Episode 192 - World Tourists

Welcome

00:00:23David Moss: Hi, I'm David of the parkrun adventurers podcast, and this is episode 192 of said podcast. And I'm with Mel. How are you, Mel?

00:00:33Melissa Erbacher: I'm wonderful, thanks, Dave. How are you doing this week?

00:00:37David Moss: I'm absolutely ecstatic.

00:00:39Melissa Erbacher: That's good to hear.

00:00:40David Moss: I'm glad to say, yeah.

00:00:42Melissa Erbacher: And you're joining us from where? Where in the world is David Moss?

00:00:47David Moss: Okay, at the moment I'm in the lovely little countryside town of Palmwoods in the back of the Sunshine Coast. Ah. You've probably been there.

00:00:58Melissa Erbacher: Once or twice, yes. No, you're actually almost once again joining me in the studio. You are down the other end of the house.

00:01:07David Moss: The far end of the house, yes.

00:01:08Melissa Erbacher: Yes, I gave you the good mic, so if you sound better than me this week.

00:01:12David Moss: Not likely.

00:01:13Melissa Erbacher: It's all about the technology. Thank you for making time to come and fit me in before your now cancelled tennis afternoon game. It must be great living the life of retirement.

00:01:29David Moss: It is. I'll recommend it to anyone, anytime. It's a wonderful way of doing things.

00:01:35Melissa Erbacher: And speaking of the perks of said situation, you had a bit of a spontaneous trip last week to parkrun, if I am to understand correctly.

00:01:46David Moss: You are, yes. A friend, Mark, who is one of a few of us who often get around to different courses, contacted on short notice to say, hey, would you like to head up to Yeppoon? And it's pretty hard to say no. Unfortunately, we could rearrange things, so we managed to head off on Friday morning, early Friday morning, and continue, I think it's 600 or 700 kilometres up the road to central Queensland, or central coastal Queensland, on the Tropic of Capricorn.

00:02:18Melissa Erbacher: That's a fair trek for just a last-minute spontaneous trip. Let's go for a road trip.

00:02:24David Moss: I'll agree with that. I think a sort of opportunity knock, sometimes you just have to give it a go or you know that you'd miss out. And this one, there was a bit of a time constraint. We knew we needed to get there while they still have the Yeppoon course.

00:02:40Melissa Erbacher: Yes, and you, well, how should we do this, Dave? You got some audio from Yeppoon on the weekend. You spoke to Natalie.

00:02:48David Moss: Yes, I got to talk to the Run Director, Natalie, who is very good, and I think hopefully within the audio it will actually tell you a bit about the details and the changes happening up there. So do you want to just give that one a go?

00:03:02Natalie: Yeah, let's listen to it now.

Roving reports & the Channel 5 News crew

Roving report David Moss — Yeppoon parkrun

00:03:04David Moss: Hey and we're at the Yeppoon parkrun and I'm with Natalie. And Natalie you're the Run Director today? I sure am. And how long have you been doing parkrun?

00:03:13Natalie: So we've been doing Yeppoon parkrun now for just over two years so I believe it was about June in 2017 that we first started here.

00:03:21David Moss: And is this where you first ran or started parkrun?

00:03:23Natalie: Yes, this is where we first started parkrun. So I'm one of the Event Directors here as well.

00:03:29David Moss: Right. And were you actually involved in setting up the run?

00:03:33Natalie: Yeah, sure was, yeah. So I went to Gladstone and actually have never heard of Yeppoon. Oh, sorry, I've never heard of parkrun before. And then, yeah, just spoke to the Event Director there and wanted to bring it back to Yeppoon.

00:03:47David Moss: Ah, very good. And how would you describe the trail here?

00:03:51Natalie: I would describe it as beautiful. So we run along the Capricorn Rail Trail. It's nice and shady here. It's got a lot of trees and it is quite nice and flat. It has got a bit of an incline. It is historically where the rail line was, so they've pulled that up previously and then they've gone and put a nice bitumen path along it for us.

00:04:12David Moss: I've got to admit, that's a nice smooth trail. I was expecting bits of gravel, dirt. There's one culvert and that's about it.

00:04:18Natalie: Yeah, that's about it. But no, it's good. It's nice and easy for everyone. We've got people with prams as well, so it's very useful for a large number of people.

00:04:28David Moss: And how many people do you normally get?

00:04:29Natalie: We usually get maybe around 50 to 60. But funnily enough, it was actually last weekend we got our course record of 119 people. So when we first launched, we got 108. And yeah, lo and behold, we got 119 people. So we have been getting, it seems we have been getting some renewed interest in it. We've got some regulars come back who haven't been here for a while. We've had some new starters. So the past few weeks we have been kind of getting around that 70 to 80.

00:05:02David Moss: Okay, and Yeppoon is sort of a touristy town.

00:05:04Natalie: Yes.

00:05:05David Moss: Do you get many visitors here?

