Farewell to Aussie Parkruns

Off to a good start!

Last Parkrun in Oz - this is the final one on a fairly grey morning before our long journey back to Wales. Wishart Parkrun is in the Brisbane suburbs and follows a very pleasant there and back loop in typical Aussie parkland with lots of greenery. Vicky was 122nd out of nearly 200 runners in a time of 35.09, Lyndall had a canicross run with Scout and was 65th in 28.21 and Martin bagged 4th with 20:51. Set us up nicely for the day but will it help with the jet lag at the other end of the flight?
There are 219 parkruns in Australia and we've managed to get round 18 of them plus 9 of the 17 New Zealand Parkruns. Some of these Aussie Parkruns are pretty remote, Weipa for instance is in Queensland but it's 1500 miles north of Brisbane - maybe one day?

Nice day for a run in the park!

And we're back home! This isn't Australia! It's sunny Ellesmere Port and it's a sunny parkrun. Despite not having the best of reputations Ellesmere Port isn't that bad and the little park (Whitby Park) that we run round twice is very pleasant at this time of year. The course is flat but it isn't half twisty and turny so don't expect a pb! Curiously Martin's time was 20:51 which was exactly the same time as at Wishart (see above) this time he was fifth, Vicky arrived on the finishing line in 58th in a time of 35:54. Ellesmere Port has some excellent plus points - it's home to the Cheshire Oaks shopping centre, it's close to the M56 and M53 and very handy for travel to Manchester, Liverpool and North Wales, it has the second largest Marks and Spencer in the UK and an England football manager was born there (Joe Mercer!) He later became a TV football reviewer and was famous for his mispronunciations, for example he continually pronounced Pele as 'peeley.' He did however manage to get his portrait onto a postage stamp!