And back home in January!

 

Hold him down otherwise he'll blow away!

There we were at the summit of Tegg's Nose just outside Macclesfield. Cold and windy it was too, somewhat of a contrast to the warmth of down under. But, as we were in the vicinity and it was lunchtime, we called in to the cafe near the top and then took a walk around old haunts. It's an impressive hill, even more impressive if you're running up the big climb in the Tegg's Nose Fell Race which I've managed half a dozen times in the past. It's a real old fashioned event held in conjunction with the Langley Sheepdog Trials and the race was usually started by the local MP Nicholas Winterton (who claimed to have run it himself in younger days.) The views from the peak are   spectacular and, on a clear day, you can see Welsh mountains in the far distance.

We're back running in a somewhat colder climate now and, taking advantage of a trip to the Midlands to say goodbye to Jane (emigrating down under!) we nipped over to Nottingham to do the Wollaton Hall parkrun. Two weeks ago we'd been warned about the possibility of snakes on the course but today the race director drew our attention to the hazards posed by galloping deer! The previous week a large herd of deer had crossed the path of the parkrunners and they just had to wait, you wouldn't want to get in a tangle with a Red Deer stag - they can weigh well over 30 stone! Wollaton Hall is a fairly grand stately home built by a 16th century coal magnate in an imposing position on top of a hill four miles from the 

That's the Joker peeping out from top left.

centre of Nottingham. And the jolly parkrun marshals sent us up that hill to run past the front door of the mansion, down the hill on the other side and back up and down again. All good fun on a Saturday morning. This magnificent Elizabethan building featured in a scene from The Dark Knight Rises, a Batman film from a few years ago. Entitled Wayne Manor this was depicted as the home of Batman complete with butler (Michael Caine of course!) There's a twist to the tale, just a short drive away just beyond the suburbs of Nottingham lies the village of Gotham which lent its name to Gotham City, the fictional home of Batman!

2023 - this is the year!

 

First parkrun of the New Year on a humid warm morning, thank goodness they start at 7 am in Queensland! This is the North Lakes parkrun which is held in a sociable suburb of Brisbane some 15 miles north of the city. North Lakes was created as a new town less than 20 years ago and it's now a busy little place as evidenced by the 200 or so runners who gathered for a merry jaunt three times round the parkland that surrounds the lake. The huge shopping centre has all the big stores including an IKEA. And that's just about all I can find to say about North Lakes, there's nothing much going on of note part from the fact that some of the residents were upset about three years ago about plans to close the golf course and develop it as a retirement village.

And a week later we were at the very different Glass House Mountains Conservation parkrun, a lovely low key off road event with the longest parkrun name in the world. We parked up alongside a row of cars by the roadside and a small number of us gathered at the start of a little used forest trail - slightly downhill for 2.5K until the halfway point then back up. The leading runners saw a kangaroo bouncing away from them but I wasn't quite fast enough. Then back to Woodford for breakfast at CJ's, famous for their pies and pastries, looking at what they had on offer I would have happily come back here for lunch as well. Technically the parkrun is in the Beerburrum West State Forest Park which is south of the Glass House Mountains District Park so we headed north to the mountain lookout to see the panoramic view of these impressive mountains. They were formed through volcanic activity 26 million years ago, the surrounding sandstone has gradually worn down to leave the harder volcanic plus which form the dozen or so striking present day peaks. On the left of the photo is Mount Beerwah, the tallest mountain at 556 metres, on the right is the pointy peak of Mount Coonowrin - several climbers have been killed and seriously injured attempting to reach the top and access to the summit is now prohibited with spot fines of the princely but odd sum of $431 payable by transgressors. 

Schooners and Pots

A Sydney brewpub, where better to stay?

On my first visit to Australia in 2013, Vicky (who'd visited Oz before) and I stayed at Sydney's Macquarie Hotel, a fairly central old style Aussie hotel that had clearly seen better days. We thought we'd nicked an excellent deal for our stay, but as we struggled up a third winding staircase to a tiny odd shaped room in the roof we began to think twice. Jaded and jet-lagged we dumped our heavy suitcases, gasped for air in the heat and tramped quickly down to the bar. Herewith was the other reason we'd picked this spot, it doubled as a brewpub! Yes the offering was limited but it was tasty and cheap, a request for a pint of Paddo brought a hoppy pale ale, the alternatives were a Darlo which was a dark mild and Potts Porter. We settled down to a couple of pints or was it schooners? (See below!) and life took on a rosier glow. This then was the Sydney Brewery, initially called Schwarz Brewery after the founder, and, at that time, an oasis for decent beer in Australia's largest city. The other two breweries in town were the Lord Nelson, another brewpub which is still going strong, and an early incarnation of a James Squire brewpub known as the King Street Brewhouse, which was down on the wharf. Fast forward nine years and the Aussie craft beer season has changed dramatically.

