Episode 208 - We Heart the NT

Welcome

00:00:23Scott Watkins: Hello and welcome to episode number 208 of the parkrun adventurers podcast. I'm coming to you from Melbourne once more and it's Scott Watkins here and I'm joined by the host of the podcast, Mel, coming to us from Queensland. Good day, Mel.

00:00:43Melissa Erbacher: Good day, Scott. And look, in light of the fact that it was streaky September and all the positive feedback we received for having you join me as co-host on the podcast last week, we thought we would do another streak of sorts and have you here at least for two weeks in a row. How exciting is that?

00:01:01Scott Watkins: Well, I'm very honoured to be back and back for your 201st hosting episode after helping celebrate the milestone last week. But yeah, it's great to be back. But I can't promise to streak any further than two.

00:01:15Melissa Erbacher: Well, there's all sorts of streaking happening this month. So that's fine. That's fine. We'll see how we go. But it's been a big week of announcements since last we spoke, Scott. Yeah.

00:01:26Scott Watkins: Yeah, since we spoke, we've had a couple of really significant announcements that particularly impact on our listeners in Australia, or part of at least, and in part of the UK. So we've got some light on the horizon. We've got some parkruns being scheduled to come out of the pause.

00:01:46Melissa Erbacher: Real live parkruns, like proper ones.

00:01:49Scott Watkins: Yeah, so first to happen will be the Northern Territory here in Australia. Our northernmost part is scheduled to reopen on the 19th of September. We've got a locked-in date for the three events that are up there in the Northern Territory. And then the big news this morning is the announcement there's a target for the reopening of parkrun in England at this point. It's locked in to happen before the end of October. So that's exciting now.

00:02:16Melissa Erbacher: It is so exciting. It's less than two weeks to go till there's going to be parkrun on Aussie shores again. I've had the pleasure of being able to do 66% of the parkrun events in the Northern Territory. Have you visited?

00:02:31Scott Watkins: Yes, I have been up to Darwin. Went up there once in 2015 and did Darwin parkrun up there. And I thought... For those listeners who may not be familiar with the Northern Territory, it might be worth just outlining the events that are up there. So before we record it, I just pulled together the stats on the events. And so there are three events up there in the Northern Territory. So for geography, the Northern Territory is in the north of Australia, right in the middle. And most of its population is centred around the capital, Darwin, which is right in the north on the ocean up there. And so the first parkrun event was established there in Darwin back in 2013. And it shares an anniversary with your home run, Mel.

00:03:11Melissa Erbacher: It does. Darwin parkrun launched a year to the day after Kawana parkrun did. And actually the same day as Westerfolds parkrun launched. If you listen to any episode of the podcast that ever featured Scotty Trickett, we might have heard of Westerfolds parkrun.

00:03:29Scott Watkins: Yes, he may have had a thing or two or an awful lot to do with launching that. So twinned with Westerfolds. So Darwin was the first one back in 2013. They launched with 62 people. So that was back in the days when launches were fairly small. But I guess then and now the Northern Territory is a long way away from anywhere else.

00:03:46Melissa Erbacher: It is. It's very remote to the other states and territories in Australia, or specifically Darwin. It's very remote. People talk about driving to Darwin because at the moment there are no flights going in and it would take a long time to drive there if you wanted to. It would take a couple of days and a lot of time spent in the car.

00:04:06Scott Watkins: Yes, we flew. I don't fancy the drive. So that, yeah, Darwin parkrun, when we went into pause, that was their 332nd event that they had. And they've had about an average of 112 people since then. So they had 104 finish at their last event and a record of 223. But so three years after they started, they were joined by Palmerston parkrun, which was the Northern Territory's second event. And Palmerston is a little bit inland in Darwin, so not on the edge of the water. And that has now got up to 185 events since that started. And then another year and a half after that, in 2018, their third event, Nightcliff, started. And Nightcliff, that began with 254 finishes. So by then, parkrun was well and truly established as a thing in the Northern Territory. And so they were up to their 109th event when they started. went on pause with all the rest of us at the start of the pandemic. And one thing that I did notice is that if you look at the sum of participants in the week before we went on pause, so the last events for all of them, there was 434 people participated in parkrun in the Northern Territory. And that's roughly the same number of events as there is in Australia, a little bit more. So I was thinking that, you know, when New Zealand restarted, each event represented a country in the world. I was wondering whether in the Northern Territory each participant could represent an event in Australia and they could all dress up, you know, someone could dress up as Kawana. And Mark Connolly up there already suggested that he could dress up as Albert Park and he was asking me for dress tips on that. So what do you think about that idea, Mel, everyone representing an event?