00:05:07Natalie: We do actually, yeah. Usually every event that we do have, we do get visitors. We also get some international ones as well. So it's really great because with parkrun itself, it's a really good opportunity for people to actually come around to these places, locations to do parkrun um yeah and we get yeah just people from all over and you're moderately close to the Rockhampton parkrun I don't know people go between the two every so often yeah yeah we do get um we do get some people down from rocky um and then we do get some people go up um to Rockhampton as well uh we get it's a bit cooler down here so I don't think too many people in Yeppoon go up to Rockhampton and for those who don't know I used to work in Rockhampton it gets stinking hot it sure does yeah

00:05:51David Moss: There's a mountain that blocks the sea breeze, which is a pain in the... Right, OK, that'll do. And I understand you're about to move courses.

00:05:58Natalie: We are, yeah, so we're about to move. We aren't officially allowed to announce it yet, but, yeah, it should be... I don't know how much I can say. It will be very, very soon. Yeah, sooner than most people think.

00:06:10David Moss: Secret parkrun business.

00:06:11Natalie: Secret parkrun business, yes.

00:06:12David Moss: And the new course, I heard you saying beforehand, it's sort of a similar sort of thing to this, which is a long loop out, or out and back, and then a short out and back.

00:06:21Natalie: That's correct, yeah. And we will actually be running along the beach, along the coastline, which is when you think of Yeppoon, it's all about its coastline. Yep. And when we first did start parkrun, there unfortunately wasn't a suitable path that was available to, like, which was along the water. And it wasn't until after we had the cyclone and we had a lot of engineering around Statue Bay and then council have gone and put a full path along there. So we're looking very, very forward to that. We will miss this course, though, because it is beautiful. But running along the beach, yeah, will be spectacular.

00:06:54David Moss: Do you have little bridges like you do on this one?

00:06:55Natalie: We do have one, just one. And we have a nice curve that we run all the way up around the headland as well there. So it's insane that we have had a trial run and we're going to be doing a trial run next weekend, but we have had a smaller one. And our parkrunners were actually getting the same time, if not better, at the new course.

00:07:16David Moss: Okay, fair enough. This is an odd one because you'll be running for that one. You'll be able to see Great Keppel Island.

00:07:23Natalie: Yes.

00:07:23David Moss: Any chance of getting a run around Great Keppel Island? I don't know. Because I guess that would be about 5km to do the circuit.

00:07:27Natalie: Yeah, I don't know. Look, I don't think that our volunteers would... Yeah, you'd have to get the volunteers over there and people on the barge every weekend. Oh, I'm sure...

00:07:35David Moss: People wouldn't suffer through that, would they?

00:07:37Natalie: Yeah, no. It would be beautiful, wouldn't it? It would be amazing.

00:07:40David Moss: Roslyn Bay, yeah, ferry out to parkrun. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, and on that nonsense, look, thank you very much for that.

00:07:47Natalie: No worries.

00:07:47Melissa Erbacher: Thank you so much for coming. Enjoy.

00:07:49David Moss: Ta.

00:07:50Melissa Erbacher: Wow, so it sounds like lots of changes in store for the Yeppoon team, a bit of an exciting change, changing courses. Yes.

00:07:59David Moss: Yep, and they'll be going from the – well, it's another reason for anyone listening, if you can, get there before the changes do occur. They don't have an exact date, which makes life a little bit more awkward.

00:08:11Melissa Erbacher: Just go now, if you've been thinking about it.

00:08:13David Moss: Get there while you can before the whole thing closes.

00:08:18Melissa Erbacher: Go now. It sounds, by all accounts, like it was a beautiful course and a bit steamy, I'm guessing.

00:08:27David Moss: It was pretty humid. Yes, the sweat was pouring off. And it's one of the nice things about this coming weekend. Hopefully for everyone, it'll be somewhat cooler. Yeah, the course was a nice, simple out and back one, as we said. But the humidity was a high level. There's something to be said for being a Tail Walker. There's a lot to be said for being a Tail Walker.

00:08:48Melissa Erbacher: There's a lot to be said for being a volunteer on days like that.

00:08:52Unidentified speaker: There is.

00:08:53David Moss: The other really good thing about Yeppoon is where they have the breakfast or coffee afterwards, there's a lovely new lagoon that's been built and that seems to be the place to go to. So if you want to go for a wonderful dip, it's on one of the, what do you call those things? The infinity pools. You could just sit in there with your head out of the water, looking over the edge and you can see Great Keppel out to sea.

00:09:18Melissa Erbacher: Sounds pretty idyllic.

00:09:19David Moss: Yeah, it's wonderful. We had a really good weekend and I really do want to thank everyone. The people there were very good and I wish them all the best for the future.

00:09:28Melissa Erbacher: Well, so have you got plans then to head back as soon as...

00:09:32David Moss: It won't be as soon as. It is a fair size trip. I'd actually like to do the Rockhampton course as well as the revised Yeppoon one. But then there's also Gladstone, Mackay. There are so many places to go to. It's wonderful. And that's the furthest north I've actually been for a parkrun in Australia.

00:09:51Melissa Erbacher: Ah, there you go. Yes, I'd like to get back up north. It is, as you say, it's a fair trek from where we are, but well worth it for the friendliness and I think, though, I might choose to go again sort of middle of the year when it's a little bit cooler, humidity would be lower.

