Episode 349 - Big Swoop

00:00:00[intro theme playing]

Welcome

00:00:24Tony O'Connell: Howdy parkrunners and welcome to episode 349 of the parkrun adventurers podcast. A podcast about life, if your life's all about parkrun. I'm TOC, and I'm coming to you from Bunurong Country, and today I'm joined by Mel. How are you, Mel?

00:00:40Melissa Ellis: Oh, I'm Mel, and I'm coming to you from Wurundjeri Country. You're changing the format, you cheeky thing. How you doing, TOC?

00:00:49Tony O'Connell: Yeah, good, mate, good.

00:00:51Melissa Ellis: I haven't had a chance to thank you publicly for Lego Mel, and I haven't talked about Lego Mel on the pod yet.

00:00:57Tony O'Connell: Oh, yeah, no, it was a little cool thing we found in Copenhagen, Mel.

00:01:03Melissa Ellis: Was it actually from like Lego headquarters? Is that where Lego originates or no?

00:01:09Tony O'Connell: I don't think so, no. There was a Lego shop. Apparently there's only four of them in the world where you can print special stuff onto your little Lego figurines and we found one of them and we made a little Lego mouth.

00:01:23Melissa Ellis: Oh, I loved her. She's my avatar now for my profile pictures. Yeah. And you said you were going to send me a photo of Lego Tony and I haven't seen it yet.

00:01:33Tony O'Connell: Oh, it's in the mail. I reckon it's on Ollie's desk under a post-it note.

00:01:38Melissa Ellis: Oh, well, that explains a lot. Goodness me. How has your month been? Because it's a month since I spoke to you.

00:01:47Tony O'Connell: My month has been really good. We have been getting a little bit of touristing in, a little bit of touring around. We did catch up only two weeks ago, Mel. We park ran together two weeks ago at Diamond Creek. Well, that's true. So we've had the mid-month run together. But yeah, we've been all over the shop since we last caught up on the podcast. I know we've been up to Kilmore, to Diamond Creek, to Tallangatta and... This week, we were down at Rosebud. Went down and enjoyed a little bit of seaside action. Very much like Inverloch, Rosebud. You run along the beach, you run on a bit of boardwalk, narrow path in a couple of spots. And Mel, it was gorgeous and sunny.

00:02:37Melissa Ellis: Well, you bring the sunshine, don't you, Tony?

00:02:41Tony O'Connell: I like to claim that when it rains, I blame someone else.

00:02:44Melissa Ellis: You just say the sunshine's above the clouds. Isn't that the go-to? That's it.

00:02:49Tony O'Connell: It's always sunny. Sometimes it's above the clouds. Most of the time it's below the clouds. And so what future rosebud? Well, I thought it was going to be my volunteer alphabet completion. We booked it in. We booked in to be parkwalkers, thinking that we would complete the volunteer alphabet. And about a week before we went down there, I was looking through one of my many spreadsheets and realised I still have Jay to go as well. We had the R and the J. So we've now got our R on our volunteer alphabet, just the J to go.

00:03:26Melissa Ellis: And do you have something in your sights or are you keeping it under wraps?

00:03:31Tony O'Connell: Look, I think we will probably end up at Jerrabomberra because I like hills. And given that we're almost statesmen again in Victoria, it's probably going to be one of the closest to NENDY events for me. So it's only, what, seven hours drive? So it's almost close.

00:03:52Melissa Ellis: And I think you mean Greatsman.

00:03:54Tony O'Connell: Greatsman, of course, because we are the Great Estate, aren't we?

00:03:58Melissa Ellis: Yeah, I know. We are, absolutely. Don't let anybody tell you any different.

00:04:03Tony O'Connell: Yeah, no, look, our parkrun day, though, we had gorgeous sunshine down there. We actually went out on the pier after parkrun. It was just beautiful. But we had the pleasure of meeting a lovely young lady from Ireland who – Came to Australia. She hadn't been down in Melbourne all that long. She's just started a new job. And she turned up for her first ever parkrun. Her family are parkrunners in Ireland and they've been asking her to go to parkrun for a really long time. And Deidre decided to turn up at Rosebud on Saturday. So we had a great little parkrun, a great chat beforehand. And then we went and had coffee and breakfast with her afterwards.

00:04:41Melissa Ellis: Did you tell her you're famous over in that side of the world?

00:04:44Unidentified speaker: No.

00:04:45Tony O'Connell: No, no, no, not famous. Just a random. No, look, it was really good. Her family's from Limerick and it was one of the towns that we actually didn't go through. We actually bypassed Limerick on the way to somewhere else. Oh, we won't tell her. We didn't go to that parkrun. Fair enough. Mel, tell us about your parkrun day. How was your day?

00:05:08Melissa Ellis: It was very enjoyable. I travelled to Ballina Coast parkrun in New South Wales for event 264, along with 124 other parkrunners, including, as mentioned last week, fellow greatsman, Martine Barrot. Thanks to a recent airfare sale, adventurer Dawn Branton also shared the flight with us, becoming Uber Dawn once we landed, although Dawn had her sights set further afield, having already visited Ballina previously. I recorded audio with the effervescent RD Teddy after the event, so you'll hear that a little bit later on, including the correct pronunciation of the Aboriginal lands, which I will happily leave to the expert. Where is Ballina Mel? I'm glad you asked, TOC. Ballina is in the Northern River region of New South Wales and is actually closer to Brisbane than Sydney by about 550 kilometres and only 20 kilometres south of Australia's most eastern point, Cape Byron. The event itself runs along the water's edge in both directions, much like Rosebud, Tony, and is mostly flat aside from a short rise as you run back past the start-finish area and up onto the Missingham Bridge. There are toilets available with playgrounds, a skate park and parking all on offer in the immediate area. The area is also well known for its dolphin and whale sightings and yes we were lucky enough to spot some dolphins after the event although not quick enough to snap a picture as they headed further up the Richmond River. Our trip to Ballina despite being fleeting also afforded us an opportunity to visit the Big Prawn which sits proudly aside Bunnings just a short walk up the road. We did reference this big thing in previous pods when we were compiling our parkrun big thing travel list and Martine and I were not going to miss an opportunity for a selfie and a picture for scale to tick off our Bingoe card. The Big Prawn has quite an interesting history. It was first constructed in 1989 to honour the local prawning industry and draw travellers to its service station business. Originally the prawn was tailless and sat atop a building with visitors able to climb up a spiral staircase inside and look out a viewing platform inside its head. Sadly, in 2009, it was marked for demolition. There was a public outcry to save the monument and warehouse giant Bunnings came to the rescue with a $400,000 makeover, which included a fresh coat of paint and a tail. It was then moved to its current location next to Bunnings and raised up on poles to allow for its new addition And it now stands nine metres tall, although sadly you can no longer climb up inside. Weighing approximately 35 tonnes, it is also recognised by holding the title of world's largest artificial prawn. Yes, there is such a thing. Due to the nature of our overnight trip, we enjoyed lunch at the RSL before being collected again by Uberdawn for our return home, but not without our heads filled with plans for return trips to explore more of that beautiful part of northern New South Wales.

00:08:16Tony O'Connell: That whole area up there, Mel, certainly does look very beautiful.

