Episode 68

Episode details · 171 speaker turns · sound cues from context

00:00:00Simon Mackley: So I'm here with a little parkrunner. Hey buddy, do you listen to the parkrun Adventurers show?

00:00:05[music]

00:00:05Donna Ellis: No.

00:00:17Melissa Erbacher: It's episode 68 and we are here to have a good time. Welcome to the podcast this week, Scotty.

00:00:24Scott Trickett: Thanks, Mel. Good to see our listenership growing. Or not.

00:00:30Melissa Erbacher: Is listenership a word?

00:00:31Scott Trickett: It is now.

00:00:32Melissa Erbacher: And what do you mean, or not?

00:00:34Scott Trickett: Well, according to our friend at the start of the podcast, our reach is not growing, but I'm looking at figures and I can tell you that it is.

00:00:43Melissa Erbacher: Well, maybe it's just the little people haven't quite cottoned on to us yet. Some parents need to get involved.

00:00:50Scott Trickett: Our demographics are a bit whack. The under fours just aren't coming to the party.

00:00:56Melissa Erbacher: I'm sure they've all got their own iDevices by that age. Surely they should be allowed to download podcasts by then.

00:01:02Svenja: Good, clean family fun. That's what we are most of the time.

Most events list race (host rivalry)

00:01:06Melissa Erbacher: Now, I hear, well, on the grapevine that somebody's trying to edge me out of On the most events list.

00:01:15Scott Trickett: Look, you made a really strong push at the start of this year, and you put a bit of a gap between us.

00:01:22Melissa Erbacher: I did.

00:01:23Scott Trickett: But I'm coming back, and I'm coming for you. And I chalked up another new event on the weekend. I ventured out to Newborough parkrun.

00:01:34Melissa Erbacher: Awesome.

00:01:36Scott Trickett: Which is about two hours' drive out of Melbourne. My mother is residing out there at the moment and it was Mother's Day on the weekend so I managed to combine Mother's Day on a Saturday and visited my mum and got a new parkrun in. But I tried a new thing. I tried the 3K parkrun on Saturday.

00:02:03Melissa Erbacher: Intentionally?

00:02:04Scott Trickett: Well, it was so cold. I don't know about what's happening up on the Sunshine Coast but In Melbourne and Newborough, winter has arrived, and even though it's still autumn, my goodness, it was cold in Newborough. So it was a 2K warm-up, and then I just went for it for the last 3Ks because I just could not run any faster. My bones were frozen. My fingers were frozen.

00:02:35Melissa Erbacher: For the first 2K. Yeah. You didn't wear gloves?

00:02:39Scott Trickett: I did. I wore gloves.

00:02:40Melissa Erbacher: And your fingers were still frozen.

00:02:45Simon Mackley: Yeah.

00:02:46Scott Trickett: So it was nice. Well, it feels like winter, but it's autumn, so the trees are beautiful. We started in a nice little park in Newborough and very pretty. Leaves falling, orange, yellow, lots of lovely colours on the tree. And then you head out onto a rail trail and you go up and back, up and back a few times. And yeah, it's another event on my most events list.

00:03:12Melissa Erbacher: So what is the current score then?

00:03:15Scott Trickett: So you're sitting on 39 and I'm on 38.

00:03:20Melissa Erbacher: Oh, you did close that gap quite substantially, didn't you?

00:03:24Scott Trickett: And I've got some adventures coming up. I don't think you do. You do.

00:03:29Melissa Erbacher: I've got adventures coming up.

00:03:32Scott Trickett: Not at new events, though.

00:03:36Melissa Erbacher: We'll see. We'll see. I might have to get my little map of Australia out and see what I can do.

00:03:51Scott Trickett: Hamilton Island parkrun. It's close to being in one of my top three parkrun events, Mel. And they were hit by Tropical Cyclone Debbie, as we all know, a few months ago now. So we thought we'd get the king, the king of Hammo, and the king of Hammo parkrun on the podcast. Stephen Jackson, welcome to the parkrun Adventurers.

00:04:14Stephen Jackson: Thank you very much. Yes, my first appearance, so... the first appearance of my voice anyway so looking forward to enlightening your viewers with what's happening on Hamilton Island now that we've survived the big cyclone So what is happening?

00:04:28Scott Trickett: Are we back up and running? Is everything back to normal or close to back to normal?

00:04:33Stephen Jackson: Well there's no such thing as normal on Hamilton Island of course but certainly from a resort perspective we're open for business we've got our hotels and our various styles of accommodation open we've got a couple still to come we've got our six-star resort qualia which is uh was actually due for a refurb um in june we've actually just bumped that forward and taken advantage of a bit of a shutdown post cyclone debbie to uh do things properly that'll be open in about six weeks time um and essentially the resort is operating as per normal we've got plenty of uh cleanup still to go we've got lots of work on some staff accommodation quarters and some houses and and a few private properties and things like that so We're chipping away at that, but certainly most of the activities and the events and everything's proceeding as per normal, and so people can still plan to come and take Hamilton Island parkrun off their bucket list.