00:10:08David Moss: Yeah, middle of the year, northern Queensland, middle of the year is probably the ideal time.

00:10:14Melissa Erbacher: Yes, our tropical summers, possibly not the best time to travel.

00:10:19David Moss: And how about yourself, though, Mel? Whereabouts did you end up?

00:10:21Melissa Erbacher: I was back at Kawana Run directing on the weekend, having a good time doing that. Had the privilege of seeing in the first event of this bonanza of a month, February, for the first time in parkrun history is going to have five parkrun days. all due with gratitude to it being a leap year. And there's going to be a parkrun day on Saturday, the 29th of February. How exciting is that?

00:10:54David Moss: What a great chance. And I think it's another 28 years until the next 29th of February on a Saturday on parkrun Day. And so if people want to, there's only limited vacancies really for volunteering then.

00:11:06Melissa Erbacher: Absolutely.

00:11:07David Moss: So if people want to volunteer on the 29th, they should get their names down very early.

00:11:12Melissa Erbacher: Yes, they should. They should because it's going to be, I mean, I don't know where I'm going to be in 28 years' time but it's...

00:11:21David Moss: I don't know where I'd be on the 29th to be honest.

00:11:24Melissa Erbacher: I haven't got plans yet for where I'm going to be. There is, you know, a lot of exciting things happening in the world on the 29th and I'm sure it's going to be a day not to miss. It doesn't matter if you're volunteering or participating. I think everybody just needs to get to parkrun. So I will be interested to see whether or not there are attendance records on that day just in terms of volume of participants out there because it's a special day.

00:11:53David Moss: I hadn't actually thought of that. Oh, by the way, that's also one week before the parkrun meetup, isn't it? Sorry, the podcast meetup.

00:12:01Melissa Erbacher: It is. It's the last, yes, it's the last parkrun day before the parkrun adventurers Listener Meetup for 2020. So that's only four weeks away as well, which is another super exciting thing. And, yeah, there's just too much going on. There's too many things to be excited about. Life is good.

00:12:21David Moss: Life is. Excellent. Excellent.

00:12:23[20 seconds of audio that could not be transcribed]

Roving reports & the Channel 5 News crew

Roving report Cameron Drake — Edinburgh Oval parkrun

00:12:43Cameron Drake: G'day everyone, it's Cameron here and I'm at the launch of Edinburgh Oval parkrun in lovely Curtin University on the playing grounds and it is a lovely and lush place to do a parkrun. There's a beautiful avenue of trees and there's coffee right next to the start and finish line and we're about to get going so let's go have some fun. Good morning everyone, I'm here at Edinburgh Oval parkrun, oh my god I got it right, with Mark who's the Event Director.

00:13:14Mark: G'day, how are you going? I'm nervous and excited at the same time but really good thanks Cameron. And how's events been leading up to this eventful moment? So we've had two trial runs, we've had a couple of successful trial runs and what was really good about those is we had a little tweak of the course but we had 50 odd and 70 odd come to those trial runs which was really good. to give us an indication of what's going on. Also, the lead up to that, the university, we're on a campus of Curtin University in Perth and they have been so supportive and they just want us here. So it's been absolutely awesome leading up. That's fantastic. And we're expecting a big turnout today? Oh, We just don't know how many are going to come. I know that Woodbridge has got an anniversary on today and also Claisebrook Cove are having a Cops and Robbers event. And we're also right in the middle of five other parkruns. So, you know, it's a launch, so people are excited. It's the first E in WA as well. Oh, right. Excellent. So we might get a few alphabet tourists, but, you know, we don't know and we'll see how we go. Oh, fantastic. Well, thank you so much for the chat and I hope you have a great event. Thanks very much, Cameron.

00:14:15Cameron Drake: G'day everyone. I'm here with Nayo, who is the Run Director today on the first event at Edinburgh Oval parkrun. I got it right that time.

00:14:23Nayo: Hey, how are you going? I'm going really well. I'm pretty excited. A lot of people are starting to turn up. So yeah, we're just hoping it all runs smoothly.

00:14:32Cameron Drake: It's going to be a big crowd and I heard there was some very successful tests carried out over the last couple of weeks.

00:14:38Nayo: Yes, so we had a course set up in our trial one and from feedback we've made a little bit of change to it and then we had some really good feedback after that one. So we've listened to our runners and we're looking to make this a really good parkrun today.

00:14:58Cameron Drake: Fantastic. I'll let you get back to it and have a great first event.

00:15:00Nayo: Thank you very much. See you soon. See ya.

00:15:03Cameron Drake: I've found some familiar faces from my home parkrun. Hello, everyone. Quickly, shout out everyone. What's your name? Where are you from?

00:15:12[crosstalk]

00:15:12Mark: Adrian Baldivis.

00:15:14Cameron Drake: Anyone? Carl from Tamworth.

00:15:17Melissa Erbacher: Jess Baldivis. Justine Tamworth Baldivis. Chris from Baldivis. Frances from Baldivis, Tamworth. Kathleen from Baldivis, Tamworth.