00:08:20Melissa Ellis: It is from what we saw of it but we didn't have transport apart from Uber Dawn's help to and from the airport but there is by all accounts a lot more to see and do and that's what I love about parkrun tourism, TOC, is that you can go up you can get a cheap flight you can go up and it's like a little scouting expedition and you can get sort of the lay of the land and oh yeah okay so there's this public transport and there's that that far away and and then you can come home and you can sort of put the plans in action to return knowing a bit more about what you need to do and how to get around once you're there does that make sense it does and there's some pretty um pretty cool little ones along that coastal strip up there you know really Yamba's just south of Ballina and that's one that's really on my radar I really love the um

00:09:14Tony O'Connell: Yeah, thought of going to some of these coastal, as you know, live on the beach. I love visiting the coastal parkruns.

00:09:20Melissa Ellis: Well, funnily enough, that's where Uber Dawn went. She went off to Yamba and she said it was only about an hour's drive. So she had the hire car, which was easily obtained from the airport. And yeah.

00:09:32Tony O'Connell: And the airport, for reference, is almost right in Ballina.

00:09:37Melissa Ellis: It is. It's less than 5km walk. And that had been our original plan before we knew Dawn was going to be on the flight and offer us a lift. It was just to walk out of the airport. And I noticed as we were driving out, there was a footpath. So it would have all been completely possible for those adventurers out there that wish to do such things.

00:09:54Tony O'Connell: And gives you the opportunity at this time of the year to combine a streak for Streaky September with your parkrun.

00:10:03Melissa Ellis: Absolutely. And we did have that conversation because we were debating whether or not we were going to, once we knew we didn't have to walk out of the airport, then it was, well, do we walk to the Big Prawn Friday night or do we walk down and do a walk a bit of a recce for the parkrun start line. So we did the parkrun start line. So we knew where we were going in the morning because also Ballina is a 7am start in New South Wales. So we had to be up pretty early for our walk, which was just shy of 2km down to the start point.

00:10:37Tony O'Connell: Okay, so is that a 7am start because it's getting up towards Queensland or is it a local start? Local reason for it to be a 7 o'clock start?

00:10:47Melissa Ellis: I actually don't know. I didn't ask that question. Whoopsie. But I would assume it's maybe, I don't know, where does the parallel go through? I don't know.

00:10:57Tony O'Connell: I don't know. I'm actually just looking at Lismore, which is just slightly to the west of Ballina, and they're also a 7am start. So I guess once you're up in the northern parts of New South Wales, you're close enough to Queensland that it does get pretty warm in summer.

00:11:11Melissa Ellis: Yeah, I'd say that is the reason behind it.

Big Things

00:11:14Tony O'Connell: Yeah, cool.

00:11:15Melissa Ellis: Yeah, but we've had some late news brought to our attention, Tony, and it also relates to big things, and this time... My dear co-host has left us a little note in our show notes, that would be Ollie, to draw our attention to an Australia Post coin set that's been released. Well, we don't really know when, but it was announced today, I believe.

00:11:46Tony O'Connell: Yeah, Mel, the coin set's really interesting. And I actually reckon they've jumped on the back of Streaky September with a couple of their items in there.

00:11:56Melissa Ellis: They do seem to have. Now, this is the $1 – it is a $1 coin set. And the Australia Post site says it celebrates the nation's love affair with outsized sculptures. It will be available for purchase online or in store from Monday. There you go. As part of collecting month. So, oh, it's collecting month as well. So you can have an eye out for collecting the big coins. Maybe, oh, hang on. I'm going to put a pin in that. I'll come back to that thought now. Coins will cost $3 each, though.

00:12:32Tony O'Connell: Yeah, $3 each or $29 for a set. But some of the iconic attractions that are on the coins, and I think most of these were on our big list from either early this year or last year when we had the big list going around. Absolutely. But a couple of the really feature ones, I guess, the Big Pineapple and the Big Banana are two of the ones that featured. But they run right through a list, Mel, and should we go through the rest of them? Yeah, yeah, yeah, go for it. Okay, so we've got the big koala for those that are familiar with Dadswells Bridge in Victoria, the big Tassie Devil from Mole Creek in Tassie, big Blue Heeler from Muswellbrook, the big Jumping Croc from Wack Wack in the Northern Territory, the big lobster from Kingston. So we didn't quite get the big prawn there, but we've got the big lobster. Yeah. We had the giant ram from WA, the giant Murray cod from Swan Hill. And there's a bit of a surprise last one here, Mel. And I reckon they've picked up our streaky September and our swoopy September. They've got the big swoop from Canberra.

00:13:46Melissa Ellis: We did announce in the last month or so that a Victorian parkrun had a new big magpie. That parkrun is Euroa, but I didn't, I don't know that I really knew about the big swoop in Canberra, but that is definitely going on my list to hunt down when I next go up that way.

00:14:07Tony O'Connell: So the big swoop in Canberra, Mel, it's a gigantic magpie, and I'm trying to find its size, but it doesn't actually tell me where I'm looking. But it's actually big, pinched a chip so it's a giant magpie eating a hot chip yes so yeah now there's um quite a few of the the coins they're really well graphically illustrated I'm just having a look through them and I'm certainly going to try and collect a couple of these not too sure about the giant koala because for those that go past there at a night the giant koala in Victoria has glowing red eyes I'm yet to see a koala that looks that scary

00:14:46Melissa Ellis: Maybe he's a drop bear. He must be a drop bear, yeah. He's an odd-looking koala. He's not exactly a cute, fluffy-looking koala, but he's quite iconic, and you do pass him if you are driving from Melbourne to Adelaide because it's en route.

00:15:02Tony O'Connell: It is Melbourne. Yeah, so there's quite a collection there. There's also a stamp collection come out with a few different items as well. But, yeah, look, it really fits in with our big collection.

Streaky September

00:15:13Melissa Ellis: It does, and that leads us into talking about Streaky September. That's a bit of a tenuous link, but magpies, Swoopy September, Streaky September. Yay! Now, we have a Bingoe card to explain about as well. Now... It was released a few days ago in time for the 1st of September, and Ollie's done a great job. As usual, most of the things we have talked about, but we're going to go through them again. So do you want to do the top line talk?

00:15:44Tony O'Connell: Yeah, look, Mel, I'll just preface it by saying that there's 16 items on the Bingoe card, and you'll notice that there's a number of stars on them, and they're items that will be revealed later. and different challenges as the month goes through rather than having everything straight up front and people rushing around trying to get bingo in two days at the start of the month. One of the great things about the Bingoe card is it's designed to get you out looking for things and keeping you active for the month. So I'll start with the top line. The top line, The first square is a star, so it's yet to be revealed. The second one is a rainbow. One of the great things about our Streaky cards and bingo is you can make of this what you like. And we really encourage people to post into the Streaky September group, or in this case, the Streaky September group. I wonder if anybody would bring that up. The rainbow, for example, I've posted a picture of the aurora that I saw the other night. So we're lucky enough to be out of a night. Got some really great photos of an aurora. I reckon that's close enough to a rainbow. It doesn't have to be a traditional rainbow. It can be whatever you want to interpret as a rainbow.

00:17:05Melissa Ellis: Yes, I saw a picture of somebody with some multicoloured steps, I believe. I don't know if it was Heather. Anyway, yeah, they were rainbow-coloured heading skyward, so that was a good interpretation. But, yeah, it could be some chalk on the ground, could be somebody wearing something rainbow-coloured.