00:05:25Melissa Erbacher: Now, Stephen, Scotty kind of jumped in and wanted to know how all the cleanup's going, but I don't think people fully appreciate how well Debbie did Hammo. Can you give us a bit of an indication of the kind of destruction that she left behind with you guys?

00:05:41Stephen Jackson: Well, Hamilton Island sits in the Whitsundays and it's a beautiful tropical part of the world and we're blessed with this greenery most of the time. But certainly post-Debbie, all the trees were just stripped of all their leaves and their palm fronds. And so it was a very different looking, it looked like a bushfire had ripped through. All the trees were just raw pink with all the bark just stripped off and they'd been lashed by the wind and the leaves and the debris and things like that. So it was quite an eerie sensation to sort of drive around the resort and see see everything because there was no trees or foliage sort of blocking the way and it was just all littered on the roads and so it was like all like a green pathway around the resort for a few days while we got underway. We had the cyclone of course and then very next night we had a huge downpour and so we had king tides and a storm surge and then we had this massive downpour so a lot of the damage in the resort itself was actually done by some flooding which happened the day after so um, between the two events, it was, uh, it was pretty catastrophic in terms of operating. We had still plenty of guests, unfortunately trapped here on the island. We had to try and get those guys home to safety as quick as we could. So let's try and get the road to the airport and the airport itself open, um, which took us a couple of days, but we managed to get people out fairly quickly. Um, it was, uh, a lot of fun. Obviously people had tickets for days when we were open and there was people that had missed flights and we had to try and juggle and the airlines were fantastic as they always are. Working with Hamilton Islands, they would try and help make their travels a little bit easier and so obviously we needed to get a few extra flights to get people out. And there was mud and leaves and all sorts of things stuck where it shouldn't be and buggies were all flooded and we had trucks and trees down and Yeah, so it was a very sobering sight. I've lived here for 12 years, so to drive around, it was really sad to see. But once we got all the guests off, we had 1,200 staff on hand and community members on top of that all just pitch in and get the big cleanup going. The resort for a week, and essentially we just all became gardeners for a week and cleaned the place up and got everything up and going and got contractors in and all the Maintenance staff were all hands on deck while we got everything back up and going and operating. So that way we were able to save our jobs and our livelihoods and keep the wonderful Hamilton Island open to the public.

00:08:08Melissa Erbacher: Last time we were visiting in sort of, it was close to winter, but it was still really quite comfortable on the island. You were kind enough to take us on a trail run and there was some serious elevation involved in that trail run. How have the trails fared?

00:08:26Stephen Jackson: Yeah, well, the cyclone actually fell about five weeks before our trail running event, the Hilly Marathon. So we've got some serious climbs on the island and the trails themselves didn't fare so well. They were obviously covered in debris and trees that were fallen and there was just sections that had been washed away and things like that. So we moved our Hilly Marathon across to the Dent Island Golf Course, which is on our neighbouring island just a short 10-minute ferry ride away, so we were still able to provide an event that had plenty of hills, just different terrain on foot. The trails themselves are now back open. You can get to Passage Peak, which is the most iconic spot in our bush section, which is a couple of k's from the resort itself, but there's over 200 metres of elevation gain in that 2k. So it's fairly hard going, as you appreciated at the time, but the view was always worth it and still is. We've actually got some trail builders here on the island at the moment, and we're knocking out about another 12Ks of more easier-going trails, and we're looking forward to getting those open in a few months and sharing some more amazing views with a little bit less effort around the resort.

00:09:33Scott Trickett: Tell us more about these new trails, Steve, because I loved running up there, and then you told me this whole story about how you can actually get people who make trails.

00:09:44Stephen Jackson: Yeah, so there's a couple of prominent sort of trail building companies around in Australia and then there's plenty of smaller entities making their way into the network of trail building. Certainly we are keen to obviously provide the best trails that we possibly can. So we have a company called Dirt Art from Tasmania who are building what we call multi-purpose trails. So essentially trails that people could use for any recreational purpose, whether it be walking, hiking, running or potentially mountain biking. The trails that we're building, much like a ski field, are graded on the system. So they're graded sort of green circle and blue square, and they continue up to sort of black diamond and double black diamond, which would be the serious sort of downhill stuff. But we've got about 10 to 12 k's of trail that are being built to what we call green circle and blue square standards. So essentially no more than 10% gradient at any one time, very flowy track. So hopefully, rather than going straight up and straight down the hills, which are quite prominent on Hamilton Island, we'll be winding our way through the bush and getting up to some of those amazing lookouts without as much work. Probably a little bit further in terms of distance, but probably less effort overall.

00:10:58Scott Trickett: Well, sounds exciting. I think I might have to plan another trip back. And if I do come back, parkrun's back up and running?