00:05:47Melissa Erbacher: Why is he choosing Albert Park? What's the favouritism? Yeah.

00:05:51Scott Watkins: Because he was talking to me. Well, he said he had no idea about what people dress like because we wear like sleeves and cover our legs unlike in the Northern Territory.

00:05:59Melissa Erbacher: They're not going to want to do that. Even just on the cusp of moving out of winter. I think that would be, I mean, it's a lovely sentiment, but I'm not sure... It would work. And, you know, it's like one of those costume parties where you've got something really obscure and you're dressed up as and nobody gets it. I reckon that's probably what it would be like. Everyone would look at each other and go, which event are you supposed to be? And then you would be just constantly the whole morning explaining why your costume is representative of Balyang Sanctuary parkrun. Yeah.

00:06:34Scott Watkins: True. There probably only are a handful of events in Australia that you could definitively identify by the way someone was dressed. I don't know, there's Coffs Harbour. You know, if you came as a banana, people would probably get... Would they though? You know, those big things. See, North Sydney parkrun, they could probably claim the Harbour Bridge because they run very close to that. So there's one. I'm struggling to think of any others.

00:06:56Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, I don't know of any that would be proper obvious. I mean, even if they're trying to dress as themselves, how do you dress as Nightcliff or Palmerston or Darwin? Darwin, somebody could dress up as Charles Darwin, perhaps.

00:07:08Scott Watkins: Yeah, it's probably not the most workable idea. So maybe we'll let that one go. But tell me about your experience up there. You've done two of them. Did you do them on the same visit?

00:07:17Melissa Erbacher: No, no, I've been to the territory twice, Northern Territory twice. The first time was to do Darwin parkrun on my quest to complete the Peel Club, actually. Well, it was partially the Peel Club and partially the club that I created with Christine Timms, the Australian version of the Compass Club, which is the northernmost, southernmost, easternmost and westernmost events in the country.

00:07:42Scott Watkins: It's the actual physical locations.

00:07:44Melissa Erbacher: It's the actual physical geographically furthest north, south, east and west. And at that time, Darwin parkrun ticked both those.

00:07:52Scott Watkins: And to explain to people, the Peel Club is the club in Australia when you have done one parkrun in each state. That's correct?

00:07:59Melissa Erbacher: Or territory of Australia. Yes. So there's a lot of travel involved with that one, especially if you look at the geography of Australia and how we split our states and territories. So, yeah, so that was my first experience with the Northern Territory in general and it was a great trip. It was so awesome. I had a wonderful time. It ended up being kind of a girls' weekend. I think I've talked about it on the podcast before. I also managed to completely botch up my return flight and I lost my wallet and my keys and and my Garmin and my iPod that weekend oh so did you get any of them back no I got none of those things back but I didn't realise that until I was at the airport that I had lost the bag that those things were in and also while I was at the airport I realised I made the critical mistake of thinking that 1am Sunday morning was actually in the middle of the night on a Sunday and and not in the middle of the night on a Saturday. So I showed myself and my friend Melissa, we showed up at the airport, you know, at midnight on the Sunday night to catch a 1 a.m. flight that had actually left 23 hours earlier.

00:09:12Scott Watkins: I've been there.

00:09:14Melissa Erbacher: Yeah. So that was an expensive mistake to make.

00:09:18Scott Watkins: Yeah. How was the parkrun experience though?

00:09:21Melissa Erbacher: Well, the whole weekend was amazing. Even those mistakes happening right at the end were not enough to tarnish just the amazing weekend that we had exploring the town and seeing the sights and the parkrun, which was awesome and incredibly sweaty. Yes. And I'm so glad we chose to do it in June because I thought, okay, if I'm ever going to Darwin, it's going to be in June, which is winter. Because I keep getting told that running parkrun up there is like running with a wet towel on your shoulders for five kilometres. And that's a pretty accurate description. So if you do ever head to the Northern Territory, I'd recommend going in the middle of winter. I can't speak to whether or not it's manageable other months of the year, though the locals seem to do it. But of course, they're living in those humidity levels all the time. So they're a bit hardcore.

00:10:10Scott Watkins: In Darwin.

00:10:11Melissa Erbacher: And yeah, had a great time at that event. And then of course, Palmerston didn't pip Darwin as the northernmost event. However, when Nightcliff launched, they took the crown as being the northernmost event. So of course I had to go back, didn't I?

