Episode 362 - West is best

00:00:00[intro theme playing]

Welcome

00:00:24Tony O'Connell: Welcome to episode 362 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.

00:00:35Melissa Ellis: And I'm Melissa, and I'm coming to you from Wurundjeri Country. And thank you for joining me two weeks in a row, TOC.

00:00:44Tony O'Connell: It's my pleasure, Mel. It seems to be coming a bit of a Monday night thing.

00:00:50Melissa Ellis: Oh, don't say that. People will talk.

00:00:52Tony O'Connell: Okay. Only if they see the budgies.

00:00:58Melissa Ellis: Don't give me that visual again. We can't go back there from last week. Goodness me, what will people say?

00:01:04Tony O'Connell: Mel, how was your parkrun this week? Where did you go to?

00:01:08Melissa Ellis: No segue. Well, thank you for asking, Tony. I was out at Sunbury. Look, I haven't written a huge recap on my weekend because I was keeping it pretty low key. I had a big weekend planned with family stuff, so I could not travel far. I had to have my daughter at her theatre performance by 10am. So I headed out to Sunbury parkrun, which is only half an hour from Meltown, and I hadn't been there in quite a while. I don't think I'd been there in years, actually. So it was nice to venture out there. Sunbury's had a course change since I was last there. They are starting in a new location due to works in their original start-finish area.

00:01:57Tony O'Connell: Does that mean they've got rid of that big hill?

00:02:00Melissa Ellis: No.

00:02:01Tony O'Connell: Ah.

00:02:02Melissa Ellis: No, no, no. The hill is still there. Absolutely. For those who have been to Sunbury, they would be familiar with the little area called the nook that you do a circuit of in the original course. Well, the new start finish area is is in the nook and look it's a beautiful spot really picturesque um it's on I would say an embankment it's very green there's lots of european trees so uh as opposed to you know the grey gums of the Australian outback it's all very european and green and manicured it was raining I got very wet And I picked up the lovely Jodie Maisie from the train station as I arrived at Sunbury and she volunteered. So it was nice to have a friend there on the morning. And it was low numbers out at Sunbury. There was only 26 finishers. Now their previous lowest event numbers was 31. We looked up on the morning. So that was their smallest ever parkrun on Saturday. And it wasn't heavy rain either, so I don't know why this week was the smallest ever. It was a light drizzle. It was inconvenient, but, you know, it wasn't terrible. And it wasn't freezing either and it wasn't really windy. It was just wet. So, yeah, I had my fourth run out at Sunbury. Wow.

00:03:41Tony O'Connell: I think lower numbers may have been a thing this week, Mel. I know the greatest part of the greatest state, Gippsland, our overall numbers across our 13 events were down about 50% on the week before. Wow.

00:03:55Melissa Ellis: Okay.

00:03:56Tony O'Connell: And there was a lot of very wet and very windy events on Saturday. Yeah.

00:04:02Melissa Ellis: I wonder if the difference is, it is December, so there's people that do have extra things on at this time of year. So if you mix that with the rain, that must have had an extra impact.

00:04:15Tony O'Connell: Yeah, people are out doing shopping, people are out doing a whole heap of things, the Christmas activities, the family catch-ups, the everything else that comes with Christmas, and We went to a shopping centre after parkrun. It was fairly manic, I would have said, so that's probably where all the parkrunners were hiding.

00:04:35Unidentified speaker: Oh, my God.

00:04:37Melissa Ellis: They're out Christmas shopping. Okay, so what about you, TOC? Where were you and Jack this Saturday?