00:11:05Stephen Jackson: Yeah, we only miss one Saturday morning. So we're... Humans obviously... like routine by nature. So we were very keen to get our parkrun back up and not only for our staff's morale, but also for any guests that started coming back to Hamilton Island, just to sort of say that, you know, life's as per normal and parkrun is a big part of the weekly doings on Hamilton Island. So we missed one weekend and we actually relocated the course just actually for probably one more week while the marina was underwent some repairs. Our course normally winds its way through the marina and out on the marina lead, but the marina lead sort of got washed out a little bit and was a bit lumpy and bumpy for a while there. But the repairs are almost done and we'll be returning to our normal course. At the moment, we're running in our resort proper, which is probably a flatter, nicer course, and a lot of people who've done both would prefer us to stay where we are, I think. But the more picturesque and mature parkrun course is, is in the marina itself and we'll be back there in about 10 days time.

00:12:07Melissa Erbacher: So no dodging boats or anything like that then?

00:12:11Stephen Jackson: No if we'd have tried to run parkrun as per normal we would have had a couple of sailors as neighbours as we made our way through the marina there was a couple of boats parked up amongst the palm trees but yeah we've done some salvage work and cleared up that path and Yeah, we're looking forward to getting back down there in about a week and a half's time.

00:12:30Melissa Erbacher: Well, it's great to hear that it's parkrun business as usual, Stephen, and that the island itself is recovering well. Thanks very much for joining us on the podcast this week.

00:12:41Stephen Jackson: No worries. It's my pleasure. Yeah, we've definitely got parkrun going and we've got all our events. We've actually got about five weeks away, we've got the Whitehaven Beach Run, part of our endurance series. So people can come up and get a couple of runs in. We usually... have parkrun on Saturday morning. Our event is on Sunday, June the 18th. And then on Monday morning, we'll have a run on our golf course. So if you want to come up for a good weekend of running on all sorts of terrain, we've got the parkrun on Saturday morning. We'll have a beach run on beautiful Whitehaven Beach on the hard sand, so good hard going. And then we've got a nice hilly run on the Dent Island golf course as a recovery. So June 17, 18, 19, if you want to get three quality runs up in the Whitsundays, we'd love to welcome you.

00:13:20Melissa Erbacher: Awesome. I'm sure we've got a bunch of adventurers writing that down right now.

00:13:24Stephen Jackson: Fantastic. We would love to welcome some parkrunners. We've got a record of, I think, 52 is our best ever parkrunner attendance. So we'd love to knock that over that weekend.

00:13:45Scott Trickett: Now there's a popular hashtag. in parkrun circles. Love parkrun. And we're going to speak to a couple who really do love parkrun and brought love to their parkrun on Saturday. Welcome to the podcast, Martin and Svenja from Jells parkrun.

00:14:00Svenja: Thanks for having us.

00:14:01Martin: Hey Scotty, hey Mel. Thanks for having us. We're excited to bring some German accent to the podcast today.

00:14:08Scott Trickett: Oh, we love it. I don't think we've had any Germans on the podcast yet, so this is a first. Yeah, and a last, hopefully not. Hopefully not. Yeah, we'll get to that. We'll get to that. But let's get to Saturday, because Saturday was a big weekend for you guys. You both hit your 50 milestones, which is good enough, but it's not good enough to get on the parkrun Adventurers podcast. You did something else. Do you want to tell us what you guys got up to?

00:14:31Martin: That's right, yeah. I proposed to Svenja on the weekend. us as part of our milestone celebrations. So that was obviously a surprise to her. I wanted to propose to her at a special place that meant something to both of us. And yeah, then it was an obvious choice to do it at the Charles parkrun, which is our home parkrun and a fantastic parkrun anyway. And we have a lot of friends there, even though we just made our 50 milestone. I guess we know a lot of people there. We're volunteering. I'm run directing. So we have a lot of friends there. So I thought it's the obvious choice to do it with a lot of friends and pretty much the parkrun family as well.

00:15:17Melissa Erbacher: And now, so Svenja, did you say yes? Yes, I did. Actually, I didn't say yes, but my choice was clear. So what did you say if you didn't say yes?

00:15:30Svenja: Well, I just gave him a kiss.

00:15:33Melissa Erbacher: Oh, that is very cute. Now, Martin, you said you wanted to choose a place that was special to both of you. How long have you guys been going to Gels parkrun?

00:15:47Martin: I guess it started one and a half years ago. So Svenja had the idea to go there. She heard about it from a friend. And I thought, yeah, I guess we're going to go there once or twice. It's pretty early, so... I just play along and probably she's going to give it up anyway pretty soon. So we run together the first few times. But yeah, she didn't actually stop doing it. And I started to enjoy it as well. So yeah, that's how we got started.