00:15:28Cameron Drake: Jedi from Baldivis. I was kind of thinking you'd all shout it out all at once and it'd be really funny. So that felt really flat. Is everyone really looking forward to the launch today? Is everyone going to run a really good time? That's right. It's about participating. All right. Thanks gang. I hope you all have a fantastic time. Now, when trying to get volunteers, I usually nab people as they're lining up to do finish tokens and scanning and whatnot. I think I'm going to randomly talk to people up and down the line. Hi, I'm Cameron. How was parkrun?

00:16:01David Moss: It was so good.

00:16:02Cameron Drake: Excellent. Thank you. Hi, I'm Cameron. How was parkrun? Bloody awesome. Awesome. Hi, I'm Cameron. How was parkrun?

00:16:08Nayo: Great new course. Thank you. Cool.

00:16:10Cameron Drake: Hello, you.

00:16:11Nayo: Hi.

00:16:12Cameron Drake: How was parkrun?

00:16:12Nayo: It was good. Cool.

00:16:14Cameron Drake: All right. Next. Hello, I'm Cameron. How was parkrun?

00:16:17Nayo: Hi. It was even extra special today.

00:16:19Cameron Drake: Excellent. Why was that?

00:16:20Nayo: Extra special because it's brand new.

00:16:22Cameron Drake: I love it. Excellent. Hi, I'm Cameron. How's parkrun?

00:16:24Nayo: It was great. Thank you so much. Cool.

00:16:27Cameron Drake: I had nothing to do with it, but thank you. Hello, I'm Cameron. How's parkrun? Fantastic, mate. Cool. Hi, I'm Cameron. How's parkrun?

00:16:33Nayo: Very busy.

00:16:33Cameron Drake: Oh, it sure was. It was amazing. Hello, I'm Cameron. How's parkrun?

00:16:38Nayo: Yeah, it was great. Cool. Is this your first time here? To this one, yeah. But it's your first day today, isn't it?

00:16:44Cameron Drake: Yes, it is. It is. There we go. You've got to turn the brain on. Thank you. Hi, Cameron. Hello. Hey fellas, my name's Cameron, how was parkrun?

00:16:52Nayo: It was awesome. Excellent, excellent, yeah. Cool, how did you like the course?

00:16:55Cameron Drake: Oh, I'm stopping, quick, go, go, go. I'd better stop now, I'm getting in trouble.

00:16:57[crosstalk]

00:16:59Nayo: Coming through.

00:17:00Cameron Drake: Yes, we do. And we're with Neo again. And how do you think it's gone so far?

00:17:04Nayo: I think it's going really well. We're getting some lovely feedback from the runners and I'm meeting a lot of people who it's their first time to parkrun or first time certainly within the city. So it's been really exciting. It's really fun.

00:17:19Cameron Drake: That is fantastic. I'm so glad you've had a great first event. Well done.

00:17:22Nayo: Thank you very much.

Roving report Mark Scarborough — Wagi Bridge parkrun

00:17:24Mark Scarborough: Hello parkrun adventurers. This is Mark reporting in for the Channel 5 news crew. I'm not adventuring today. I am at home at Wagi Bridge in Canberra. I've got a special guest with us today. But before we do that, we'll just do a cross to the weather.

00:17:40[other]

00:17:40Unidentified speaker: What's the weather like out there? It's hot. Damn hot. Real hot. It's that hot. You know what I'm talking about.

00:17:46Mark Scarborough: All right, so I'm here with our special guest, Brendan Peel, who is a good friend of the parkrun adventurers. How are you, Brendan? Yeah, really good. Thanks, Mark. So what brought you to Wagi Bridge today?

00:17:57Brendan Peel: The short answer is cheap Tiger Air flights about six months ago. So I've got three trips to the ACT in the next four weeks. And... WAGI today gets me a new Wilson number, not the next Wilson number, but it gets me a new Wilson number. And importantly, the run actually went ahead, which is the main thing. And yeah, I'm 110% happy that I actually got to run with all the bad weather, fires, et cetera, that's been around today.

00:18:22Mark Scarborough: Yeah, well, thank you for coming to Canberra and supporting our economy. It's certainly good. It's been a bit of a struggle for us in Canberra and also a lot of other areas within New South Wales. So I believe that you're on your quest to get back your ACT Territorian status.

00:18:36Brendan Peel: Yes, yes, subject to anything that may or may not happen. So yeah, two weeks time, I'll be hopefully for Dawn's Peel Club entry at Mount Ainslie in two weeks and then hopefully I'll finish it off at Coombs, hopefully on the 29th, all going well. So that's the plan.

00:18:54Mark Scarborough: One of the things that we've been talking about in the parkrun adventurers the last couple of weeks is some of the changes to the parkrun challenges, Chrome extension and the average parkrun. So your home parkrun is Albert in Melbourne. So where is your average parkrun showing on the challenges map at the moment?

00:19:14Brendan Peel: Kerrang Regional Park, I believe, and that's one of the very many growing list of Victorian ones I haven't got to yet because I tend to be a little bit crazy chasing the interstate ones at the moment.

00:19:24Mark Scarborough: All right, well, very good, and thank you very much again for coming to Wagi Bridge, and we might see you in a couple of weeks at Mount Ainslie.