00:10:24Scott Watkins: So how long after launch did you go back and do Nightcliff?

00:10:28Melissa Erbacher: Oh, now you're asking me questions. I might have to just go, hold on for a second while I Google my run results.

00:10:35Scott Watkins: So I visited Darwin in 2014 in July. That's the dry season up there. So again, for people that aren't familiar, it's drier in the middle of the year when it's their winter. And yeah, the in-between times, in-between seasons, and particularly a little bit later than that is when things can get quite humid. But my recollection of Darwin was, yeah, it was similar in that it was incredibly hot at 7am start, but still it was a very warm and sweaty experience, but incredibly welcoming. And, you know, we had a great time and it was significant for us in that Joanne had been out of parkrunning for a little while and she restarted up there. So that was really, really great. And yeah, we were able to do it not quite a year after it started. So it was still very early days. But the rest of our trip was great as well. Have you identified when it was that you made it back up there?

00:11:21Melissa Erbacher: Just found it. Nice stalling there, Scott. It was actually quite interesting. We did Nightcliff on the 26th of May, 2018, which was the same year it launched. So we were up there about three months later.

00:11:36Scott Watkins: Okay. So the Nightcliff course, is it very close to the beach? Can you see the beach from it?

00:11:40Melissa Erbacher: yeah well you're up you're up on cliffs funnily enough okay for part of it so you can see the water and there is sort of a section where you can actually walk onto the sand there's one of those handy signs that says beware of the crocodiles yet another Australian animal that will kill you we didn't see any of course did you go to crocosaurus Cove when you were in Darwin The first time, yes. Yeah, not the second time. The second time we actually travelled a bit further afield and went into some natural watering holes and things like that, which I never thought I would do. I was always thinking, no, I'm not one of those stupid tourists who's going to go and just go swimming in some water hole in the Northern Territory where they have crocodiles and stuff. And there were signs that said crocodiles have been seen in this area. Not recently, but it's a possibility. However, there were so many other people in the watering hole. I thought, what are the chances? We're all making such a noise and a mess and a fuss and splashing around and things like that. Surely, if there's going to be a crocodile, it's going to eat somebody else before it takes a chunk out of me and survive the experience. It was beautiful, really refreshing. That was great fun. But also, yeah, the event, like you said, it was a very warm welcome. So it's warm in temperature, but it was warm in every sense of the word because everybody is so welcoming. And we met up with Mark Connolly, who you mentioned before, who is a parkrun Australia event ambassador, but also just an all-around good guy. He was the Event Director, Darwin parkrun. Big fan, as in I'm a big fan of his. So we met up with him both times and travelled with other parkrunners both times as well, which was really lovely. Yeah, nothing but fond memories of the Northern Territory and cannot wait to get back at some point in the future to do Palmerston parkrun and return to my Territorian status because I had it. I had it for a little while.

00:13:32Scott Watkins: I still hold States Person status in California, which I'm quite happy because there's still only two events there and I've done both of them. So, yeah, I'm quite pleased with that.

00:13:43Melissa Erbacher: Given the fact that you've travelled from Australia, I think that's actually quite a big deal. So well done you, Scott.

00:13:49Scott Watkins: Thank you. I've never been anywhere near any other things. I'm actually not a very good tourist within Australia. Those who know me, there's events very close to my house that I've never been to, but, yeah, I've been to two in California. But we sort of diverted there. But yeah, the Northern Territory, I think for people that have never visited and a large number of Australians have never visited, it is an amazing place to go. And travel is still a bit limited at the moment. But if you do get the chance, there's some incredible things. The times that I've spent in Darwin have been amazing. It's actually a very... vibrant, incredibly multicultural place wasn't exactly what I expected. I thought it was going to be a lot sleepier and maybe a bit less diverse than what it was, but it's incredibly diverse. And I think a lot of really interesting things happening there in the arts community and a lot of different sort of initiatives trying to sort of grow Indigenous-owned businesses, doing things really differently to support local people in Darwin and in the Greater Northern Territory. And yeah, I had another trip once with some friends where we did an awesome hike through Kakadu and we went out into these places that only a couple of hundred people a year go through and camp under the stars and swam in water holes and saw rock art that was like 10,000 years old. Incredible. Just seeing things that, you know, nobody really knows where they're there. There's no fences or paths or anything like that. And just amazing. an amazing experience. And it's one of the few places in the world that you can get a long, long way away from anybody else. So if you get the chance, the territory is great and there's three parkruns and they'll all be operating again from the 19th of September. Do you think that they'll crack a record up there, Mel? What's your feeling?