00:17:25Tony O'Connell: Definitely. It's great to think a little bit different, a little bit outside the box, and try to come up with something a little bit different. And as I said, we encourage people to share it into the Streaky September group. My third one is another star, so another one yet to be revealed. And my fourth one is create a challenge. Now, create a challenge, once again, you can interpret it, you know, it could be a challenge on the 5K app where you, nominate a number of places or a word. It can be a whole heap of things. It can be even just challenges yourself to maybe extend your walks, or runs a little bit each day, or whatever activity you want to choose to do, that it can be anything that you decide is a challenge, and just to try and push yourself a little bit for the month. Absolutely.

00:18:18Melissa Ellis: Like my 3Ks a day instead of 2Ks. Exactly. I'm actually going to allow myself, I've got a caveat on my 3Ks a day, because today is a day where I didn't have a chance to do the full 3K before we started recording. So I'm going to be going out after the recording to do a second activity so that the total for the day will come to 3K. Excellent. The second row on the Bingoe card starts with Streaky Strava Art. We have this every year and the idea behind that is... assuming you do use Strava or it also probably could be a Garmin trace as well from your Garmin if you have that as well but yeah make a picture do a drawing with your activity so that the trace of the map is a recognizable object the second one is here on the Bingoe card for the intern who wanted some elevation in preparation for the Panorama punish so it is an uphill streak see how much vert you can get in your streak and tick that one off maybe you know if you want to actually feel like it's a bit of a challenge you might want to improve on your best ever vert find somewhere really steep to um level up in that way but anyway

00:19:35Tony O'Connell: And, Mel, you could even do something as simple as going up and down a hill because if you take that as a streak uphill and you just keep going away, you can end up a long way away from home. And perhaps we could do some up and downs as well.

00:19:49Melissa Ellis: Correct. That's a good plan. Now, the next one was try a new volley roll. Now, I know this has been a little bit contentious for some people who have got all the volley rolls that are available, bar some that may be a little bit more difficult. Is that right, TOC?

00:20:07Tony O'Connell: Yeah, Mel, this is a particularly challenging one, and the Office Lady's actually thrown me a lifeline with this one in some respects. I have all the volley roles that are available, except for one. I don't have the Auslan interpreter role, and apparently there's a new syllabus come out in the New South Wales education system where you can do a fast course in Auslan or... And I'm thinking, do I have time in four weeks to actually learn how to do Auslan so I can do some signing at a parkrun and achieve this one? This is going to be a very difficult role to do in a month.

00:20:45Melissa Ellis: Yes. Well, we probably didn't put that much thought into putting this one on the – I think it's more for people who have had a reluctance to try something new and haven't done very many volunteer roles. It's there to try to encourage you to be brave and try something different. But for those people who have done a plethora of different things, roles already like yourself Tony maybe there's a different way you can volunteer maybe maybe you need to um I think I need to find something that's really different and so I can do something like the other role again

00:21:23Tony O'Connell: something that's not one of the mainstream roles, but try and be a little bit creative with something like that. But I agree, it's a really great one for people to try and look for things. You might be scared to try timekeeping or scanning or photography. Photography seems to be one that people are really scared of taking photos for some reason, but people love having their picture taken. So it's actually...

00:21:48Melissa Ellis: quite an enjoyable role when you see the reaction you get from people with it so I'd encourage people to go out and yeah try some of those different roles or I could even suggest that if you weren't actually trying a new volley role maybe try a new volley location oh that's a good one yeah maybe you could help out a another parkrun nearby that's, oh, you might see them every week calling for volunteers and always struggling to fill their roster. So maybe you can help them out and just, yeah, go somewhere new to volunteer.

00:22:21Tony O'Connell: Yeah, that's an excellent idea, Mel. That's really great. Oh, thank you.

00:22:25Melissa Ellis: And my fourth square on my line is another star yet to be revealed.

00:22:30Tony O'Connell: And funny enough, Mel, I start my next line and I start with a star. So... There's a lot of ones still to be revealed on this Bingoe card. The next one I have is, now that's a garden. Once again, open to interpretation. You may come across a front yard that's just exceptional as you're running around. My idea of a garden, I have a, on one of my trail runs, I have a little place and it's a trail called Secret Gardens. And about halfway along it, there's a little fairy garden. This is right out in the bush, miles from anywhere. There's a little fairy garden out there. And I think I'm going to try to get a photo of that on my next run out there.

00:23:15Melissa Ellis: I like that idea. That is good. Yeah, don't be too creepy. Don't be taking too many photos of people's houses if they, you know, I don't know, to be upsetting people, but I'm assuming that if people have a pretty amazing front garden that they wouldn't mind having its photo taken.

00:23:34Tony O'Connell: Mel, you could do something like, you know, head towards Benalla, for example, you know, the Benalla Botanic Gardens where the parkrun actually runs through the botanical gardens. You know, there's quite a few parkruns that do that. You know, get a little bit creative with that.

00:23:49Teddy: Mm-hmm.

00:23:51Tony O'Connell: And my third square is another star. So that's yet to be revealed. And my fourth square is a cat in a window. I think this one came from a couple of people, Mel, and it's trying to take a picture of a cat in a window. Is that correct?

00:24:07Melissa Ellis: Window kitty. That's what Geoff Glaab said, window kitty. Yeah. So while you're out running or walking around your local streets, if you spot cats, a friendly feline. It doesn't have to be inside the window. Maybe it could just be in the front garden. But yeah, just celebrating our furry friends.

00:24:26Tony O'Connell: And once again, you can take that and you might be going past a toy shop, for example, and there could be a toy kitten in the window sort of thing. It doesn't have to be strictly as per the

00:24:42Melissa Ellis: the picture absolutely yeah you could go past a clothing store with it there could be an item of clothing with a cat on it so yeah see how we go with that um now the last line starts off with a square now it's got a picture of a horizontal black line and then underneath that it says full scale and the idea of this is getting a photo near something interesting, doesn't have to be necessarily large, just maybe just something of interest, using something in the photo to indicate its scale. So that could be by holding an item like a banana that everybody knows the size of a banana or you could put a coin haha you could find one of your one dollar coins and you could put that next to it for scale or you could stand next to it like our friend Peter Pohlman is known to do our second square in the last line is a star yet to be revealed the third square is sign them up and that is our little appeal to try to increase our adventurer numbers for our parkrun club over the month of September we had a little goal to hopefully get up to 500 in our membership and so if you know somebody that is an adventurer that goes around and enjoys adventuring maybe they're even a listener but they haven't yet signed up to the adventurous club maybe they'd like to maybe give them a little nudge

00:26:11Tony O'Connell: And I think September is an ideal time to get them involved. And yeah, with some of the things going on, it'd be great to see a few extra people sign up.

00:26:19Melissa Ellis: Yes. And then the last one is our re-index and event. Now, I specifically had a question about this one asking to remind what this was about. Now, the re-index is the total number of events that you have done more than one time. So for me, I've been back to parkruns on more than one occasion, 49 times. I think that's 49. I think my number is 49. Do you know what yours is, Tony? Mine's now 23, Mel, I believe.

00:26:50Tony O'Connell: Okay. Yeah, it's after Rosebud on the weekend. It was another visit back to Rosebud. So, yeah, I've actually done the re-index, I think, this weekend.