00:19:31Brendan Peel: Sounds fantastic. Thanks for talking to me, Mark. Thank you.

00:19:34Mark Scarborough: All right, now, another thing that happened today at Wagi Bridge, our Event Director, Ian, actually knocked off his NENDY, which was about two kilometres away from his front door, and ran at his own home parkrun at Wagi Bridge.

00:19:46Ian: That's right. It was the third attempt, third time lucky. So I was worried mid-week where the smoke and fires in the area weren't looking too promising. But, yeah, finally got it done today in the heat.

00:19:56Mark Scarborough: So you got to run at your own park, right? I did, yeah.

00:19:58Ian: So, yeah, NENDY's now Sydney or Melbourne, I think. Yeah, the closest one's now back out to 300-plus kilometres away.

00:20:06Mark Scarborough: Very good. Well done, and we'll talk to you soon on the parkrun adventurers.

00:20:13Melissa Erbacher: And we've got Cam back, this time at a launch. He went to the launch of Edinburgh Oval parkrun. Sounded like there was a lot of energy and positivity and everyone was having a good time there, Dave.

00:20:26David Moss: It did great. It's from Edinburgh. That's in Curtin University, isn't it?

00:20:33Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, yeah. So we don't have too many events on university campuses or near university campuses in Australia, but the ones that we do, by all accounts, sound pretty cool.

00:20:45David Moss: They do. Armidale's got one. I've been there. I remember that was rather cool. Obviously a different time of the year. Yes. And, yeah, great feelings. I did enjoy that. And I've yet to do one over in Western Australia.

00:21:02Melissa Erbacher: You're missing out. Yes, you need to tick that off. Maybe before you head overseas your next visit, you could just pop via Western Australia. Then you could get on that super big plane that goes for like 17 hours or is it 20 hours? Something big, massive and immense and doesn't stop but goes all the way to the UK.

00:21:21David Moss: What a great idea, being stuck in a tube for 20 hours. I think I'd rather stop off at Singapore or Kuala Lumpur on the way where you could actually stretch your legs.

00:21:33Melissa Erbacher: Yes, and you could grab a parkrun there as well. That works. So many choices. Definitely. But, you know, something that I noticed in Cam's report was brought up a couple of times about the trials that they held were really useful. And this got me thinking, it's been a really long time since I attended a trial parkrun. I used to do it all the time when I was an event ambassador because… You know, you're helping to mentor new events that are going to get launched and things like that. And you're trying to lock down courses and things. Has it been a while since you've been to a trial, Dave? I know you've been to some in the past.

00:22:10David Moss: It has. The trials are getting further. Well, when they're starting up new events, they're getting further and further away from home. And so, of course, normally if I'm travelling somewhere, it will be on the Saturday and And the trials are usually held on a Sunday at the same time. And just getting there starts becoming a little bit impractical.

00:22:28Melissa Erbacher: Yeah. Well, obviously, the solution to that is that we need to get some parkruns happening on the Sunshine Coast while you're in the country. And then that way, yeah, that way the both of us could attend some trials and have sneak previews of some courses close to home that are coming soon.

00:22:48David Moss: Yeah, the trials are useful. I think the last one I went to is probably the Mudjimba Beach one where the trials were useful and they ended up actually changing the planned course to the course they have now.

00:23:00Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, see, and it happens a lot, doesn't it, during the trials?

00:23:05David Moss: Oh, and it's just occurred to me I've sort of gone to a wishy-washy trial for a potential course as well, which must remain unnamed. Yeah.

00:23:16Melissa Erbacher: Okay, you've gone to a wishy-washy trial for an unnamed potential course.

00:23:22David Moss: Of course. There are groups around the country, lots of towns and other areas who would like to have a parkrun. Of course, people need to try and work out a course to submit to, I guess, the parkrun governing body. And it's actually enjoyable going along with the locals who are trying to work out where's a good idea, where would suit for a course. And that's even without the equipment, let alone the actual trials, which normally occur two or three weeks before Well, normally there are two trials, aren't there, before an event launch?

00:23:57Melissa Erbacher: So the definition of a pre-trial trial is a wishy-washy trial.

00:24:04David Moss: Yeah, pre-pre-trial, yes, the wishy-washy trial.

00:24:09Melissa Erbacher: I need to get me to some more wishy-washy trials. They sound like fun.

00:24:13David Moss: I reckon that sounds like a good name for an English parkrun, wishy-washy parkrun. It would fit in with a few of the other labels.

00:24:19Melissa Erbacher: Just need to find a wishy-washy park.

00:24:22David Moss: However, yes, it's been a while, but the trials are actually very good for people to know what goes on, where, who does what. I quite enjoy them.

00:24:33Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, they are good. I'm a fan. But speaking of some place that needs no trials because it has been around the traps for a little while now and we hear from them quite often. It's the flavour of the year so far. Mark was at Wagi Bridge parkrun in the ACT and he had a chat to a familiar voice for the pod when he chatted to Brendan. Yeah, out doing his ACT Territorian chasing.

00:25:09David Moss: There's a dedicated runner, a dedicated parkrunner.

00:25:12Melissa Erbacher: Yeah. Have you got a statesman or a Territorian status anywhere in Australia, Dave?