00:15:33Melissa Erbacher: It's hard to know really, isn't it? I would have to have a look at the numbers. When you were talking about the launch numbers that Nightcliff had with 254 finishes, I'd be interested actually to check whether or not anyone was at Palmerston or Darwin parkruns that weekend because I would say just the excitement, there would have been a massive contingent of parkrunners travelling across from those other events because they are all relatively close together in the scheme of things so uh but yeah in who knows it's anybody's guess really isn't it certainly excited on their behalf and looking forward to hearing all about it and You know what? I think I might get up and do my (not)parkrun at 7 a.m. that day just so I can feel like I'm running with the other Aussie parkrunners that morning.

00:16:20Scott Watkins: Yeah.

00:16:21Melissa Erbacher: Although, wait a minute. Northern Territory, aren't they half an hour behind us? Oh, here we go. I'm going to have to figure out the clocks. Yeah, they are half an hour behind. No, they might be half an hour. No, they're not half an hour ahead. They're behind.

00:16:31Scott Watkins: Yeah. Welcome to Australia again for our list of time zones. Yeah. We have half-hour time zones and we have half the states that do summertime and half the time. But no one will be on summertime in September. If it's 7 a.m. there, it should be 7.30 your time.

00:16:47Melissa Erbacher: Which is much more reasonable so I can get a little bit more of a sleep in anyway.

00:16:51Scott Watkins: You can double check that when it's closer. But yeah, the Northern Territory has sealed themselves off from the rest of Australia and has therefore done a very good job of handling this pandemic. Had very few cases and even fewer deaths up there. So they've done a great job. People up there have been very patient, wary you know what's happening in other parts of the world and other parts of Australia but I am sure there's been a growing sort of enthusiasm for parkrun restarting because they they have been back to almost normal for a little while now so this is a really great thing for them yeah they're ready to go and then a few weeks later England will kick off talk about a good news week hopefully by later in October there might be a little bit more clarity on other parts of the UK or other countries as well but we'll all wait and see about that

00:17:38Melissa Erbacher: It's exciting times.

00:17:40[music]

00:17:40Scott Watkins: Yeah, it's great.

Streaky September

00:17:59Scott Watkins: So from talking about what's coming in the future to talking about what's happened in our immediate past, the last few days, Mel, for me, have been dominated by Streaky September, which we introduced last week. What have you been up to in the first week of Streaky September?

00:18:17Melissa Erbacher: Well, you will be pleased to hear that my streak is in fact intact. Scott, I'm happy to report. As anticipated, all the boys broke their streaks. So they didn't make it much past the first day of streaking, which is back where we were having our chat about it last week. The dogs actually maintained their streak for the first three days. They outlasted the small boys. Adam is still on the streak wagon, which is very cool. He's... clocking up a lot more kilometres than me actually I'm sort of definitely maintaining at least my minimum two and sometimes up to maybe two and a half k but I've only done one actual 5k activity and that was my (not)parkrun which I almost missed as a result of family time on father's day but I still got out there and I did it in the end was it late late at night or afternoon No, it's, I don't actually feel comfortable running after dark without one of my dogs. And the older of my two dogs, who's actually the tougher looking of the two, even though he's just a big bear, he's 14 now and he's having a lot of trouble seeing with depth perception at nighttime and also hearing things. So while he might look fierce and menacing, it's actually not very kind and He's not up to running for five kilometres anymore. He spends 23 hours of his life these days asleep on the couch. And the little one, God, she'd want me to carry her after 500 metres. So, no, there is no after dark running for me, unfortunately, at the moment. However, yeah, no, I managed to sneak out in the sort of mid to late afternoon. It was about 4.30pm. and got it in. And also, and I'm going to attribute this 100% credit goes to streaking, I was almost 20 seconds faster this week at my (not)parkrun than I was the week before.

00:20:16Scott Watkins: Congratulations.

00:20:17Melissa Erbacher: Thank you. I mean, it's no 20-minute 5K or anything like that, but it was not.

00:20:23Scott Watkins: I think as you spoke about a few weeks ago, if you, you know, just incremental increases, it sets you up for setting a lot more not parkrun PBs.

00:20:31Melissa Erbacher: Exactly. Let's keep with that line of thinking.

00:20:34Scott Watkins: You don't want to slice too much off each time.