00:27:01Melissa Ellis: But, so, if you're on 23, for example, you go back to an event on Saturday that you've only ever done once before and do that for a second time, then you will increase your re-index to 24. Okay.

00:27:12Tony O'Connell: And there's lots of fantastic events out there. And some of us do get into that mode of having to go somewhere new each week. And sometimes it's going to be nice just to not travel and go somewhere a little bit closer. But in our case, to re-index is probably still going to be an hour and a half.

00:27:33Melissa Ellis: And if you want to be a little bit strategic, have a look at all the events you've done once. Find one that maybe you weren't able to run it. Maybe something on the day meant that you had to walk that particular day. Or if you, I don't know, you might have been chatting to a friend as you were running and you didn't run as fast as you could normally. Anyway, there might be a reason you can go down and improve on your time. So you could get a PB and that would be even better.

00:28:00Tony O'Connell: And you can even combine it with other challenges. You can improve your Wilson index or... Oh, good point. You can start looking at it as potentially somewhere for your P index.

00:28:11Melissa Ellis: Ah, yeah. Start building those ones close to home.

00:28:14Tony O'Connell: Plenty of opportunity out there. And there's plenty of great parkruns.

00:28:18Melissa Ellis: There is, yes. Now, we have to suggest a level up one for next week's Bingoe card, Tony. Have you got any ideas?

00:28:28Tony O'Connell: I've been trying to think of something and my head just keeps coming back to these big things and I'm trying to work out how I can get a swoopy into a Bingoe card without encouraging people to go out like you did a couple of years ago and get an awesome photo of a magpie about to take the top of your head off.

00:28:49Melissa Ellis: I've done that more than once. Yeah, how could we? I don't know.

00:28:56Tony O'Connell: I don't know. We've had some really good ones over the years.

00:29:00Melissa Ellis: A selfie with a magpie?

00:29:01Tony O'Connell: They're not all swoopy. No, there's a lot of friendly ones. We quite often talk to our magpies in our street and they don't swoop us at all. I think there's something in that.

00:29:10Melissa Ellis: Yeah, and Collingwood's in the grand. Collingwood's in the finals, Tony.

00:29:15[crosstalk]

00:29:15Tony O'Connell: Hang on, hang on. Collingwood's not in the grand final yet. No, I know. I corrected myself. Let's not jump the gun there.

00:29:20Melissa Ellis: I correct it? Well, they will be, but anyway. And Ollie's barracking for them now too, so he'll be on board. He'll like this idea. I know he will. And so maybe you don't have to have actual magpie. Maybe you could get a magpie supporter.

00:29:33Tony O'Connell: Oh, dear. Oh, dear.

00:29:38Melissa Ellis: You know it's a good idea. We'll go with that one. Go with that one. Anyway, let's move on. I think we've been – oh, my God. Tony, our intro's been half an hour. Anyway, that's okay.

00:29:45[background music]

Roving reports & the Channel 5 News crew

00:29:49Melissa Ellis: Now – Let's go to the roving reports.

Roving report Melissa Ellis — Ballina Coast parkrun

00:30:02Melissa Ellis: Okay, I'm at the finish line here and I've got today's RD, Teddy. Good morning, Teddy. Good morning. Thank you for having me. Thank you for being RD today. You gave a really good briefing. Have you been RD here for long?

00:30:13Teddy: I have. I've been, goodness, I've been involved in the event since it began, but only really started volunteering a bunch in probably the last two or three years. And I'm actually about to be the co-ED of the event. You heard it here first. That's exciting. How long has Ballina Coast been going for? we celebrated our sixth birthday in may rightio and would you like to give us a course description oh goodness um sure I'm terrible at this but I will do my best so we're on the the mouth of the river you get some river views some ocean views there's some lovely rock wall in the paved paths it's a super lovely course and it's out and back in two directions it is yeah so it's not quite laps but it's yeah kind of out back out yeah it's I always really struggle to explain it I don't know why I've been I've literally run it like 150 times and I still can't explain it

00:31:10Melissa Ellis: Now, I noticed you did give a shout-out to the Aboriginal lands that we're running on, and I'm not always good with pronunciation, so can you please give me a pronunciation?

00:31:18Teddy: Oh, goodness. So this is actually a hotly contested thing here at Ballina Coast at the moment. One of our other arty's, Jason, has just told us we've been saying it wrong, but how I believe you say it is the Bundjalung Nation.

00:31:30Melissa Ellis: Right, okay. Thank you very much. And as an added bonus, when you come to Ballina Coast, do you or do you not get to see dolphins?

00:31:38Teddy: Oh, well, it depends when you're here. But at the moment, yes. It's funny enough that you're saying dolphins as I'm looking out to the view and looking at little dolphins cresting in the river.

00:31:48Melissa Ellis: Point them out to Martine, please. Oh, my goodness. Quick, Martine, get photos. Brilliant.

00:31:58Teddy: What numbers do you usually get here? So we're very tourist driven. So obviously where we're located and with school holidays, it gets very different depending on the season. So we get anywhere from roughly 100 to 250, depending on what time of the year it is. So if you come back in summer, everybody wants to be at Ballina Coast parkrun.

00:32:18Melissa Ellis: Well, it's pretty special. I don't blame them for that. Now, your parkrun journey, did it start here? It did, yes.

00:32:25Teddy: Okay. Have you touristed much yourself? Not a whole bunch. I think my husband and I, when we pick places to go on holidays, it's generally where is there a parkrun. So I think we've done maybe 10 or 15 tourist locations, but we tend to stay here quite a lot. Excellent.

00:32:44Melissa Ellis: Okay. And if you could give tourists a tip on what's the main reason to come here and visit, what would you say?

00:32:52Teddy: Oh, so this is with complete bias. We are one of the friendliest parkruns in Australia, hand on heart. I believe that to be absolutely true. And also that view. You just can't beat that view. If you want a friendly chat and a beautiful view, we are the choice for you.

00:33:08Melissa Ellis: Thank you. And thank you for volunteering. No worries. My pleasure. Excellent.

Roving report Billo — Yackandandah Rail Trail parkrun

00:33:15Billo: Hi, parkrun adventurers. This is Billo coming to you from Yackandandah Rail Trail parkrun. Today at parkrun, we had some special visitors that have come to us from Wildflowers parkrun in Sydney, which is their home course, and that is Ian and Lydia. Now, Ian is celebrating his 100th different parkrun event location today in Yackandandah, and it was actually a privilege to have both Ian Him and Lydia who jumped on board as our Tail Walker volunteer. What also makes them special and to have them as a part of today, both of them are actually deaf. So they have brought Naomi as their Auslan interpreter who's based out of Wodonga here and they've just been sharing their parkrun journey with us. So without further ado, I'm going to ask some questions and I'm going to get Naomi to obviously sign the questions and then she'll then obviously interpret their response.

00:34:18Billo: I'll first ask a question of Ian. Ian, how long have you been doing parkrun?

