North Harbour parkrun

Aussie rules football perhaps?

We now have a better appreciation of the hazards that can be encountered in the vastness of Australian - snakes, spiders, sharks and jelly fish are all well known threats to human life and Aussies are always on the watch out. Less familiar, and less easily spotted, are other creatures such as leeches, ticks and mozzies loaded up with parasites and viruses and finally various forms of dangerous plant life. We'd come across stinging trees on previous visits, one example being the Gympie Stinger - it's leaves and bark contain a toxin which can affect you not just for hours but for months. And then at the North Harbour parkrun I came across this warning sign! Didn't see anyone wearing crash helmets so maybe they've all fallen down for this year.

Proof of the pudding!

And what about this parkrun then? This is the real story. Having run in about 180 parkruns was I ever going to come first? I'd come in with several second and third places but there'd always been someone quicker than me. 7 am on Saturday morning sees me here at North Harbour which is out in the country north of Brisbane, it's located in a scenic reserve close to what is evidently going to be a large new town, lots of building going on and huge spaces cleared for new housing. This is a case of getting essential services in before the real building starts - parkrun being one of them. Clearly there were not going to be too many runners living in the vicinity and indeed a mere twenty of us toed the starting line. And we were off - me taking it steady in about 5th position as the course took us along a gravel track and onto a flattish path though grassy fields along a riverbank. I gradually picked off other runners until, at the turnaround point I saw that I'd got a good lead over the second paced runner. And I then clung onto my lead for dear life, avoiding stinging plants and football sized cones, to finish at the front. There's the second runner about eighty metres behind me but I was fading fast and he was closing in on me. My first first - but will it ever happen again?

Am I first?

Sensible beer drinking and fancy birds

Mmm.tasty!

Sydney is the brash busy archetypal Aussie city - we have steered clear of it following our one visit several years ago. But there is perhaps a good reason to return - this being to visit the home of the award winning Modus Operandi brewery in the Northern Beaches area. We managed to find a 4-pack of Modus Sonic Prayer IPA in a bottle store at Jindabyne - fabulous stuff! And one of the local Canberra breweries, Capital Brewing, were also represented with their quaffable Trail Pale. In Canberra itself we were within walking distance of the renowned Bentspoke Brewery Tap where we found a huge range of beer most of it brewed on site - we could have stayed there a week! We have noticed that many of the newer breweries are producing lower alcohol ales - Modus have a 3.2% pale ale called Easy and Balter, a very fine brewer from the Gold Coast south of Brisbane make a 2.8% beer called Captain Sensible.

Ooh just look at me!

I was quite taken with the sight of this chap sitting in a tree by a pond not far from the centre of Brisbane. This is a Straw-Necked Ibis in his finest mating plumage. Most of the year he's a bit dowdy and scruffy but in spring he puffs up his chest and comes alive to impress the ladies. There are over a thousand parks and playgrounds in the greater Brisbane area and they're full of cycling paths, sports fields, playground apparatus of various types and wildlife. In many of the parks remnants of bushland have been preserved and are maintained with native plantings and reintroductions.

What a show off!

I spotted the ibis pictured above in the Keith Boden Wetlands which is basically a big pond in the park with plenty of tree cover and a good sized island in the middle. (No idea who Keith Boden is - I did Google him with no results in connection with Brisbane.)  Among the other birdlife taking advantage of this suburban oasis were ducks, cormorants and different types of egret. I took this photo of a Cattle Egret sitting in the same tree - this bird is white all year round apart from, wait for it, breeding time when the male's head and chest turn a lovely shade of orange. These birds certainly know how to turn on the charm when the time is right.