Sydney Brewery has gone from strength to strength, selling the hotel and relocating half a K away they now brew a big range of modern beers and have expanded further afield with a brewery in the Hunter Valley wine region. In fact not only are there now around 800 breweries in Australia utilising some wonderful modern hop varieties but their creative brewers are coming up with imaginative concoctions such as 'Citrus and Rhubarb Custard Sour' and 'Smoked Chilli Black IPA.' This naming of beer is taken to new heights with the Boatrocker Brewers' 'Flux Capacitor' (something to do with time travel) and a pair of beers called 'That's not a Knife' and 'This is a Knife' both brewed by Alice Springs Brewery at 6.5% and 8.5%. Our Christmas beer selection (which we shared) was this powerful double IPA brewed in Brisbane - see the photo - it's not exactly a session beer. We had a tinnie of it but we might just be going down to the brewery bar at some point!

Last parkrun of 2022 was our second on a Pacific island. A few years ago we took a ferry to do the Clover Point parkrun on Vancouver Island off the Canadian coast. Here we drove over a bridge to Bribie Island which is host to the interestingly named SS Koopa Trail parkrun. In the first half of the twentieth century, before the bridge to the island was built, the passenger steamboat SS Koopa called in four days a week to Bribie Island. Trippers from Brisbane then spent a few hours pottering round the island. Meanwhile a goodly crowd of islanders would swarm up the gangplank into the ship's bar and enjoy a schooner or a pot. There were no licensed premises on the island in those days and SS Koopa's arrival was always awaited with eager anticipation. 

The SS Koopa in its heyday!

And here it is, the definitive guide to the beer measures in different Australian states. Or maybe not, the history of Aussie beer volumes is probably a book worth writing. Brewpubs in particular seem to come up with all sorts of alternative glass sizes. And whereas in the UK you'd generally expect to pay half the price of a pint for a half pint measure, here the smaller glasses work out to be more expensive on a pro-rata basis. Furthermore pints are not so popular in Australian pubs presumably because, in hot weather, beer warms up in the glass fairly fast; hence the universal sleeve for your stubbies and tinnies when you're drinking at the barbie!

A World of Running

Over a slippery stile.

Thought I should get back to doing some of those long fell races that I used to enjoy so much. November sees the umpteenth running of the Penmaenmawr Fell Race referred to those in the know as "The Pen." This was my sixth Pen race in 18 years and by far the slowest, in part due to the very wet conditions but also because of a poor route choice half way round which cost me a few minutes - oh and I wasn't really pushing it! It's eleven miles of steady climbing with a long stretch of high altitude bog trotting - what joy! I followed this up with my fourth go at the Cardington Cracker, a tough eight mile race in Shropshire featuring some fearsomely steep climbs. Here's me climbing a stile towards the end, legs almost finished after the endless uphills. I was happy to complete both events and get prizes for being the first over 70 runner (in fact the only over 70 runner!) A week later I was hoping to have a crack at the Sea to Summit, an uphill half marathon along the Offa's Dyke Path starting on the seafront at Prestatyn. Snow, ice and sub-zero temperatures knocked that one on the head as the wise decision was made to call the thing off. 

Offa was an early King of Mercia an early middle ages monarch who built an earthwork barrier to keep the Welsh out of England (or was it the other way round?) The Offa's Dyke Path runs southwards for 177 miles from Prestatyn in the north to Chepstow on the Bristol Channel. Our half marathon route ranges over the Clwydian Hills in Denbighshire but what most people are unaware of is that this northern section of the path doesn't follow the line of the ancient Offa's Dyke at all. Some of the remains of the original earthwork can be seen over to the east in Flintshire - if you try to follow that line you'd end up trogging through an industrial estate in Mold. Clearly this would have been not so attractive for visiting tourists and long distance walkers so when the long distance path was mooted some years ago a more scenic line over the Clwydians was decided on.

From a deep and dark December in the Northern hemisphere with its freezing temperatures to the almost tropical midsummer of Brisbane, Australia - what a shock to the system. This was what we encountered at the beginning  of our first trip down under for three years. Even at 7 am, which is the parkrun start time in Queensland, we experienced 22 degrees and sapping humidity. Added to that we took a wrong turn just before we arrived at Warner Lakes parkrun starting 5 minutes late and, being not yet acclimatised to the conditions, I felt I was running through treacle. As with our recent parkrun experiences in Southern Africa we noticed far more parkwalkers than we would normally see in the UK - maybe the weather has something to do with this I would respectfully suggest.

Follow the leader? Not really, the real quickies were well ahead!