00:34:27Naomi: I started back in 2016 in Parramatta. That was the parkrun that I, my first parkrun. And I remember meeting a lovely director who made us feel very welcome. He was a lovely man. We then dropped off participating and then some deaf friends told me about another parkrun at Rooty Hill. And they said there was quite a number of deaf people that participated so we thought we'd give it a go. And then we found out the parkruns that were being held around Sydney, so we got involved. And we found out deaf people that were getting involved as well, and we thought, oh. We thought it would be really nice to get involved and have that experience. It's better than staying at home. So we made our way out to these different parkruns. We knew some of the people that were there. And we just thought it was a really good way to experience different areas of Sydney. And for example, you know, we've come to Yackandandah today. It's such a beautiful place. We've done parkruns at Broken Hill Racecourse and we've just, there's so many different places that we've been to. And here on my phone, I'll just show you. That was one of our most favourite runs.

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00:36:09Billo: So that's referring to a photo of Lydia at Broken Hill Racecourse.

00:36:15Naomi: Yes, Lydia was there. That's right. That's a photo of her. That was one of our most favourite parkruns that we've done. And we're heading to Western Australia next month and we're looking forward to that because it's the first time that we will have visited Western Australia for a parkrun.

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00:36:31Billo: So then you'll become a member of the Peel Club?

00:36:38Naomi: That's correct. Excellent. It's under the University of Western Australia. And then the one after that will be... Mount Clarence? And that's under Albany, just below, sits below Albany. And then the third run that we'll do there is a very difficult terrain. I've forgotten the name, now I've just got to look it up for you.

00:37:05[background music]

00:37:05Billo: While Anne's looking that up, what we'll do, I'll ask Lydia, what's been her experience? When did Lydia get involved in parkrun?

00:37:18Naomi: I started off with my husband in 2016. My first parkrun was at Parramatta. I really enjoy that and I've really enjoyed going out on different parkruns. We've been on parkruns all over Australia. I haven't done any overseas myself. But it's been really enjoyable. And I've really enjoyed the challenges of doing a parkrun. And being involved in different clubs as well. And I want to keep doing parkruns. I enjoy being a volunteer. I enjoy participating. And I've already done 100 parkruns. So my next goal is 200. Hopefully I'll reach that. And Ian's speaking. The Mundy Regional is another one. That's one of the most difficult parkruns in Australia. We want to participate in that one in WA. And what I'm really enjoying is that my wife has joined me on all these parkruns. In the beginning, it was hard to get her motivated. She didn't really want to come. And while we're in Denmark, we went very far from the parkrun, under 15 minutes. And that was the first country that we went to out of Australia. Lydia said it was really cold. It was freezing there, he said. And trying to get her out of bed was really hard to participate in that one. So I ended up just going on my own. It was on the East Coast. I've been to Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur as well. It's Taman Pudu Ulu. And it's one of the most beautiful places to go for a parkrun. We got our accommodation there, breakfast there. But Lydia didn't participate again in that one. I said, we're here to do the parkrun. Mmm. Mmm. We had one that we did in England and that's when Lydia did participate in. As you can see on the back of my shirt here, I've got five flags on my shirt. Really on the parkrun there's only four flags because the Malaysian parkrun's closed now. So we don't have that flag any longer. But I have it on my shirt because I participated in it and that's why I've got five flags on my shirt. I love experiencing parkrun. I love going to different places. And I'm really hoping... There's another parkrun that they will do in Malaysia and I'm really hoping that we can participate in that and hopefully Lydia will be able to participate as well. Yeah, I really enjoyed the experience.

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00:40:46Billo: Well, I've got to say, just listening to their story, I'm so inspired and just the energy and the happiness that both Ian and Lydia present, it's a credit to them and it really truly shows that how diverse and how welcoming parkrun community is, is to everybody and is inclusive, especially with people with disabilities.

00:41:15Naomi: Of course, yes, I'm in agreement. And Lydia's saying, and having an interpreter present assists us so much. Ian saying, and I'd like to just say thank you. There are some parkruns like Rooty Hill and Parramatta. I have to express my appreciation to them, the way that they've welcomed the deaf community to participate in parkrun.

00:41:40Billo: That's awesome.

00:41:44Naomi: Because of the way they're welcoming spirit, it's encouraged deaf people to participate in parkrun in other places. Because sometimes it can happen that when you have a disability or you're deaf, people will say, oh, you know, we haven't organised things, we're not sure what to do. But we found Parramatta and Rooty Hill were open to us straight away. Just to tell you one more thing, in January next year, the Australian Deaf Games are on and they're in Newcastle. And there's going to be two parkruns within that area. One in Newy and one in Lake Macquarie. And they're run by different committees. So there's Lake Macquarie and Newy. And they're being sponsored. So just to note for everyone that January are the Deaf Games. I'm hoping that I can assist with the Newy one. I can be a Timekeeper with my wife. I know that they've asked me already to provide an information update in Auslan. And we're hoping that more deaf people will participate in the parkrun at these games. And Lydia's just adding to the commentary. I think it's called Auslan X. There's a TED Talk, Ian's just saying. It's called Auslan X. And they've asked me to give a talk on parkrun. So I'll be doing that next year.

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00:43:54Billo: Oh, wow, that'll be awesome. Look forward to looking out for that. Now, I'd like to ask you both one final question. I'll ask you first, Ian. Can you tell me what your top three parkrun events that you've been to would be?

00:44:19Naomi: To be fair to the other countries, I would have to say my first one was overseas and then the other two are in Australia. So Taman Pudu Ulu, the one I mentioned earlier in Malaysia, I have to say that that was one of the most welcoming parkruns I've ever been involved in. Before we did the run, they took a group photo. And that was the first time I've ever experienced that. Usually I do it at the end. Then we got a Malaysian breakfast spread. My wife didn't get to experience breakfast because she didn't get up. And then the other two I would say Jindabyne. That was under the Jindabyne Sports and Recreation Centre.

00:45:10Billo: Oh, so this is the one, not the original Jindabyne?

00:45:14Naomi: That was my favourite. But they don't do it anymore.

00:45:18Billo: No.

00:45:18Naomi: No. And that's the same with Malaysia. My two top favourites no longer run. And my third, I would say it's still running. I want to go back to it. It would be Wildflower. My spiritual home. My spirit parkrun. They have an interpreter there. It's her home run as well. And she interpreted for me. I had the interpreter with me explaining to me all the different sounds on my first run as a tail runner. And I just have to express my appreciation for that. And I know my wife loved it as well. And right at the top, they had a toilet as well, which was really handy. It was a really steep run to the top. But I would say they're my three top runs.

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00:46:18Billo: Very good. How about you, Lydia? What would you say your top three would be?

00:46:26Naomi: I would say Wildflowers would be my first. But why? Why is it? I just love the terrain. It's similar to here in Yackandandah, the terrain. It's a beautiful bush run. And then my second one I would say would be St Peters. It's within Sydney, but it's a beautiful run. The terrain's beautiful. The views are astounding. What number? And then my third run.

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00:46:58Tony O'Connell: Did you say 42?

00:46:59Naomi: I remember with the St Peters one as well, there were many dogs. You could bring your dog. My third run, I would say here, Yackandandah. I have to say, it's beautiful. It's a beautiful path. The bush, the sights, it was really beautiful. And Ian saying, we've got our interpreter and Matt. And Lydia saying there's also just, yeah, it was just a beautiful run. Being a small town. Ian's adding, yeah, it's the small town parkruns are really beautiful. I really love the intimacy of them. And I just think anyone listening on the podcast, I would say go for it. If you want to give it a go, go for it. Come and give parkrun a try.