00:20:36Melissa Erbacher: No. But you said it's been dominating your last week, Scott. Tell me more.

00:20:42Scott Watkins: Yeah, absolutely. So I have. I think I said last week that I've sort of been looking around for a little bit of motivation and this is done. So I've clocked up a few longer runs, like filling my hour. We're still, as we discussed last week, we've still just got an hour that we're allowed outside. So I've filled that up three times. and had a couple of walks. So I've done some by myself, some with my lovely wife. Both of us got a bit busy yesterday and had to actually squeeze one in at 10 past seven at night. So we just did a blocky, sort of taking on what you'd suggested. So we did a two kilometre blocky here in South Melbourne and managed to get back home before our curfew of 8pm. We were very obedient and And then today, really, really nice thing, which shows that some nice things can still happen even when there's a lot of restrictions in that I just ran down the road near Middle Park Beach and I was running along and I saw a friend of mine, Ben, and he was just coming out of his street. And so I turned around and the two of us ran together for the next sort of 50 minutes. And that was really nice. I haven't seen him for a few weeks. And so it was really great just to bump into him on the street. And we went for a run down around Port Melbourne and back and then went our separate ways when I came back up here to my place and he did his. So he's obviously a parkrun friend. Ben and his partner Maddy have been a huge part of our social circle at parkrun since the very, very start. And Ben and I have always had sort of somewhat similar running trajectories. He's probably always a little bit faster than me. I tend to find friends who are just a little bit better than me all the time, which is not a bad thing sometimes. It pulls me along. But, yeah, we just had a very gentle run along. I haven't done any of the challenges yet. I was actually... Well, that was it.

00:22:30Melissa Erbacher: That was one, Scott. It doesn't matter if it was inadvertent. That was with a friend.

00:22:34Scott Watkins: Yeah.

00:22:35Melissa Erbacher: Congratulations.

00:22:36Scott Watkins: Well, thank you. Thank you. I did hark back to a conversation the other day about not trying to do them all in one go. So I was, I think when I was out on Saturday or Sunday, I thought, oh, I could do a heart in this. But then I thought, no, hang on, I'll plan something a little bit more, more inventive maybe when we've got a little bit more time towards the end of the month we'll hopefully be have a little bit less restrictions a little bit more time outside so I might save some of them until then what about you have you sort of clearly done any of the challenges yet

00:23:05Melissa Erbacher: Not premeditated. Technically, I do the DFYB every time because I've got my barcode on my shoelace. So it's always with me. And I've done quite a few of my streaks listening to podcasts, so I could tick that one off. But I feel like it's almost cheating if it's not an intentional, all right, today is challenge day. I'm going to go out and I'm going to complete this, this one of the Streaky Bingo challenges. And I'll admit a couple of times I've been out and thinking, oh, this would have been a perfect day to do this challenge. Case in point, we had a really rainy, wet, miserable day on Saturday and it was so cold and I was not really wanting to get out. But I made myself, obviously, get out and do it.

00:23:50Scott Watkins: Just to pause you, to give our listeners sort of context, really cold is...

00:23:55Melissa Erbacher: Oh, you know, like 20 degrees or something.

00:23:58Scott Watkins: Okay, sorry.

00:23:58Melissa Erbacher: But it was wet and windy, so, you know, wind chill factor made it feel like 18 or 19.

00:24:03Scott Watkins: Yeah.

00:24:04Melissa Erbacher: Now you're distracting me, Scott. But what I thought when I got out there when I was sort of a bit chilly on my streak was I should have worn my flannelette pyjamas. You know, this would have been the perfect – day to do that before it gets too hot or if it's another humid day or something like that. And I missed that opportunity. So I'm going to have to be a bit more conscientious about getting the Bingoe card out before I plan my streak for any given day and thinking, all right, what am I going to do today? And while I was out there today, I was thinking about the streaky Strava heart as well. And you've got me thinking about doing an doing a heart that is accurate to what a real heart is.

00:24:47Scott Watkins: Anatomically correct.

00:24:50Melissa Erbacher: Yes, that's the kind of heart. So now I need to get out an old high school biology book or Google it or something like that and have a look at what it's going to look like and then get a street map out and see if I can try and get creative with it.

00:25:04Scott Watkins: Are your streets... close enough together? Do you have grid sort of like where you could potentially do it?