 And what did Santa  bring us for Christmas  this year? Two park  runs of course! One on  Christmas Eve and one  on Christmas Day.  Here's me leading the  field at Petrie parkrun a  pleasant there and  back gallop through the  Sweeney Reserve,  named for Thomas  Patrick Sweeney who  lived here in a  ramshackle hut with his  family. They kept emus and kangaroos and had a refreshment kiosk serving fruit and soft drinks. If they'd still been open today they'd have done a roaring trade refreshing thirsty park runners!

Hello back home!

The following day, i.e. Christmas morning, we toed the start line with a couple of hundred other early birds for a parkrun along the Enoggera Creek at Kelvin Grove, Brisbane. A local running club had elected this as their Christmas run and most of the fast first dozen or so finishers were wearing distinctive pink running vests. The course was fairly flat and sheltered by leafy trees some of them containing large colonies of roosting bats with their distinctive pong. Here's a photo of us with our distinctive post race smiles (grimaces?) together with another parkrunner - he explained delightedly to us that he's going to be in the UK in a year's time and is looking forward to a White Christmas - what do you think are the chances of that?

More Irish (and American) Running

International cross country this time, having been selected for Wales in the V70 category we flew over to Dublin. Not that we saw much of Dublin this time round since we caught a shuttle bus straight to our hotel and, the following morning, walked to Santry Park where the event took place. Back on the midday flight the following day. Still it was a good trip enabling us to meet old friends and make new ones. The run was a bit of a blast round Santry Park, no hills, no mud, wind or rain so none of the elements that usually work to my advantage. However I was the first Welsh V70 runner and ahead of all the English runners in the category.

Greetings from America! (Heather in the purple - her favourite colour.)

 And here's a happy trio  of ladies at the Lillee  parkrun in Ann Arbor,  Michigan, USA. Vicky  and Teresa visited from  the UK to introduce  Heather to parkrunning  at her local event. She  was clearly pleased to  be taking part. (Gosh  this sounds like a local  newspaper report  doesn't it!) It was a  scenic course which  involved several  crossings of a lake on a wooden bridge which I guess might be a bit of a hazard on a frosty morning. What fun!

So just by way of highlighting the latest stage of Vicky's international parkrunning career here are her stats for the last 10 events. This lists two runs in Namibia, one in South Africa, one in the US, two in Wales, two in England, one in Northern Ireland and one in the Republic of Ireland. How's that for park globe trotting?

Joburg

Anyone at home?

Flying into Johannesburg in the late afternoon, the view from the plane is of a huge sprawling city - ten million people live here in the metropolitan area - fortunately for us we're staying at our Mandy's only 20 minutes away from the airport. We're in a suburb called Edenvale and Mandy's place is in a large gated community, my training runs consisted of tortuous routes circling the estate.  Glad of a chance to escape from the Johannesburg suburbs we took a trip out to an area nicknamed the 'Cradle of Humankind' and we went down a hole in the ground. About an hour and a half into the veldt in a not very special area of countryside is a site that contains the largest concentration of remains of early hominids, wow! 

Mrs Pies or Mr Pies - who knows?

 They've found lots of  bits of Australopithecus  Africanus, who were  the predecessors to  Homo Erectus and  Homo Sapiens,  including this young  lady whose skull was  found not too long ago  in the Sterkfontein  Caves where we were  now standing down in  the murky depths of an  underground network.  She was  discovered in  the late  1940's and  identified as  a lady,  she became known as Mrs Pies for some odd reason, however more recent analysis of her teeth, or lack of them, indicates that she might have been a man! Notwithstanding all of this we spent a fascinating hour or so in the cool underground chambers away from the African noonday sun. It seems that part of the reason that there were so many intact bits of skeleton down here was that they belonged to folk who had fallen down some of the many potholes present at the surface of the limestone complex and they'd failed to make it back up. 

Flying tonight!

Despite Johannesburg's bustling residential suburbs and teeming townships and vast industrial estates there are, nonetheless, some good sized parks and we visited the 300 acre Johannesburg Botanical Gardens (now dedicated to Walter Sisulu one of Nelson Mandela's buddies.) And focussing my binoculars on a flurry of activity in a distant group of tall trees I spotted a huge eagle. This was a Verreaux's Eagle one of the largest birds of the prey in the world. My photos were a bit fuzzy so this impressive snapshot is courtesy of Wikipedia. A couple of pairs of Verreaux's Eagles live and breed in the park but sightings are apparently not easy to come by. These birds take sibling rivalry to the ultimate - two eggs are laid and hatched but within days the stronger of the chicks kills its brother or sister!

Hot running!

 Joburg has plenty of  parkruns and Vicky's  sister took us to her  favourite at Gilloolys, a  former farm (owned by  Mr Gillooly) which is  now an attractive and  extensive recreational  park. Event number  248  started at 8 am but  even by then the  temperature had  started to rise, what's  more this is at altitude -  we were getting on for  6000 feet above sea  level - so it was hard work! Nevertheless we sped round and I finished in 23 minutes exactly, beating the existing V70 record by nearly two minutes. 