00:25:20David Moss: I can say quite firmly, no. I may have had South Australia once upon a time when it was just Torrens.

00:25:29Melissa Erbacher: I almost had the Northern Territory when I had Darwin because there was only Darwin and Palmerston and then Nightcliff launched before I got back there again. So I still haven't done Palmerston, unfortunately.

00:25:43David Moss: No, it's getting harder and harder and Queensland being, for both of us, our home state. I've forgotten how many courses there are here.

00:25:50Melissa Erbacher: It's 100 plus. I've lost count. And it is a long-term goal of mine. However, the budget doesn't – and budget and time and, yeah, there's a lot of criteria which is working against me at the moment, perhaps when I get to that golden retirement situation.

00:26:11David Moss: But I know in the UK there seems to be a thing about Greater London, which is – I think it's 50-odd runs in Greater London. Could probably do the same here for the Greater Brisbane area. Yeah, well, there are a lot of different – I haven't got that either, actually. No. Greater Sydney, greater Brisbane, greater Sunshine Coast. I've almost got that.

00:26:33Melissa Erbacher: What we are as adventurers are big list tickers, aren't we? We do like to tick things off on lists. But, you know, that's been my situation just in life in general. I've always loved a good list.

00:26:47David Moss: Yes.

00:26:49Melissa Erbacher: Speaking of ways of – oh, we should say thank you to the gentlemen both for submitting those roving reports this week. It's always great to hear from around the grounds.

00:27:00David Moss: And I do, in fact, envy Mark getting Wagi Bridge in, although many others have done it. I was there around Christmas, New Year. But that was when they had a fair bit of smoke and the ACT had most, well, all of its courses were cancelled for a number of events, which is a great shame. Yeah. And, yes, missed out on doing the double for New Year's Day.

00:27:23Melissa Erbacher: But you walked the course, didn't you?

00:27:25David Moss: I walked the course, yes. It was quite an open course during a hot summer's day.

00:27:30Melissa Erbacher: I'll bet.

00:27:31David Moss: It seemed like a good idea at the time.

00:27:32Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, I think we all need to have a good long think about where we really want to do two parkruns in one day on New Year's Day and decide whether or not Australia is a good place to do it.

00:27:45David Moss: Every place is a good place to do parkruns.

00:27:48Melissa Erbacher: Well, yeah, some places are gooder than others. Gooderer. Gooderer, depending on your temperatures. But I digress. I was headed off on the tangent of lists and you have got an app on your phone. I do not because I have a different type of phone. But you've got an app that keeps some of these lists for you, don't you, Dave? Yeah.

00:28:08David Moss: Well, this one, many of the listeners are probably quite aware of it since it's become more popular, the 5K app, which I find is very useful. Okay. So it just takes the data. All the data is available from the parkrun results, of course, and somehow magically just appears on the app.

00:28:29Melissa Erbacher: Okay. All apps are magic, aren't they?

00:28:32David Moss: To be quite fair, yeah, anything that you – if you turn a switch on and it works, to me that's magic. But, yeah, the 5K app also has some graphs, which are sometimes the easiest way of looking to see how you're – improving staying the same or declining as the case may be um in in your results and uh yeah I really enjoy it you like the visual represent the visual stuff it saves reading through yeah all the details of scrolling through page after page um and also it's useful for you can add your friends to it so you can see them on In very quick time. Oh, that's a bit cool.

00:29:14Melissa Erbacher: Without having to look up their results or where they ran last that you remember and then you can go and click on their names, et cetera.

00:29:24David Moss: Because, like yourself, I've got a number of friends who do travel around to quite different places and quite often you don't know where they are or haven't spoken to them to work out where they're going to. It's just nice keeping track of them. So, yeah, I found the app very good that way.

00:29:39Melissa Erbacher: Cool. Might have to see if I can get a version for my phone.

parkrun World Tourist Meetup

00:29:47Melissa Erbacher: A little bit earlier on, we mentioned the parkrun adventurers Listener Meetup, which is happening on the 7th of March and we are very excited about. There's a different meetup that's actually happening this coming weekend, which will be, what's the date this weekend? 6th, 7th, which will be the 8th of February. And it's happening at a few different events, parkrun events across the world. And this is the parkrun World Tourist Meetup, Dave. Now, for the uninitiated, the parkrun World Tourists, they're a group that are on Facebook, aren't they? Yes. And you need, there's a requirement of how many countries that you've been to be in this group. So you need to have done at least four countries and then you can request to join the group. And that's their only criteria is four countries that you have already done. You've done twice that many countries. Are you in the group?

00:30:48David Moss: Yeah. I am. In fact, this is when somebody sent the link to me and I applied and I was rejected the first time. Oh, rejection.

00:30:59Melissa Erbacher: Because you hadn't done enough parkruns or they just didn't count you correctly?

00:31:04David Moss: I think it's the way that they do the countries is in part whereabouts the, do you say the main servers for the computer is or something like that? So I thought I'd done four when I went to the Isle of Man, but that's considered part of the UK. Okay.