00:04:44Tony O'Connell: Now, we ventured up the highway. We had five different parkruns plugged in to our mapping just to see how far we'd get up the road, uncertain what time we're getting up out of bed. We ended up going to the lovely Cyril Curtain parkrun at Williamstown. It was blowing a go, or not blowing a go, it was windy. The rain was coming straight off the ocean, so it was fairly damp. But we joined 46 other people and eight volunteers, and we caught up with a couple of regular pod people, Helen and Steve Davis, Heather Morgan, Ayala Lataba, And we were joined after at breakfast by Carolyn McRae, who'd been off running at Newport Lakes just up the road. So, look, we had a fairly damp day with a small crowd, but breakfast always made up for it. We were still at breakfast at up past 10 having a bit of a chat. So it was good. It was a good day, but we had to be in Melbourne to do a couple of things. So that was one of the ones along the way that we thought we'd get to, and it works on a P-index, a very long distant future p-index, but a p-index no less.

00:05:59Melissa Ellis: So that surprises me, TOC, that you're working on a p-index on the other side of the state. Like, really? Is that a good strategy?

00:06:11Tony O'Connell: Well, look, we've taken a bit of advice probably from Sarah. You know, we've joined the West Side. Oh. Yeah, there's lots of things to like on the West Side.

00:06:20Melissa Ellis: Well, thank you. Yes, there is.

00:06:23Tony O'Connell: And look, a couple of our kids do live over that way. So it's an event reasonably close to where the kids live. And Cyril Curtain's actually a really easy one to get to off the freeway. It's not that far out off the freeway. And I've really enjoyed the couple of times I've been there. The event team's fantastic. And it's just got a really good feel event.

00:06:45Melissa Ellis: I actually think that a lot of the events in the west of, you know, the Melbourne western suburbs are underrated and unappreciated. And, you know, there's a lot of little hidden gems like Newport Lakes is amazing. Altona Beach is really underrated. So, yeah.

00:07:07Tony O'Connell: I think you're right, Mel. I think those ones really are. You know, we tend to look at our coastal ones or our ones within the hills or whatever. But, yeah, some of the views and the course, as you said, Altona's, you know, crack a little course along the foreshore. I'd really enjoy some of those. Newport Lakes, I look at the course map for that and think, how would you ever follow that? And it's one I think we've discussed before, but when you get there, I don't know. I found it quite easy. It actually just flows. It works. You know, it's a lovely little course in an area that you just wouldn't anticipate that little bit of bush down through the lake area and that. It's just a lovely little course.

00:07:53Melissa Ellis: I know. It's hidden. You wouldn't have no idea that it's there in amongst the residential area. So, yeah, you southeasterners, you need to come over west and check out some of our little parkruns.

00:08:06Tony O'Connell: But we also have some very lovely ones over our way too. So they're all lovely in their own little ways. Yep. So that's where we were. Mel, Cyril Curtain, and we were there for the third time. So probably only need to get there another four times for it to be useful in a P index. But yeah. We'll work on that.

00:08:27Melissa Ellis: I'll have to meet you out there one day. Yeah. But sad news this week, TOC. We didn't have Eynesbury Heritage Trail Juniors. We had to cancel this week due to not being able to fill our volunteer roster. So that was really sad. I got an unexpected sleep in on Sunday morning, but... On the upside, our friends out at Thorndon, they did celebrate their third birthday on Sunday. So things are going really well for them out there and we'd like to wish them a very happy birthday.

00:09:03Tony O'Connell: Yeah, happy birthday, Thorndon. It's good to see the juniors just ticking along. Be interesting to see what happens in the future.

00:09:12Melissa Ellis: And I'll be out there visiting them again on New Year's Eve on the roster for the 31st of December with Jonathan Morgan out there as RD on the day.

00:09:23Tony O'Connell: Okay, I haven't been to the South Australian one yet, Mel. As you know, our Australian system of child welfare checks being different in every state makes it a little bit awkward.

00:09:37Melissa Ellis: Well, the South Australian one is really simple to apply for, so I do encourage you to have a crack at it. And then on your next visit, you will be able to experience the London Juniors as a volunteer. Okay.