(Postscript 1: So.....it's well known that elite athletes use altitude training to enhance their performances; well it didn't work for me, on our return to Wales I felt as if I was running through treacle for the following week or so!) 

(Postscript 2: Unfortunately the skull illustrated above is not that of Mrs (or Mr) PIES, it's Mrs (or Mr) PLES the name being derived from 'plesianthropus' which was the initial latin name applied to this poor creature. My mistake, I misread my research source. And by way of additional information the skull was intact until its discovery when it was blown into fragments by a stick of dynamite, the archeologists carefully put it back together again with that endless patience that archaeologists must have.

Under African Skies

A fine pub!

Just what the doctor ordered!

Leaving Ireland we took a flight to Heathrow from Dublin and stayed overnight near Kew Gardens by the Thames. Following a fine beer and food supper at the Express Tavern on Kew Bridge we slept well and enjoyed an early morning jog along the riverbank. Back to Heathrow we relaxed in the lounge and found that Brewdog had brewed a special ale for British Airways to see us on our way. Our journey had, by now, consisted of a train to Holyhead, a ferry to Dublin, a hire car to and from Clonmel, a plane to Heathrow, a tube to Kew and even a bus the following morning to the tube station. We knew that this was going to be the modus operandi for our first week away from home so we travelled light with hand luggage only. We're not going to need warm clothing in Southern Africa are we? Or so we thought!

Plenty of room for expansion!

 We arrived at the tiny  Walvis Bay Airport, the  second largest in  Namibia, on a sunny  afternoon and drove  into town and to our  small hotel. to find that,  as the day drew to a  close it began to get  quite chilly! So our first  job on day two was to  buy some warm  clothes.  The coast of  Namibia is extremely  dry but  cool due to the influence of the Benguela Current which brings cold water up from the South Atlantic. This major ocean current also brings a rich soup of nutrients from the depths which gives rise to an astonishing ecosystem of fish, birds and mammals. The fishing industry of Walvis Bay has declined somewhat but it's still a major port and a base for those seeking wildlife and the desert scenery. 

All got your suncream?

Early seafarers on their way down the African coast called in here for a breather in the huge natural harbour which  is adjacent to an expansive lagoon which teems with birdlife. Flamingoes are all over the place and they're on most of the local postcards but we also spotted a wide variety  of waders and other seabirds many on holiday from up north, they'll be in Morecambe Bay come our winter. But what really impressed us were the hundreds of thousands of cormorants that we saw sunning themselves - half the world's population must be here!

Gosh that was quick!

 By sheer coincidence  we discovered that    there are parkruns in  Namibia. We  determined this before  we planned our trip so  we arranged to stay  one weekend in Walvis  Bay and the next  weekend in  Swakopmund so that  we could fit in both of  the coastal Namibian  parkruns. Friday night  found us sitting in the  bar in our hotel opposite the parkrun start - we checked the parkrun facebook page - oh heck, the run was cancelled at short notice! No panic though, we drove the 20 odd miles up the coast to Swakopmund, ran the parkrun there and repeated the operation the other way round the following weekend - thankfully the cancellation was for one week only. Here's the finish of the Walvis Bay event - Vicky ran her fastest of the year - hurrah!

Swakopmund is quite a contrast to Walvis Bay. Its German colonial origins are very evident and the architecture has some clear Teutonic influences. The population is a little smaller than that of its neighbour and the town is much more geared up for tourism. We found the perfect place to stay - a hotel with its own brewery, what a pleasant spot it was to stay for a few relaxing days. 

On the outskirts of town is the curiously named Swakopmund Municipal Restcamp. During a short early evening jog I stepped inside the front gate and took a photo of the rows of identical angular guesthouses - there are nearly 200 of them sitting serenely in the desert.  Constructed in the 1950's these were designed as cheap holiday accommodation - you can still hire them out for around £50 a night! And here's the somewhat oblique connection between Wales and Namibia. A few weeks previously we'd stayed in the village of Portmeirion on the North Wales coast which was used as the setting for the 1960's Prisoner TV series. The cottages in 'The Village' housed the various detainees including the central characters. The Prisoner was subject to a remake in 2009 and was filmed in Swakopmund using footage of the remarkable dunescapes - the equivalent of Portmeirion was the restcamp which featured as 'The Village' in the more recent series. How about that!

Before we left we realised we couldn't completely ignore all the touristy stuff and we had a trip down the coast into the desert to ride up and down some of the enormous sand dunes. It's on an impressive scale - to my right in this photo there's a long drop down to the sea of around 100 metres, and yes it was still chilly!

Not here to sunbathe!