00:25:10Melissa Erbacher: Not grids as such, but there should be enough streets that maybe I could. I don't know. I'm not really going to be able to tell until I literally get the street map out and look at it. a picture of a heart at the same time and and decide whether or not it's doable otherwise you will just find me at the oval across the street the cricket oval just doing the tiny little heart which would probably look like a bit of a smudge because it's so small in scale that it's

00:25:38Scott Watkins: not going to be picked up on gps and I'll just think I'm running around in circles or something but you've given me an idea there because I hadn't I hadn't really thought that through but the Melbourne cbd which is a proper grid for people who don't know Melbourne it's a it's a proper proper grid so all the streets are parallel and perpendicular that is within my five kilometre range so I could you know run up and down Swanston Street Collins street and map out there if I've got the time to plan it in the heart of Melbourne I could Yeah, the symbolism there would be enormous, wouldn't it? Yeah. The beating heart of the city. Yep.

00:26:12Melissa Erbacher: And the literalism too. Yes.

00:26:14Scott Watkins: Yeah. I think leave it with me. Later in the month when I've got two hours, I think the pressure's a bit tight to get it done in an hour. End of the month, I'll have two hours, hopefully.

00:26:23Melissa Erbacher: Yes. And for those listeners who don't know, we were hoping there was going to be some positive news on the weekend for our friends in Victoria. But unfortunately, the lockdown restrictions have been extended for a bit, haven't they, Scott?

00:26:38Scott Watkins: Yeah, we're just taking it very slowly. And the government decisions are to put in place some targets around number of cases a day and being sustained for a couple of weeks. So The reality is that we'll mainly be locked down probably until towards the end of October. The 26th of October is one of the targeted dates, but we have to have below about five cases a day by then, which is quite an ambitious target. But we'll see how we're going. Things are still tracking well here in Victoria, and we are. But, yeah, compared with other parts of the world, we are setting –

00:27:14Melissa Erbacher: some ambitious targets to try and I guess line us up with the rest of Australia when when numbers are back to essentially zero in most in most places so fingers crossed we get there yeah and on behalf of all the other states and territories in Australia and indeed just the rest of the world Scott I hope you know that we're with you Victoria even though we're not allowed to go see you because all the borders are closed and you're not allowed to come see us you know you're in our thoughts If you've got friends in Victoria or you know people in Victoria, check in on them. Make sure they're doing okay. You know, reach out and have a chat or send them something in the post. Just do something, anything, I think, to brighten up a Victorian's Day. That could be a new T-shirt. Brighten a Victorian's Day.

00:27:59Scott Watkins: Actually, there's a pun in there because, you know, Brighton is a suburb of Victoria.

00:28:08Melissa Erbacher: There you go. That's probably worth its weight in gold, that pun.

00:28:11Scott Watkins: Actually, that came up today. Were you aware of it?

00:28:14Melissa Erbacher: TM, patent pending.

00:28:17Scott Watkins: I mean, if you sold them, a friend of mine asked me today, like this thing that was covered quite in the media in Australia about this woman from Brighton saying that she'd done all of Brighton. She was getting sick of walking around there. So, yeah, one of my friends commented on my Strava tonight saying, have I done all of South Melbourne yet? And I haven't actually. So I've still got plenty of places I can go.

00:28:37Melissa Erbacher: Good to know.

00:28:38Scott Watkins: Thank you for your kind words there about Victoria. And I think, yeah, there's definitely a sense that most people around Australia do recognise that, that we are sort of taking one for the team here and that, you know, it's in the whole country's interest that we align ourselves with the rest of the country so that we can normalise travel within the country and then hopefully outside as well. Yeah, I think people do recognise that and we have really appreciated that acknowledgement from the rest of the country.

00:29:06Melissa Erbacher: Now, bringing it back to some happier thoughts, I do want to stress that when it comes to the streaky Strava heart, you do not have to sit down with a Refidex or Google Maps and plan out something that's going to take a couple of hours for you to achieve. You literally can, as we mentioned last week, run a heart on an oval. If that's all you've got time and inclination to do, please don't stress about any of the challenges. They're supposed to be fun.

00:29:35Scott Watkins: They are, and I think that's a really important point to make. So even if it's just, as we said last week, your sort of stereotypical little heart or your emoji heart or something like that, whatever you can manage. But, yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing some of what other people have done. And you've had some feedback this week from the group about what other people have been getting up to. Do you want to go through that, Mel? Sure.

00:29:59Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, I actually asked everybody what were their highlights from their first week of streaking for 2020, and we got some great answers. And so I thought we would share them with the rest of the listeners. Do you want to start, Scott?