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00:47:50Billo: Thank you very much. Look, I really appreciate you sitting down with me, Ian and Lydia, and sharing your parkrun journey. Naomi, thank you so much for interpreting for us.

00:48:00Naomi: I went to Down at Townsville last July and my wife wanted to go on the river. We got to do the Charters Towers parkrun. It was a really small number of participants, but there was another parkrun that had quite a lot of participants. And I got eight on that parkrun. No, not missing the work. The Riverway one, that was my 164th run up there in Townsville. It was a really fun run, though, that we went on. Today's is the 21st, and I'm hoping... To get a sub five. That's my ultimate goal. That's why I'm doing these parkruns in the country.

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00:49:16Billo: Good job. Thank you very much, Ian and Lydia. So that's me, Billo, signing off from Yackandandah. So thank you very much.

00:49:32Tony O'Connell: Well, Mel, it was really great to hear your report from Ballina Coast there. I really would love to head up that way up the coast. And we had Billo's report there, Mel, from Yackandandah with Ian and Lydia. And it was interesting to hear about the Deaf Games coming up in Newcastle. And just jumping online, Mel, the... Deaf Games, as well as having the competitive side, they also have a social and a cultural program. And very interesting to see parkrun actually comes up in that.

00:50:04Melissa Ellis: Yes, that is great. They did mention that in the roving report. So Newcastle is the location, as you said, and it's in January 2024. And the two parkrun events I think, TOC, that are involved is Newy and Lake Mac.

00:50:20Tony O'Connell: That's correct, and they're on the official program. So, yeah, no, that's very encouraging. I love to see that happening.

00:50:26Melissa Ellis: We'll have to add that to our adventurers Word document listing the things to do month by month.

Emails

00:50:34Tony O'Connell: Yep. In other news, Mel, we've got some mail.

00:50:38Naomi: You've got mail.

00:50:41Tony O'Connell: And we had quite a long email come in from Andy Airey from the UK, and I thought I'd just give a quick pricey of it. Andy organises trips, as we've spoken about before, and he's probably just given us a little bit of a history of how he started. His local event actually got cancelled one week, so he hired a bus, see how many people could get to go to Bushy and do a trip. Turned out to be a fantastic day and he started organising it. Andy actually does these free, he's not actually making any money, it's just organising parkrunners out. The recent trip they had to Ireland, across to an island, to Inis Meáin, and he spoke to the ferry company and they said, no, we're not running over winter, not enough people. If you can get 1,000 euros of ticket sales, we'll go. So Andy actually bought... all the tickets on the spot for the ferry and then put a message out on some Facebook groups asking who was interested. And he ended up with 3,000 messages and he actually fully sold out a couple of ferries. So he then organised the trip. They organised coaches, accommodation and had a really great trip. They've done that a couple of times now. One of the things that they did when they went to the island, Mel, was the local shop actually asked if they could come back every week because they actually had a really good, I guess, turnover for the day. The local pub actually tripled their staff, and a couple of the local organisations actually put on different events, like the old sausage sizzle, but the Irish style of it. So they had a really great day. Yeah, no, just a quick recap on, you know, what Andy does as far as the Airey Airlines trips away.

00:52:28Melissa Ellis: And it looks like he is planning to be in Australia in December to finish his seventh alphabet.

00:52:33Tony O'Connell: He is, Mel. The group actually run a spreadsheet with multiple alphabets. And, yeah, we're actually quite happy to be on that. So, yeah, no, he... might turn up at palm who knows he could organise a trip over there there has been a bit of chatter on his Facebook page about organising a group to palm excellent well we would look forward to that and thanks for being a listener to Andy

00:52:57Melissa Ellis: Now, we also had an email, Tony, from Martine Barrot, funnily enough, and she said, Hi, Mel, Ollie and team. I have a submission for the spreadsheet of events to note when touristing. The Rotary Duck Race, which takes place at Fawcett Park on the Richmond River in Ballina in New South Wales, near Ballina Coast parkrun. The annual event raises funds for various local charities. The event this year is taking place on the 10th of September. Members of the community can purchase a duck to enter the race. The local businesses can also enter ducks. The event involves duck racing, best dressed duck, food, games and entertainment. The community duck race also has prizes for first, second and third place ducks and there is a trophy for the best dressed corporate duck. Funds raised this year benefit Our House, Sprung Integrated Dance Theatre and Byron Bay Wildlife Hospital. Looks as though it will be a really fun community event and I think it would be well worth checking out if you're in the area. And that was from Martine. Now, we spotted this, TOC, as we walked down the main street. There was a window with a display of Jemima Puddle Ducks in it. All dressed up, all in different, you know, costumes and all sorts of things. And we realised we were a week too early for said race. This is why our Google Doc will be so important.

00:54:22Tony O'Connell: And Mel, I guess coming from Eynesbury Heritage Junior, where you have your Puddle Doc, this would have struck a little bit of a chord.

00:54:30Melissa Ellis: Well, exactly. I was like, oh, my God, look at all the Jemimas in the window. And how disappointed to know that I was a week too early. I could have brought Jemima with me. I could have entered her. Anyway, I'm going to add that to our list, Martine, so thank you for writing in.

Dazza's — Maria Wicks

00:54:46Tony O'Connell: Okay. Mel, this week at Dazza's, we had, it's International Bacon Day. Dazza and the Office Lady reckon you're either a bacon lover or you're wrong. Come on in and tell us what you think, and please share your parkrun fun as well. And we had, I think, 180-odd comments, Mel? Yeah. Not that all of them are odd comments, but we had about 180 comments. And a couple of my favourite ones I went through this week. One from Paul Whelan, the Viking getting the job done as tourist number 77 for me at Umbagong District. And he had a picture of a shadow with the Viking helmet on. I thought that was pretty cool.

00:55:26Melissa Ellis: Very good. And we also heard from Greg Garner. A bacon and egg muffin hit the spot after completing Wes Mitchell Park parkrun for the first time since it began. And there was a photo of Greg in the Wes Mitchell selfie frame. I believe it was event six, Tony. And is Greg not the ED? So he finally got a run.

00:55:46Tony O'Connell: Yeah, look, it's great to see Greg getting a run for the sixth event. Sometimes it takes a little while to build that volunteer base and hopefully Greg's got it up and running well and Wes Mitchell's going on quite nicely. Following on from that, Mel, we had another parkrun where they had an anniversary this week. We had Sonja Pohlman, delighted to be back where our parkrun story started. Happy 10th anniversary Warwick parkrun. I think there's eight years between their picks. And Sonja put in a... a collage of two photos a number of years apart with Sonja and Peter doing what I'm calling the Wizard of Oz style jump and a heel tap so they're back to back and tapping heels about eight years apart between the photos yeah that was a really good uh replication I was very impressed with that

00:56:35Melissa Ellis: And happy birthday, Warwick. Now, we heard from Jonathan Morgan, who said awesome morning as parkwalker at Claisebrook Cove parkrun. Joined the Peel Club, run a parkrun in every state and territory, and Ollie Volley Club, volunteer at a parkrun in every state and territory. Hmm, how topical. And there was a pic of Jonathan in the Claisebrook Cove selfie frame, and congratulations to you.

00:57:01Tony O'Connell: Well done, Jonathan. And Mel, I think you've stitched me up with this one, but I'm going to have a go at it anyway.

00:57:07Melissa Ellis: You chose them. You chose them, don't you?