00:16:16Svenja: And the first couple of parkruns, or the first time we went, I was actually quite worried that I would become last and everyone would make fun of me for being so slow. So I made Martin run with me, which made for lots of very funny parkrun pictures where I'm totally out of breath and Martin is just trotting along next to me looking like he didn't break a sweat at all. But then I soon caught the parkrun bug and then we haven't missed any since last October.

00:16:43Martin: Yeah.

00:16:45Svenja: Unless we were overseas, yeah. So, yeah. And then we've been telling everyone about it and it's our small talk topic of choice as well. So, yeah, it usually takes about two minutes till one of us talks about parkrun.

00:16:59Scott Trickett: We've got lots in common then. That's great.

00:17:04Svenja: Yes, it's the best way to figure out if someone is a good person.

00:17:10Melissa Erbacher: That's the test by which we measure everyone.

00:17:13Svenja: Yeah, and actually we were visiting friends in Adelaide, and Martin was looking for a long-distance running course, and the family we stayed with are not runners, so they called up a friend, and they said afterwards they'd never heard him talk so much, and it turns out that he has really fast parkrun times, especially for his age group, and he also mentioned parkrun within the first three minutes or so. So I guess it's a good test, yeah.

00:17:38Martin: Yeah, I actually... kind of tested our friends as well, even though that was not the intention of the proposal. But, well, we obviously had a lot of friends who come to Jells regularly anyway. But in addition to that, we invited a wider circle of friends from Melbourne who usually don't do parkrun. So they don't always really understand what the fuss is about. But I didn't tell them that it's for the proposal. We just told them it's the 50 milestone and it's going to be a surprise for Svenja. And... Pretty much all of them came, even though they don't know or they didn't know yet how awesome parkrun is. So we had a couple of first timers. So that was enough intention to get more people, more friends involved. So we tricked them into their first parkrun. And yeah, a lot of people came. For example, one friend, she's doing triathlons. And just to come to the milestone, she was doing her bike training at 4 a.m. in the morning. And then came straight to parkrun and that was just incredible because they all didn't know about the proposal and they came anyway. And that was just the extra, the icing on the cake for them.

00:18:45Scott Trickett: It's very clever planning, Martin. Did you have any idea, Svenja, that it was all a ruse for the milestone celebration, but it was really for the proposal?

00:18:56Svenja: Yeah, no, I didn't. And also when we got there, there were quite a few friends from interstate as well. And I was very excited about that. But I thought it was perfectly reasonable that people fly in from Sydney and Adelaide to celebrate my 50th milestone.

00:19:12Scott Trickett: Of course it is. Great. They're great friends. Great friends they are.

00:19:18Svenja: So, yeah, I wasn't curious then. So, yeah, I thought it was normal.

00:19:23Martin: There were, I think, 13 friends from interstate. And, yeah, amazing friends from Adelaide. The Adelaideans are awesome anyway. And even they are fantastic Sydney-siders. So we had friends from Sydney too. And, yeah, they waited already for us when we arrived at the parkrun. And it took a while for Svenja to actually recognize them. But then, yeah, it was a nice surprise. But she was convinced it was just for the milestone. And, yeah, that's reason enough, obviously.

00:19:53Scott Trickett: Now, that's a lovely story, but it's tinged with a bit of sadness for us anyway because you're going to leave Jells parkrun and head back home to Germany. But before you do, you're going to do a couple of months of adventuring around the country. And I hope you're going to fit some parkruns in.

00:20:09Svenja: Yes, so we're going to go clockwise from Melbourne, so first to Adelaide, and I think after Adelaide and Clare Valley, the next one is in Kalgoorlie. Kalgoorlie. No, Kalgoorlie. I think it's a K. Okay. And then we go all around. And then, yeah, so we hope to cover lots of exciting parkruns, like the Beaches parkrun. And what's the one that's so hard? Nambour.

00:20:37Stephen Jackson: Yes.

00:20:38Svenja: Yes, that one. And the one on the Whitsundays, I really want to do that one.

00:20:42Melissa Erbacher: Oh, there's a couple in the Whitsundays. So how many weeks will you be adventuring for?

00:20:48Svenja: Probably 15, 16. Yeah. Fantastic.

00:20:53Martin: Yeah, if we don't get killed by snakes or get lost in the desert between Adelaide and Perth.

00:21:00Melissa Erbacher: Yes. I'm sure you've lived in Australia long enough to know that we just tell those stories to the people from overseas to keep them guessing about drop bears.

00:21:13Svenja: Oh, yeah, but the drop bear one, we actually had a friend who visited and we told him about the drop bear and he was so convinced about it that he retold the story to other travellers. I can't believe it. And then they were on a tour bus and then the guide started talking about how some gullible tourists believe the story about the drop bear.

00:21:36Melissa Erbacher: You are definitely one of us. And what are the plans, the exciting plans for when you get to Germany? Because they don't have parkrun yet, but it's on the horizon.