00:30:12Scott Watkins: Yeah, so this is the Streaky September Facebook group. So if you want to look it up, if you're having trouble, it's actually misspelled. So September, there's a typo in the middle of it, but look up streakyseptmiba.com.

00:30:26Melissa Erbacher: Septmeber, which, you know, I think is just the perfect representation of 2020.

00:30:33Scott Watkins: Yeah, it's just not right.

00:30:35Melissa Erbacher: Because this year there's just something a little bit wrong with everything, but in this case I think it's so wrong it's perfect.

00:30:42Scott Watkins: It is. It's great.

00:30:43Melissa Erbacher: So look up Streaky Septmeber on Facebook. We did also share a link to it on the parkrun adventurers page if you're still having questions. trouble finding it. And it's not too late to join. Streaks don't have to start on the first of the month. And if you miss it, you miss it. Streaks start the first day that you begin something. And then the second day you do it, you've got your streak already going. So you can start anytime and you'll be welcome in the group anytime. So please do join. It's not too late.

00:31:11Scott Watkins: So yeah, Mel asked in that group that you can find what people's highlights were so far. And these people agreed that they were happy for these to be shared with the world. So Janet Llewellyn-Reid has told us that her highlight has been reconnecting with old friends.

00:31:28Melissa Erbacher: Alison King said, it's got me out of the house when I'd otherwise have spent the time scrolling, which is an excellent point. She saw an old friend at the end of this morning's run and she was doing hill repeats on her street. So she hasn't actually seen that friend in months. And it's just like you, Scott, you know.

00:31:46Scott Watkins: Bumping into someone.

00:31:47Melissa Erbacher: Yeah, bumping into someone. Serendipitous.

00:31:49Scott Watkins: Yeah, that coincidental meeting up, I think, is more meaningful when we've had less interaction. So, yeah, I can definitely... feel that how that has been a highlight so Lou Bray a friend of the podcast sent in that she successfully talked a magpie out of swooping her so we talked about them last week so well done Lou you bird wrangler yeah she's actually shared some videos in the group during the week of her run-ins with mr magpie

00:32:19Melissa Erbacher: Always amusing. Always amusing. Then we had Craig Ryan said, today I ran more than two kilometres for the eighth consecutive day, up to just over 40 kilometres for the month now. And my highlight has to be this streak. Previously, I've never run more than two days in a row, feeling very happy and very encouraged by this group. Thank you. Thank you, Craig. I love it when people share those things.

00:32:44Scott Watkins: Yeah.

00:32:45Melissa Erbacher: So excited to have these people joining us.

00:32:47Scott Watkins: That's lovely. And I think it shows what people can do with a little bit of motivation and the fact that someone like Craig is sitting there feeling really, really happy with himself is an awesome outcome. So well done, Craig. I hope that by the time you hear this, you're still going strong and most importantly, enjoying it. So Paris Lawrence was next. And Paris is just enjoying the awesomeness of this group again.

00:33:10Melissa Erbacher: Paris is a return streaker. What should we call a return streaker? Is it just a re-streaker? She's a re-streaker?

00:33:22Scott Watkins: Yeah, I think we need to put a bit of thought into that.

00:33:25Melissa Erbacher: Must be losing my wit. Moving on. Then we also heard from Sally Heppleston who said she saw a koala in Westerfolds Park and they've not been seen here for many years, so the locals are in awe. A gift from nature for those of us in lockdown Melbourne. How special is that? Westerfolds is very renowned for its wombats and its kangaroos and its kookaburras, but how special seeing a koala as well?

00:33:52Scott Watkins: Yeah, I'm surprised actually. I would have guessed that there were koalas up there, but obviously the locals know it better than I do. But it's really great that they're there. They're very weird animals, but they have clearly found a happy place up there, so that's great that you saw one, Sally. Yeah. Michael Gentle said that there's been a few highlights for him so far, so reconnecting with his parkrun friends, his first attempt at streaking, so welcome aboard, Michael, and actually getting out there and being active. So he did two walks in August, so in total, for 10 kilometres total. So I imagine Michael is already well beyond that now here in September. But he did, and I had to go back to the group and have a look at this because Michael shared that he came across a sign on day three that has him baffled. And if you want to have a look at it, you can go into the Facebook group and see it. But it is a sign and the image has a P at the top with a circle around it and a cross through it. So you would reasonably interpret that as saying no parking. And then underneath it, it has an arrow pointing in both directions, but it says motor vehicles excepted. So Michael, like many people, are wondering what else would be parking on what he says was a suburban residential street. Mel, any ideas there?