00:31:21Melissa Erbacher: Ah, okay. So that's a good thing to note that all, you know, England, Scotland, Wales, et cetera, they're not classified as separate countries for the purposes of this club.

00:31:33David Moss: Although the individual place may consider themselves to be independent. Yes.

00:31:38Melissa Erbacher: But I guess it's so the group is based on the parkrun countries as set out by parkrun HQ. So we currently have 21 countries, but yes, for example, the Isle of Man is in the UK as far as parkrun global are concerned.

00:32:00David Moss: As far as parkrun is concerned, yeah.

00:32:03Melissa Erbacher: Yeah. So that's a good thing to be aware of, that you're not actually getting – you are literally getting a different country, but you're not getting a different parkrun country if you do all the different ones within the UK. Okay. So the group was actually started about a year ago by a UK parkrunner, Cass Castleton. And Cass is also incidentally the only person in the world, I believe, to have done all 21 countries.

00:32:29David Moss: Which is pretty amazing.

00:32:31Melissa Erbacher: Oh, my goodness. That's, yeah, that's incredible. And that's when you consider that that's the 21 parkrun countries. There are actually more than 21 countries in that if you include England, Scotland, Wales, et cetera. Even though we just said that they're not going to do that. But, yeah, that is very impressive. And by comparison, Paul Sinton-Hewitt himself has done 14, which is, once again, impressive. What I wouldn't give to have known about parkrun when I was living in the UK. And, well. Oh, yes.

00:33:09David Moss: It would be lovely if we knew about parkrun and if it had actually started up many years beforehand.

00:33:14Melissa Erbacher: Yes, yes. All those things would have really helped to have known about it when it first started and to have been able to start travelling to all the different events and have them close by at that stage. We could have had so many more parkruns by now. But we're getting off track again. This keeps happening. So, yeah, this weekend the parkrun World Tourist Group are having a meet-up called Some more info about the actual group, you know, mainly they're there to discuss the travel side of getting to and attending different parkruns. And if somebody is heading to a particular event and want advice on where to stay and how to get from the airport to the city, et cetera. So it's kind of like the parkrun Australia Aussie Tourism Group, the unofficial one in that respect, in helping each other and connecting about adventures and all that sort of thing, looking for advice. But they also have this, they've got a bunch of spreadsheets for recording the different things like the numbers of countries you've done and how many events you've done in each of the countries and all that sort of thing. There's also a list for recording your international alphabet, which is a bit of an interesting thing. I think a lot of people are having a hard enough time to do an alphabet in one country, but the international alphabet is doing a parkrun starting with each letter outside your home country.

00:34:40David Moss: Oh, gee.

00:34:42Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, that's got to be a very small club. I'm not privy to who's on that list, if there's anyone on that list yet, but if so, that's, yeah. got to be pretty small. What else have they got in there? I mentioned earlier that there are a bunch of countries hosting a meetup because obviously, you know, unless you have got unlimited funds and resources to travel at your disposal, there's probably not too many people that can just pick whatever country in the world to travel to for a meetup. So they've got it happening in four different locations at the moment. There's going to be one in Presint 18 in Malaysia for Asia, Delta Park in South Africa for Southern Africa, Castle Park Bishop's Stortford in UK for the UK and Europe and Livonia in the USA for USA Canada. And of course, in Australia, it's going to be happening at Rhodes parkrun and that covers the Australia, New Zealand region. So they've broken it up into five regions, kind of in line with the Continentaire Club, which is another unofficial club that they've got. where you do all the countries in five continents if you want to be one of those. That thing aside, I'm not sure how they've sort of decided that Australia and New Zealand is one continent because they've got five continents. They're not using the six-continent model. So that might be a question you could ask in the group, Dave.

00:36:22David Moss: We can't really use New Zealand as one. We couldn't actually use New Zealand as a continent by itself, though.

00:36:28Melissa Erbacher: Why not?

00:36:30David Moss: Much as New Zealanders may want it, I don't think it's going to quite cut the mustard through there.

00:36:35Melissa Erbacher: No, well, New Zealand, I mean, there are different ways for modelling which continents things are on. And, for example, New Zealand is part of Zealandia, which Australia is as well, but then there's also Oceania, which takes in a much larger group, or Australasia and, yeah. I guess it just depends on who's drawing the lines around the maps and what they decide is or isn't a continent. But anyway, yeah, like I said, maybe you could ask in the group, how did they come about? Which would be the five continents? Anyway, Simon Nash was the person who actually proposed the idea to Cass that they needed to have an annual day for the group meetups. And I agree. I'm, a big fan of meetups, obviously. We're having our parkrun adventurers one very soon. And they suggested the anniversary of when the group started, which was the 10th of February, and hence that's when it's going to be. So it's parkrun Day closest to that, and that is this weekend. So if anyone wants to head along and you want to find yourself a big cluster of international travellers and adventurers, then head to Rhodes in Australia this weekend, or any of those other places that we listed, and you will be able to find a whole bunch of people getting together, talking about their adventures.

00:38:00David Moss: And actually, that's pretty good because if they're going to be going for 12 months, that's doing remarkably well to already have a meetup. So that is well done. I've occasionally used their webpage to pose questions as well. And you normally get a response very quickly.