00:21:45Svenja: I know. It's shocking that Germany doesn't have one, but we hope to change it. So we hope to start parkrun in Germany to share how beautiful it is and where about specifically in germany will you be looking to settle do you think um so i'm from near frankfurt and martin's from near stuttgart so we're southwest germany and that is a really good area for germany we have good weather there so so we should relatively yes relatively good weather for germany and we got some mountain or hills And that should be a good area to start a parkrun.

00:22:24Martin: And the Germans, they love to volunteer. So all our club structures are based on volunteering. But I guess we've got a gap in terms of what parkrun is all about. That it's not a race. It's not about speed. It's a social environment. And a lot of German clubs, you have to be really competitive that you would enjoy joining them. But there is not... not a real base for just the everyday runner who maybe runs 5k a week or likes to walk and just socialize or maybe runs 15k a week. So I think there's a real gap. So it's a shame and really long overdue that Germany or parkrun comes to Germany. And I hope we have the support and the endorsement of our Australian parkrunners so we can set that up rather soon than late, I guess, because, yeah, we want to keep clocking our volunteering points and our parkruns and spread the news.

00:23:21Svenja: What do you have planned for my 100th?

00:23:25Scott Trickett: No pressure. Yeah, no pressure. Look, Tom Williams, the Chief Operating Officer for parkrun Global, he's a big fan of the podcast, so I'm sure he's listening, and I'm sure he'll get in contact with you as soon as this goes to air. Sounds good. So we need parkrun in Germany. And before we go, we've also had another tradition with guests lately that they've been helping out with the Achilles Group, And you also have been helping out with the Achilles group.

00:23:52Martin: Yeah, that's right. Obviously, we listen to every podcast and are always happy when you guys mention the Achilles running group. And there is one in Melbourne, and particularly at Jells parkrun, we have two regular vision impaired runners who join us every week. And Svenja, as well as I, often guide them. Not only us, so there's a is a big team. And now particularly because we're going to leave soon, we try to set up a new system, a new guiding system for one of the vision impaired runners and to train more guides. So Achilles is always looking for more guides to help out at parkrun or for other running events or for our regular training sessions at the time on the Sundays. So it's really easy. You get trained and we always need support. And it's just, an amazing experience for the guys as well. It's like, it makes running into a team sport. I think that's what Amelia said last time as well. And it's just fantastic to run with a good friend. So I can highly recommend everyone to get involved in that.

00:25:04Svenja: And what's also really good is that the guide dogs love to hang out and play in the park as well. So we are also looking for guide dog sitters or we got a guide dog that comes to Giles parkrun very regularly. And people not fight over who gets to take Khan for a walk around the parkrun course, but are very excited to help. hop out and play with the guide dogs for a while and make sure that they get a good workout too.

00:25:32Melissa Erbacher: That's fantastic. Now, when you get to Germany, have you got plans to do a sister situation with Achilles over there as well?

00:25:40Svenja: Yes. Achilles is actually an international organization. They're headquartered in New York and Germany has three or five chapters of Achilles for But disability sports in Germany is a bit more included in normal club structures. So they are part of normal training clubs or triathlon clubs or something like that. But we're definitely going to get in touch with the one that's going to be closest to us. And we also have some parkrun, not parkrun, touristing planned for some of the VIPs from Achilles Melbourne to come over to Germany to do some fun runs there.

00:26:19Martin: Yeah, Berlin 2018, the marathon, is the big event. So we have a few runners who are very keen to come from Melbourne to Germany. And since Svenja and I are already there and some other guides with Achilles in Germany too, we're going to set up a big event and, yeah, hopefully can establish a nice exchange program between Germany and Australia.

00:26:43Melissa Erbacher: What a wonderful thing to do to bring the countries together.

00:26:47Martin: Yeah.

00:26:48Melissa Erbacher: Thank you. Now, Martin, Svenja, congratulations on your recent engagement. I hope the wedding is every bit as exciting and I'm sure it will be. And good luck. Please send us some roving adventures when you're out and about around Australia and internationally because we would always love to hear from you as you go on your journeys.

00:27:13Martin: Thank you. We'll keep you on the loop, absolutely. Thank you.

00:27:15Melissa Erbacher: Thank you. Joining us from the middle of a constellation cluster, we have the event director of Highfields parkrun. His name is Ian Wickham. Ian, welcome to the parkrun Adventurers podcast.

Meet the ED

00:27:39Ian Wickham: Thanks, Mel. Humble to be here.

00:27:43Melissa Erbacher: Humble, that's the first time we've had one of those. You flatter us. We're going to like you, I'm sure of it. Now, Ian, what can you tell us about Highfields?

00:27:55Ian Wickham: Look, Highfields has been going for around 18 months now. We're basically a four-lap course. So we do a lap of an AFL oval. So it's not just the Victorians that have AFL ovals. But we have one and a half laps of that oval and then we're going around the outside of the park four times. It's a great little course, slight little hill, and we're sort of getting around that 60 to 100 on a weekly basis.