00:57:10Tony O'Connell: We had Dan Baldwin. Dan's over in Japan at the moment. So forgive me if I butcher this pronunciation, but Dan was at... Yodogawa kasenkoen Hirakata chiku parkrun for us and a photo of Dan in the selfie frame. And that could be pronounced several different ways, but I reckon I had a good go.

00:57:36Melissa Ellis: Yeah, that was a good effort. Top points for that. Now, we also heard from Maria Wicks, marshalling at Jersey Farm today with my dad ahead of a 10K race this evening. Does it include vegan bacon or... or if not, avocado on toast instead, please. And, of course, we love our vegan bacon. And no offence meant to all our vegan friends for the post it does us this week because you can get bacon on belief, can't you? You can.

00:58:03Tony O'Connell: And I believe it actually tastes very, very similar to bacon.

00:58:06Melissa Ellis: Yeah, so there you go. And there was a photo of Maria with a caution runners sign. Not sure if it's a warning to the public to be cautious due to runners or runners to be cautious of Maria.

00:58:18Tony O'Connell: Yeah, I really did enjoy that photo of Maria there, Mel.

00:58:21Melissa Ellis: Now, I think that seeing as you're on Ollie's desk, now he did tell me he tidied it up, so it should be obvious where the envelope is.

00:58:30Tony O'Connell: Mel, there is only three post-it notes on the whole desk, but I reckon by the time I leave, I'm going to put a few here just to confuse things. But I've got the envelope here in front of me. Very good.

00:58:42Melissa Ellis: I can't wait to know who wins.

00:58:44Tony O'Connell: And the winner is... Maria Wicks.

00:58:45[background music]

00:58:58Melissa Ellis: Oh, very good. Well done, Maria. All the way from Jersey Farm, which I assume is in the UK.

00:59:03Tony O'Connell: Hooray. Well done, Maria. And I would like to know which way that sign is to be interpreted. Maria, are you a scary person or not? Let us know.

00:59:14Melissa Ellis: I'm sure all our adventurers are the opposite of scary. They're all friendly, all friendly and welcoming adventurers.

Club Corner

00:59:21Melissa Ellis: Now, it is time for us to throw to Club Corner, so let's listen to what Rachel's got to tell us this week.

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00:59:42Rachel: this is Rachel with club corner where we talk about the what and why of parkrun clubs and I am coming to you from Arrernte Country today I'm going to talk about two specific clubs which we may all know about already but I will talk about them anyway in club corner number eight we talked about regions and now in club corner number 18 we will talk about the Peel Club and the Olly Volley Club When Darwin parkrun opened in the Northern Territory, it began the era of all states and territories in Australia hosting a parkrun. Now there was a proper thing to chase. Winky face. The Peel Club is named after Brendan Peel, who was the first person to record a finish at a parkrun in all states and territories of Australia. And believe it or not, Darwin was not the last state or territory he needed for the achievement. From some innocent parkrun stat checking it appears that BP, I am calling BP, BP, Cause I am hip with the cool kids. J-B-O-L. So as I was saying, BP saved Queensland until last. That is, BP saved the best until last. Am I right? Or am I right? The Oli Volley Club is named after Margie Olsen aka Margie Oli Volley Olsen, who was the first person to record a volunteer credit at a parkrun in all states and territories of Australia pretty self-explanatory really you know I am not sure why I picked this topic two clubs two names two people who did something first and the two clubs are named after those two people simples and remember in parkrun life all non-milestone clubs are unofficial and unsupported by parkrun so stay tuned for our future club corners

01:01:15Tony O'Connell: And we're back and listening to Rachel there talking about the Peel and the Olly Volley Clubs. Mel, I think there's a small mistake. I think our computer might need to be rebooted. For some reason, Rachel thinks that Queensland's a great estate.

01:01:31Melissa Ellis: Oh, she must have a glitch. She's got a glitch in her, I don't know, what do you call it?

01:01:37Tony O'Connell: I'm going to say after the last three years, I'm not going to say she's got a virus.

01:01:44Melissa Ellis: Okay, we'll give her a reboot, see if we can't jolt her out of that rubbish.

Consolidated Club Report

01:01:48Melissa Ellis: Anyway, moving straight along, the adventurers Consolidated Club report for Saturday 2 September 2023. Of a total of 459 members, 353 took part on this date in nine countries across 188 locations. In the UK, there were adventurers at 26 events across three in Canada, two in South Africa and America, and one in Denmark, Austria, and Sweden. Locally, we had ventures at 41 in New South Wales, 36 in Queensland, 35 in Victoria, 13 in South Australia, nine in WA, seven on the North Island, five in ACT, three in Tassie, and two on the South Island, and one in the Northern Tree, which is a bowling strike.

the Frond — Calum Burrell, Karen Hurrell and Steve Milne (international, Philips Park); North Wollongong group of eleven including Bec Bailey (local)

01:02:42Melissa Ellis: Now, internationally, our largest frond was three, at Philips Park in the UK with Calum Burrell, Calum, I knew I'd get tongue twisted, Calum Burrell, Karen Hurrell and Steve Milne. And well done to Calum on his camel cow. I don't know what relevance the camel has. Maybe Calum can write in and explain. But, TOC, I also wanted to point out that last week, I was a little bit excited about this newest launch in Canada at Millennium, and I did say who was going to get line honours as to be the first one to get there. Well, let me tell you who it was, and it's not who I would have expected. It was Jack and Claire Corkill. Did you see?

01:03:26Tony O'Connell: I did, Mel, and how are some of those photos? The Rockies in the background are just amazing.

01:03:32Melissa Ellis: Oh, my God. Are you planning your trip yet? No.

01:03:35Tony O'Connell: I think Canada and Japan are a close line before where I'd love to go to next.

01:03:40Melissa Ellis: Ooh, yeah, yeah, me too. But where are our local fronds?

01:03:46Tony O'Connell: Locally, our largest frond was at North Wollongong, and I think Dazza's might have given that away. I don't know if it was this week. There were 11 people there, including Bec Bailey – Very good. That is a big front. Yes, 11. That's good numbers.

Launches and anniversaries"Where is the cake?"

01:04:12Melissa Ellis: Now there was quite a lot of launches around the world this week and one of them was in Denmark in WA and it was Wilson Inlet Heritage Trail. I got a little bit excited about that name because it's a heritage trail just like Eynesbury. There were 117 participants and 57 did their very first parkrun. That's a lot of first-timers. The course is an out and back starting on the Wilson Inlet Heritage Trail and it runs to the, or it starts at the east of the Denmark River mouth footbridge. So I guess the locals know where that is. So another one over there in WA.

01:04:55Tony O'Connell: Another one for WA, Mel. And there was another one launched in the UK at Thorp Perrow. It's Bedale in North Yorkshire, UK. One of the things that struck me about this one is we quite often hear about Fountains Abbey. This is a new parkrun, not too far from Fountains Abbey, but it's a completely different option. This week, they had 143 participants at their launch with... Only one person doing their very first parkrun. It's 35 miles north of Leeds. And the course itself is a single anti-clockwise circuit of a private estate on a mix of trail and grass. But it actually looks like it is out in the bush a little bit. And the website says that it has a tea room with toilet facilities and an arboretum car park. But I just like the look of the course. It does look like it runs around through a bit of a treat area in a few places. But, yeah, it looks like a trail-type parkrun. And we all know I love my trail parkruns.