00:35:15Melissa Erbacher: I can only imagine. No, in fact, I can't even imagine because... Isn't it just motor vehicles that park? I mean... What else do you park? You park a horse? I mean, a horse isn't really going to be a problem.

00:35:29Scott Watkins: Because if it was something like motorcycles, perhaps, I think it would say motorcycles park here, not...

00:35:36Melissa Erbacher: But motor vehicles could include motorcycles as well, so that's... Yeah, I would say a motorcycle is a vehicle that has a motor.

00:35:43Scott Watkins: Yeah, so just for everyone, just picture this in your mind. It says P with a line through it, no... parking, but motor vehicles excepted. If anyone can explain that, do write in to the podcast and make a comment on the Facebook post because that is a very, very strange one.

00:36:01Melissa Erbacher: Yep. Also qualifies for the Sign Me Up Challenge on the Streaky Bingoe card. So tick that one off, Michael. You're doing good.

00:36:08Scott Watkins: Absolutely.

00:36:10Melissa Erbacher: We also heard from Birgit Rainbird, who said her highlight has been getting Casey Hyde involved and hopefully helping during Melbourne lockdown in a very small way. It's awesome to get other parkrun friends involved. And I know Casey Hyde, I believe this is her first year streaking with us. And it's awesome to have you along, Casey, and also your guide dog, Bridget.

00:36:33Scott Watkins: Yes. Yeah, I've met Casey a few times. Casey's probably quite renowned around Australia. She's lived in different parts of the country and Perth and up in Brisbane and down here in Melbourne for a little while. And And I know Casey and Birgit have been involved in helping a lot of people that are vision impaired participate in parkrun around Australia. And it's really great that they're also part of this journey of Streaky September.

00:36:56Melissa Erbacher: And finally, we also heard from Pippa White, who I'm going to sum this up for you, Pippa. She basically said that the highlight hasn't just been the last week. It's been the journey and the friends made. So, which for her started over a year ago now, as Pippa began streaking with us in 2019. We'll actually hear a little bit more from Pippa next week. So I'll just leave it at that for now. But Pippa, Thank you to everyone who commented and let us know what your highlights were. It was awesome to hear. Excited to have you all along for the journey and thanks for getting involved.

00:37:33Scott Watkins: Yeah, it's really great to see and I'm sure you'd welcome me if anyone wants to send in a roving report from their streak or perhaps if they're with a friend, some discussion of it, whatever you're doing sharing the photos in the group sharing your comments in the group and encouraging others and and just being in this together I think is a really really great experience so well done everyone

Sign-off

00:37:54Melissa Erbacher: Well, that pretty much brings us to the end of another episode, Scott. It's been great having you back two weeks in a row to have another chat. It's almost like being back at parkrun and catching up.

00:38:06Scott Watkins: With friends.

00:38:07Melissa Erbacher: At your home event. Yeah.

00:38:09Scott Watkins: Well, I really appreciate it. It was good to have a chat again and I'm happy to hear that you're doing well, and that people have been enjoying Streaky September and the podcast too. That's really great. You probably need to give a mention to the other upcoming big announcement, which we discussed a little bit last week, but a reminder about the International Ugly Christmas Singlet Day.

00:38:29Melissa Erbacher: Yes, the 19th of December, the third Saturday in December will be International Ugly Christmas Singlet and or Shirt Day. The name just gets longer and longer, doesn't it?

00:38:42Scott Watkins: I'm really looking forward to it.

00:38:45Melissa Erbacher: Um, the 2020 release of the Ugly Christmas Singlets will be out before the end of September. So please keep an eye out for those. I will say so far, I haven't seen anything anywhere near as ugly as the release of the 2020 Ugly Christmas Singlets and shirts. However, I believe the other people aren't actually going for ugly, which would explain it. Um, Anyway, we love that there's going to be a lot of festive variety out there this year and we hope you all know everybody is welcome to participate in International Ugly Christmas Singlet or Shirt Day. That being said, if you've got one of those prettier festive singlets, you may want to ugly it up a little bit on the day. So keep a lookout for those and keep streaking, keep having fun and enjoy the challenges along the way.

00:39:33Scott Watkins: Thanks for having me back, Mel. It's been a pleasure to be here. Everyone stay safe, keep streaking and enjoy your (not)parkruns as well.

00:39:36[music]

00:40:36Unidentified speaker: Bye.