00:28:32Scott Trickett: Four lap courses aren't unheard of in the parkrun world, but they are a bit unusual in Australia. How did that come about? How did you end up with four laps?

00:28:41Ian Wickham: So, yeah, I guess we're limited a little bit in um in real estate uh but we do have a brand new sports park that's not long opened in high fields we will eventually move there and that'll go to a two lap course but uh we wanted to get up and running and uh our Toowoomba regional council was very supportive of the the parkrun concept. So they were keen to get started sooner rather than later. And I think the community's got right behind it and look at, In theory, it doesn't sound great to do four laps, but after 18 months, a lot of us still love it. We've got a little slight hill, so we get to do that slight hill four times. So, yeah, it's our parkrun and we love it.

00:29:36Simon Mackley: And we get quite a few tourists, so they enjoy it as well.

00:29:41Melissa Erbacher: So being AFL oval, does that mean you're pretty much on grass the whole time, or is there a path around the outside edge that's either crusher dust or gravel?

00:29:53Ian Wickham: Sure, Mel. So the site that we're on is actually an AFL oval and a soccer oval, and so there's two ovals side by side. So we start off running around the AFL oval, then we go around the outside of both of those levels, the soccer and the AFL level. So it's got concrete path on three sides and then grass on the fourth side.

00:30:22Melissa Erbacher: Oh, cool. So you're all terrain.

00:30:24Ian Wickham: All terrain, that's right.

00:30:27Scott Trickett: Ian, the Victorian in me can't let this AFL curiosity go by. How does an AFL oval pop up in, I assume, what is Rugby League Heartland up in Queensland?

00:30:39Ian Wickham: Look, there's a couple of AFL ovals up here. We've got a couple of teams in this part of the world and I'm not overly familiar with the with logistics, but there'd have to be five or six teams that compete against each other around the Darling Downs each weekend. Yeah, we're pretty lucky. Toowoomba's a very sporty town, so we're quite lucky to have the facilities to do that as well.

00:31:09Melissa Erbacher: All right. Well, you lost me when you started talking about the football, so I'm going to change the subject. You guys are, as I mentioned earlier, in the Stargazer. No, not the Stargazer, the Southern Cross Circuit. So can you refresh the memory of our listeners, for those who don't know, also the new ones, which events make up this club, which is strictly, it's all in Queensland, isn't it?

00:31:34Ian Wickham: It's all in Southern Queensland. So to make up the, it's basically the Southern Cross Circuit Constellation is about the same shape as that, or it certainly started off that way. So we have Warwick, Stanthorpe, Gatton, Toowoomba, Pittsworth, Highfields, and then recently we've had the addition of Dalby, Goondiwindi, and there's a bonus star of Roma as well.

00:32:05Melissa Erbacher: And if you've done all of those events, you become a stargazer, that's correct, yeah?

00:32:09Ian Wickham: Yes, you become an official stargazer. So I'm lucky enough to become a stargazer this weekend with doing Stanthorpe as my final star.

00:32:22Scott Trickett: Ian, you're quite the adventurer then. How many parkruns have you been around to, got around to?

00:32:27Ian Wickham: I've done 17 now, Scott. So it should be 18 this weekend.

00:32:32Scott Trickett: So, yeah. You're well positioned then to give us your top three.

00:32:35Ian Wickham: Okay, sure. So I think probably Nambour would have to be one of my favourites. Probably also conversely my least favourite. It's pretty hilly.

00:32:47Melissa Erbacher: I like that. It's a contradiction. You love it and you hate it.

00:32:51Ian Wickham: I love it and I hate it. It's hilly and it's a trail, but it's different from all the other parkruns I've done, and who doesn't like a challenge on a Saturday morning? Next probably would be Dalby. It's a fairly new one, but I'm a big supporter of the Western... parkruns, it's good for these small towns to have that and it really does become a community hub to have parkrun in the town. So the new one at Dalby, Miff does a great job out there. And probably Shepparton, nice flat course in Shepparton, done it a couple of times, running around the lake, it's beautiful. They're probably my top three. I also do like, probably get some brownie points with Mel, but Kawana, I like the fact that the start, you walk nearly 500 metres together as a group to get to the start line. And I think that sort of adds to that. The ambience or the togetherness of that particular parkrun.

00:34:03Melissa Erbacher: Well, that's the first official compliment I think we've had that we all have to walk together to the start line. That's a nice one to hear.

00:34:10Scott Trickett: Was it the first time Kawana's made it the top three?

00:34:13Melissa Erbacher: The first time Kawana's made it into a top three.

00:34:16Scott Trickett: I mean, we've heard Nambour quite a bit. We've heard Shepparton a bit. We've never had Dalby, so I like that nomination.