00:38:16Melissa Erbacher: Oh, that's good.

00:38:17David Moss: And especially myself who have – I have no – fluency in any other language and obviously have trouble with English at times but so if you happen to be constant ones who do hear about say people trying to travel through and get a few parkruns done in Russia and quite often a bit of help seems to be sought from different sources and this particular web group has been very helpful for people over there So I do recommend if people do want to travel around a fair bit that they link up with the World Tourist Group.

00:38:56Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, so Simon did mention that they're expecting between 25 and 30 people to come to Rhodes, which is a great number. And they have plans to have dinner on Friday night at the local pub and are encouraging everyone to join them for coffee after parkrun. Are you heading to Rhodes, Dave, this weekend?

00:39:13David Moss: Oddly enough, after doing the last, what, 1,200 or 1,300-kilometre trip last week and – where were you? Is it – No. No. In a word, no. Won't be getting there. I just thought they might actually do something like fancy dress, you know, dressing in national costumes, colours. I'm not too sure what the Australian current costume is.

00:39:36Melissa Erbacher: Well, maybe we need to – get some more of our adventurers on board and in there because we're having fancy dress definitely. Have you? Oh, I don't know. Do you know what the fancy dress theme is for the Palm listener meetup?

00:39:53David Moss: To be honest, no.

00:39:54Melissa Erbacher: Okay. Well, I'm not sure if we've created an event on the page for this one yet. It's 1920s, Dave. Gangsters. Oh, great. And flapper dresses.

00:40:08David Moss: Oh, that's my normal attire. That's fine.

00:40:12Melissa Erbacher: Excellent. You've got a feather boa that you can just grab out of the cupboard?

00:40:16David Moss: I'm sure there's one there somewhere. There has to be.

00:40:21Melissa Erbacher: I look forward to seeing it.

Sign-off

00:40:23David Moss: So do I. Well, Mel, whereabouts do you expect to be running next week? Or are you running or volunteering?

00:40:31Melissa Erbacher: I am not currently on any volunteering roster for this coming week, nor have I got a definite locked-in plan yet. There is a parkrun that I would like to do. Could be a bit out of reach with the boys. It really depends on what Friday night ends up being like. Right. Emmett is working on some new chompers and that's a whole world of fun happening in my house at the moment. So if he has a good night on Friday night, then hopefully we get a decent length adventure in. If not, then maybe we'll stay closer to home. As yet undecided, that was a very long way of saying don't know. Have you got plans yet for where you will be then, Dave, if not at Rhodes? Yeah.

00:41:21David Moss: At the moment, I'm hoping to turn up to the anniversary of, what was it, sixth anniversary at Golden Beach. So this will actually be one close to home. And I'm looking forward to it because I haven't been there or to my home run of Kawana for quite some time.

00:41:38Melissa Erbacher: Oh, that's all right. You should head along to Golden Beach. I'm sure they'll have cake.

00:41:42David Moss: Well, that's a prime motivation in all these things. Actually, I might also add, I was very disappointed just when you were saying about you hadn't got your name on a volunteer roster. I actually had my name down a couple of weeks ago to volunteer at Zillmere and was quite enthusiastic. But during those heavy rains in Brisbane, unfortunately missed out on that one. And, yeah, I was actually looking forward to it. I actually had the anniversary the next week, but because I had a friend up from interstate, I'd volunteered to do the pre-event set-up, and they start very early there for their courts. Yeah. And I didn't think it was quite fair for the friend who was up to have to get up also with me at somewhere around five o'clock or earlier in the morning for something that they normally wouldn't do. They were actually very good. They came along and actually did the parkrun. So cheers, Richard. You did well, mate.

00:42:41Melissa Erbacher: Oh, that's very kind of you, Dave, to be so considerate. Thanks for joining me again, Dave. It's always, always a pleasure to have you in the Palmwood studio.

00:42:51David Moss: Oh, beautiful. And thank you very much, Mel. And I think your audience is awake again.

00:42:57Melissa Erbacher: You mean Emmett? Yes. Yes, I think they are.

Outtakes

00:44:38Melissa Erbacher: Yes, okay. Well, I'll just leave it run and I'll cut that bit off.

00:44:42David Moss: I have a feeling I have a tendency not to add my name.

00:44:45Melissa Erbacher: Yes, yeah, you don't introduce yourself.

00:44:49David Moss: Okay, three, two, one. Welcome to episode 192 of the parkrun adventurers podcast. I'm in cloudy Palmwoods and glad to say that at last the heat around a fair part of Australia has actually cooled off. And I'm with Mel. Hello, Mel. I still didn't include my bloody name, did I? No. Hold on, I'm writing this down now. David. Okay. Thank heavens tennis isn't on. Three, two, one. Welcome to... Three, two... I'm glad we don't do outtakes on this. Well, we might have to this week.

00:45:34[laughter]

00:45:38Melissa Erbacher: We might have to.

00:45:42David Moss: Sorry, I'm trying to keep a straight face. There's no one to keep a straight face for, of course. Three, two, one. Hi, I'm David of the parkrun adventurers podcast and this is episode 192 of said podcast.