01:06:00Melissa Ellis: Hmm. Very good. And there were five other launches in South Africa. So I outsourced this week. And let's throw to Johan to give us the rundown.

01:06:13Johan Duvenhage: It was a very busy weekend in South Africa with no less than five events having their first runs this past weekend, the most we've had on one day ever. The events were all around the country and offer something for everybody's tastes. However, there was a distinct agricultural and irrigation feel to the launches, with all of them around crop fields, orchards or close to dams. First off, in the north, we had Aviators Paradise parkrun in the northwest province between Brits and Hartbeespoort, a short hop from Gauteng. This one lapper starts and ends near the airfield and runs a sort of circular route around crop fields and along the irrigation canals. Moving further afield and to the centre of the country, Lieberwalt Farm parkrun made a run for it alongside the Orange River in the Northern Cape Province, a short distance from Van der Kloof Dam. The Orange is South Africa's largest river and Van der Kloof the second largest dam. The circular one-lap route starts at the Sandgat Caravan Park and takes you around crop fields with beautiful apokuro views and the dam wall in the distance. Next up in our agricultural tour, we moved south to Velskoendraai parkrun in the Western Cape near Clanwilliam. The course starts at the Velskoendraai Farmstall and the one lapper follows a few twists and turns in between the citrus trees the area is so well known for with views of the beautiful Cederberg Mountains. Moving along to the Eastern Cape, parkrun is back in Qonce, previously known as King William's Town near East London. Sadly, this is an opportunity missed, with this replacement for the KWT parkrun that closed down in the pandemic times now launching as Pirates Sport Club parkrun, still leaving South African challenge chasers Q-less. This is a two-lap course at the local sports club run through local vegetation and passing a small dam. And lastly, further east, we have Hazelmere Dam parkrun on the outskirts of the Greater Durban in KwaZulu-Natal. This parkrun traverses through indigenous forest and alongside the dam shoreline at the Hazelmere Dam Resort with another dam wall to enjoy. And maybe I should clarify, I have absolutely nothing against the dam walls.

01:08:17Melissa Ellis: And thank you, Johan. Thank you for your dad joke at the end. And thank you for doing all those pronunciations for me.

01:08:24Tony O'Connell: And Mel, I'm really happy to have Johan do those pronunciations because I actually put one of those into a pronunciation search and it was struggling as well. So it's not just us.

01:08:38Melissa Ellis: But we've also got some more audio coming up. Now...

Streaky September

01:08:44Melissa Ellis: The next thing on our run sheet is to talk about streaking, Tony.

01:08:47Tony O'Connell: And we're just reaching that point where people are starting to jump into the streaky September. You've sort of had a couple of days now. We're four days in. People are saying, what's this all about? Hopefully, it starts to become a bit of a habit. That's the idea behind it is once you do something for long enough, it becomes a habit. And one of the people that should be able to give us some really great clues on how to do that and some really good advice, is Pippa. Pippa's about four years into her streak now.

01:09:17Melissa Ellis: She is. She is our Streakmeister. So let's have a listen to what she's got to tell us this week.

01:09:29Pippa White: Hi, parkrun adventurers. And it's September and we've started. And I hope you're having fun getting going with your streaks each day. I'm certainly looking forward to it. And I had one late extra walk because my challenge for myself this month was to do my extra two kilometres at some point in the afternoon, no matter what. And one of those was done at 10 o'clock at night because I'd almost got there, but hadn't quite. Anyway, for those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, Streaky September is our collective run, walk, cycle or swim activity in September. So it's two kilometres if you're on two feet, a little bit less if you're in a pool or in the sea, a little bit more if you're on two wheels. Or perhaps it's yoga or Pilates or another activity that you are committing to do this month. It's about fun and it's about being accountable to each other. So come into the Facebook group and say hi and tell us what you're up to. I run for lots and lots of reasons. One of them is because it's a time where I get out and I can clear my head and do something which I have to concentrate on for maybe half an hour, an hour or whatever. Sometimes, and so I was reminded about this last year and a little bit this year, we can get very focused on the actual doing the run or the steps that have been done or the time that you're out for or an exercise or other anxieties that come into our heads. And for that, I would like to thank Val Warwick for reminding me about the joy of having something else to focus on. So her challenge is to look for a number that relates to the day. And I'm finding this a very humbling and very good way to stop me worrying about bits and pieces in life. So for today, I'm going to go out to find my new number and they're going to post a picture of it in the group. And it's making my runs and my walks a lot more fun because I'm looking for that number. I'm looking for that special number. I'm looking for it as a standalone one, two, three, four, whatever, so that I can post it and show. And that's making me really happy. And it's making me happy to see other people. And it's stopping me worrying about other things in life, isn't the joy of doing something collectively, listening to the advice from other people in a group. So happy streaking, have fun, relax, and come in and tell us all about it. As I've said in the group, we are significantly more bonkers than you in the group already. So you're going to fit right in. Happy streaking.

01:12:21Tony O'Connell: Great tips there from Pippa, Mel. Makes me want to get out and run, except it's raining outside and I'm not going to. But I believe you still have your top-up streak to do. I do. So hopefully it's a bit drier where you are.

01:12:35Melissa Ellis: It isn't. It's started raining since we started recording and I've got a drippy downpipe. So it looks like I'll be rugging up, putting the jacket on and getting the umbrella out because... I'm determined I'm going to stick to my streak this week or this month.

01:12:52Tony O'Connell: Excellent.

01:12:53Melissa Ellis: The good thing about going out at night is that there's no magpies to worry about.

01:12:58Tony O'Connell: It does help.

01:13:00Melissa Ellis: But let's look forward to next parkrun day, TOC. Where will you be?

01:13:07Tony O'Connell: Now, you know, I have a love for cake. I have a love for parties and I have a love for bright stuff. People that know me know I don't wear black, I wear bright. Inverloch this week, greatest place. Much better than Shellharbour. Inverloch this week are having our ninth anniversary and it's a dress to glow type theme with cake. So I'm going to be in seventh heaven, Mel, at Inverloch's ninth anniversary.

01:13:36Melissa Ellis: Happy birthday, Envy. Hooray. That's exciting.

01:13:41Tony O'Connell: And I am assured it's going to be sunny at Inverloch. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We know what your sunny means.

01:13:49Melissa Ellis: It's guaranteed to be sunny either above the clouds or below.

01:13:53Tony O'Connell: Well, hopefully it's above the clouds because at the moment it's well and truly not sunny outside. What about you, Mel? Have you got plans yet this week or is it still on the waiting for the dart to throw at the dartboard?

01:14:08Melissa Ellis: Oh, let's just say there are some plans afoot, but I'm not quite ready to divulge, so I might keep that under my hat and I might have to fess up on Friday in the Office Lady's Friday post.

01:14:22Tony O'Connell: Okay, Mel, we really look forward to hearing whatever adventure that may be.

Sign-off

01:14:27Melissa Ellis: Yes, but... That's it for this week. Thanks for joining me again, TOC. It was good to catch up. And as always, everybody, you can contact us via parkrun adventurers on Facebook or our email, which is parkrunadventurers at gmail.com. That's it for another week, and we'll see you all next week for more adventures.

01:14:40[outro theme playing]

01:15:43Unidentified speaker: Bye. Bye.