00:34:21Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, I don't know. I think maybe we have heard Kawana once or twice before. Once again, that might have been from people who want some brownie points. Though what I can possibly offer in return, I've got no idea. I haven't done Dalby yet. I'm keen to get out to that one. I really love the idea of becoming a stargazer and it's on my adventurer's bucket list because it's a decent challenge. There's enough events that'll take you long enough to get there and they're all just a little bit of a stretch away from where I live.

00:34:53Ian Wickham: The longer you leave it, the more stars we will have in the future too, no doubt.

00:34:57Melissa Erbacher: This is always the problem. Need to get onto it.

00:35:01Ian Wickham: It's a great circuit and some nice flat courses and different courses. So we're very lucky. We have excellent support here from the Toowoomba Regional Council. We've got Toowoomba and Pittsworth and Highfields all in that council. So, yeah, it's excellent to have that support from them.

00:35:17Scott Trickett: How did you get involved in parkrun?

00:35:19Ian Wickham: Look, I've been a runner for a number of years. Sort of typically run the 10 and 21 kilometre distances and Turned out one weekend to probably Toowoomba would have been my first. And instantly you're taken by the atmosphere. Yeah. of all the parkruns. It's all friendly and happy. And so that's basically how I got started. I hadn't probably only done maybe six parkruns before I became an event director here in Highfields. So, yeah, like I said, the council was very much behind us having a parkrun out here. And I was approached and stuck my hand up and said, yes, it can't be that hard. And it's certainly not hard to be an event director. And, yeah, I guess the rest is history. It's been a great experience. You know, a lot of my social group is now based around parkrun people. So it's a wonderful thing to be involved with.

00:36:28Scott Trickett: Ian, thanks for coming on. It's always good to hear in the regional areas. Is Toowoomba classified as regional? It's pretty big, I know.

00:36:36Ian Wickham: Yes, so Toowoomba is 120,000 people, roughly, in Toowoomba, just next door to us. It's considered regional. So we're about an hour, hour and a half out of Brisbane regionally. Certainly great too, and I certainly support as many of the regional events as I can get to.

00:36:55Melissa Erbacher: Is there roughly a timeline, Ian, for when you expect that you might move the course? Because that hasn't happened a lot in parkrun Australia history, people moving, like physically moving an entire event.

00:37:08Ian Wickham: The easiest answer is no, there isn't. There's a couple of levels of government involved to ensure the finalisation of that park before we move out there. We don't want to move out there and, and have big machinery around our parkrunners. So we won't be moving out there until it is fully completed. Stage one is completed and they're using it, but stage two needs to be fully complete before we move out there. So at this stage, I'm not saying that we're moving out there in the near future at all or putting a timeline on it. So there's plenty of time to try our four-lap course. It's fairly unique in Australia and as Scott said, And then once we do move out, it'll be certainly a great course once we move out to a two-lap course as well.

00:38:00Melissa Erbacher: Well, that's definitely one for adventurers because there's only a finite amount of time that they've got access to the four-lap version of Highfields. So it's only there for a limited time. They've got to get that one in before they can go back and get the other one in.

00:38:16Ian Wickham: Yes, limited time offer and no free set of steak knives, unfortunately, but certainly a free run.

00:38:25[music]

00:38:25Unidentified speaker: Music

Roving Adventurers (roving reporter crossovers)

00:38:39Melissa Erbacher: We've got a roving adventure from Simon Mackley this week who ventured out to Curl Curl's fourth anniversary and he spoke to Paul Rainbow.

00:38:51Simon Mackley: It's a roving report from Curl Curl parkrun's fourth birthday. I'm here with Paul Rainbow. Good morning. Paul, how's it been today on your fourth birthday?

00:39:00Paul Rainbow: Oh, it's been quite good. I think we got our record number today, over 300, so that's a good result. I've done some videos of presents, lots of PBs and certificates today, so, yeah, great day.

00:39:13Simon Mackley: Yeah, it was definitely pretty busy out there. I started well back and, yeah, it was extremely difficult to get further forward. What's been your highlight from the last four years?

00:39:22Paul Rainbow: A highlight from the last four years is probably all the people I've met through run directing and volunteering here. You know, that was our theme this year was the Year of the Volunteers and we had a cake from the cake committee made for that purpose and, yeah, it was great. But, yeah, mainly just the people I've met has been definitely the best thing about it.

00:39:44Scott Trickett: Thanks for your time, Paul. Thanks, Simon and Paul. Hopefully we're going to hear from Paul again next week when he updates us on Sydney's longest run. But we don't have one roving report. We've got two roving reports this week because Zara Curtis adventured down to the launch of Timboon parkrun. Timboon, we think, is the smallest town in Australia, population-wise. to host a parkrun. And Zara caught up with their ED and the TD. Take it away, Zara.

