips, wonderful beach and, for this week only......Lennon's Bros Circus one of the only travelling circuses left in Australia - how can we not take advantage?
Off to Fraser Island tomorrow - this is the largest sandbank in the world - 120K long from tip to tip. Just reading through the instructions for visitors - are they they being a bit OTT with their safety advice when they say 'running down the sand dunes can cause serious injury or death'! We shall see.

Thursday, March 17, 2016

On the Road

Ooh you splashed me!
Leaving Chester behind on a rainy late winter's day, I thought I was going to find somewhat kinder weather in Dubai - not a chance! I encountered torrential rain and chaos. According to Lt Col Khazraj al Khazraji of the Dubai police force there were 514 reported road accidents in the city within 6 hours as Dubai's brief annual downpour paralysed the city. This photo was taken from our hotel cafe as the floodwaters rose. One of our meetings was cancelled as a result of the floods but everything else was fine. Dubai is certainly a multi cultural place - we had Iranian food one night and on the last day Japanese and Thai grub in a Chinese restaurant. Was I right to use the chopsticks?


I'll be in Scotland before ewe!

Back to my rolling coverage of the big bike ride, life is full of curious connections and coincidences - regarding our big LEJOG bike ride, as we started off at Land's End things were very quiet, we were met by some big seagulls in the vast carpark which is clearly there to accommodate all the charabancs full of tourists desperate to see the bottom end of England and buy all the fairly tacky souvenirs. At 8. 30 am in the morning on a wet August day there was hardly anyone around apart from someone picking up yesterday's litter, but we did meet an enthusiastic mother and daughter from somewhere in the midlands - they were clearly well prepared, lots of top gear but looking at doing a steady 18 days of cycling. We met just one other cyclist en route -  a very determined thin fellow on a fast looking bike who dashed past us in mid Wales -  we spotted him a few hours later at Church Stretton about to check in to his B & B. No other end-to- enders until we got to John O'Groats where we checked in to see some anxious relatives waiting for a father and son who were shortly supposed to arrive. And indeed down the hill they sprinted high as a kite (as indeed we must have seemed half an hour earlier!)

Tuesday, March 1, 2016

All my Trails!

Come on - dig in!
Here's me puffing away towards the end of the Radcliffe 10 mile trail race on Sunday - this took me 78.09 - a tough course as even the winner took just short of an hour to get round. I thought I did quite well and came in 63rd with 200 runners behind me. This was a 'Good Value' race in my book - only £7 to enter with a free buff thrown in - it's that yellow thing wrapped around the top of my head. You'll also see that I was wearing shorts for the first time this year. I must be acclimatising to this from winter weather - just in time for 30 degrees in Australia - eek!

Life is full of curious connections and coincidences - regarding our big LEJOG bike ride, as we started off at Land's End things were very quiet, we were met by some big seagulls in the vast carpark which is clearly there to accommodate all the charabancs full of tourists desperate to see the bottom end of England and buy all the fairly tacky souvenirs. At 8 30 am in the morning on a wet August day there was hardly anyone around apart from someone picking up yesterday's litter, but we did meet an enthusiastic mother and daughter from somewhere in the midlands - they were clearly well prepared, lots of top gear but looking at doing a steady 18 days of cycling. We met just one other cyclist en route -  a very determined thin fellow on a fast looking bike who dashed past us in mid Wales -  we spotted him a few hours later at Church Stretton about to check in to his B & B. No other end-to- enders until we got to John O'Groats where we checked in to see some anxious relatives waiting for a father and son who were shortly supposed to arrive. And indeed down the hill they sprinted high as a kite (as indeed we must have seemed half an hour earlier!)