00:40:22Zara Curtis: So I'm here today with Donna Ellis, the event director from Timboon parkrun, and Phil Ackland, the territory director. I just wanted to say that Timboon parkrun is really pretty amazing. Thank you. It didn't actually feel like you were running 5km. Really? Apart from my watch was telling me that it was 5km.

00:40:42Donna Ellis: And that was because it's a beautiful forest trail?

00:40:44Zara Curtis: Yeah. So where did you find parkrun? How did you find it?

00:40:51Donna Ellis: there was a notice in the local newsagent here in Timboon and thought, oh, that sounds like a good thing for town. I might go along to the meeting. And before that, I actually didn't know anything about parkrun. And that was in February of this year. So as we know, parkrun isn't parkrun without volunteers. And if we don't have all of these great people to help us, it doesn't happen. So we're really lucky that we've got a lot of people in Timboon that are really supporting parkrun and just love it. And here we are this morning with... I don't know, 150 people.

00:41:21Zara Curtis: Great turnout for a launch. Yeah, we think so. Have you two got a favourite part of Timberland parkrun?

00:41:27Phil Ackland: Well, the course. It's fantastic through the woods.

00:41:32Zara Curtis: Personally, my favourite part is the views and that. How did you find out about Timburn parkrun and help set up Timburn parkrun?

00:41:40Phil Ackland: Well, I've been involved with parkrun for several years, and as a territory director, it's my role to come and assist with setting it up, and I heard they had some pretty good ice cream here, so that seemed like a good idea.

00:41:52Donna Ellis: Yeah, everybody comes here for the ice cream, but we do have other things in Timboon, not just ice cream, but we're at the centre of what they call the Gourmet Trail, the Twelve Apostles Gourmet Trail. So we've got ice cream, we've got snails, we've got strawberries, we've got cheese, we've got chocolate, wine, all sorts of things down here. So that makes Timboon a really popular place.

00:42:12Zara Curtis: Yeah. Well, thank you for doing the interview with me, and I hope you enjoy the rest of your day.

00:42:18Donna Ellis: And thank you for coming to Timboon.

Launches and anniversaries ("Where is the cake?")

00:42:20Melissa Erbacher: We don't have any launches this week, Scotty, but is there a potential for cake or donuts someplace around the country?

00:42:29Scott Trickett: There is. I'm heading out for cake. I'm heading to Coburg for their second.

00:42:34Melissa Erbacher: Nice. Portland, there's another Victorian one that you could have chosen. They're celebrating their first anniversary this weekend.

00:42:42Scott Trickett: And Roma in remote Queensland are doing it for the third time.

00:42:47Melissa Erbacher: And then we've got Taree in New South Wales doing their second anniversary. We've got them all over the country this week. Varsity Lakes in Queensland, four. So that's what? One, two, three, four. Oh, there's two on two. That's five this weekend. I guess that's why they chose no launches. There's enough cake going on in the country already.

00:43:11Scott Trickett: Lots of anniversaries. We're going to get to the point where the list is going to be too long, I reckon. If we stick around long enough, Mel, the list of anniversaries is going to be quite long. I think that's one of the problems Danny and Nicola ran into, that they just had so many anniversaries each week that they stopped announcing them. We're not there yet.

00:43:35Melissa Erbacher: Not yet. We're still keen to know about where the cake is.

00:43:38Scott Trickett: And we're still really keen to know where launches are, regardless of state.

00:43:45Melissa Erbacher: Or territory. Or territory. Yep.

Club Corner

00:43:49[music]

00:43:49Scott Trickett: Okay, last week we promised Club Corner. So, time for Club Corner. We would have loved to have spoken to someone on Club Corner this week, but they're not returning our calls. They're not picking up the phone.

00:44:30Melissa Erbacher: They aren't. Maybe they don't want to be put in the corner.

00:44:34Scott Trickett: But we're going to persist. We're nothing if not...

00:44:39Melissa Erbacher: Persistent.

00:44:39Scott Trickett: Persistent, stubborn, not sure what it is, but Club Corner. Stay tuned. It's coming. I haven't given up. But that's it for this week. Love was in the air.

00:44:55Melissa Erbacher: That's another good episode, I think. Everyone really enjoyed the State of the Nation last week, so maybe we'll do that. What say you, Scotty? Quarterly?

00:45:04Scott Trickett: I think it's... See what it does to me? There was a lot of work involved in that. Yeah, no, quarterly sounds great. quarterly is less than monthly so i kind of thought you know i'd ease ease that suggestion in because we haven't talked about this offline but you're right it's good it got a good response and everybody is really plugged in to what we call adventuring i think people really like to know what's coming up because new events excite us it's it's it's still exciting to hear about

00:45:43Simon Mackley: new events and when they're ready to launch.

00:45:46Scott Trickett: So there'll be more of it, but not this week or next week. But thanks for this week, Mel.

00:45:53Melissa Erbacher: You're very welcome, Scotty. I'll see you again next week, yeah?