00:09:52Tony O'Connell: Better get on the program because at this stage, we've done probably as many overseas junior parkruns as volunteers than we have Australian. And more sad news with cancellations, Mel. Across the UK, they had a bit of a polar blast with sub-zero temperatures, snow and ice. I did a bit of a count. I was watching the UK cancellations page and the last time I checked it, they were at about 210 cancellations out of the approximately 600 events across the UK. And there was a whole... Whole areas were basically out. Claire Windsor posted that only two out of the 36 events in her area around Newcastle were able to proceed. So I think only two out of 36, that's a lot of cancellations in one area. I'm happy to say that Claire made it to Cotsford Fields parkrun, so she's still got her parkrun in. I know Pippa had a bit of an adventure getting home from her parkrun. I think she might have been held up for three or four hours trying to get home from parkrun because of snow. Reading the reasons on the cancellations page, they're generally around ice and weather related, but there's always a few people that get a few funny ones in, and some of the funnier ones that I thought. One reason for cancellation was the Curly Whirly is now a Helter Skelter. One event just had ice ice baby and another one had insufficient supply of ice skates. So there's a few people being creative and navigating their way around the cancellations page there.

00:11:39Melissa Ellis: Wow. So one third of the UK wiped out on the weekend.

00:11:44Tony O'Connell: Yeah. And look, I didn't have a look at the stats. Normally I would have jumped on how to look at the stats and seen what sort of difference it made to their numbers with that many events out. But when you've got two events proceeding out of 36 in an area, yeah, the numbers must have just plummeted. And I imagine that there's probably a few courses that got attendance records purely because they were the only ones still able to proceed. Yeah.

00:12:09Melissa Ellis: Did we have many cancellations in Victoria?

00:12:12Tony O'Connell: Because we had a lot of rain on the weekend. We had several. So a few of the Gippie, as I said, Gippie was down 50%. Sale, Bairnsdale and Traralgon all had to cancel, all with water over the course. So, yeah, we had a few cancellations around. There was a couple of others. I don't think they were any up north, but, yeah, we did have a couple of cancellations.

00:12:36Melissa Ellis: Yeah, it's usually our river.

00:12:38Tony O'Connell: Then you head up into New South Wales, Panboola Wetlands. They were very wet, so they had to cancel. I think the name was a giveaway. And there was a few on that New South Wales south coast that were cancellations as well. Right. Probably in better news, Mel. The Christmas compendium events are slowly updating that. I remind everyone they've still got another week to put in their final yes or no. But at this stage, we have Christmas Day, we have 195 events have said they're going ahead. That's up 11 from last week. And New Year's Day, we've cracked the 200 events proceeding and that's up 11 as well from last week.

00:13:24Melissa Ellis: Well, that's good. More choice. I have checked the event I intend to do, now on New Year's Day and it has declared it's going ahead, so woohoo, I'm good. But did you know, TOC, that it isn't just the 5K events that can hold the extra day on Christmas and New Year's Day, so can the juniors, should we so wish?

00:13:49Tony O'Connell: I haven't had a look, Mel, to see if any of the juniors are actually proceeding. What's the thoughts at Eynesbury for the days?

00:13:56Melissa Ellis: The thoughts are no. Probably the event team all prefers to be out doing their extra 5K event. But, you know, the reason I'm aware and I raise it is because I'm getting reminders that I have to jump on and actually do that whole declaration that we're not holding this special event for juniors. Yep. And I don't actually know how to do it, so I need to follow that up. I'm sure it's easy.

00:14:24Tony O'Connell: For those, Mel, I think there was something came out last week, an email from headquarters that actually steps through for events, how you do it in WordPress, which for those that don't know is the background to the web page. There's a procedure to go through WordPress and it is fairly easy. The biggest problem I think for events is probably remembering the WordPress password from when you launched. Three or four years later, it's hard to remember what a password is to actually log in for the once a year a lot of events do to actually update this.

00:15:01Melissa Ellis: Would that be something they gave me in the event manual when I launched the event?

00:15:05Tony O'Connell: That would have been something that was in the event manual when you launched the event.

00:15:06[crosstalk]

00:15:08Melissa Ellis: Well, then I should be good then, shouldn't I? I'll look it up. You know what else I'm supposed to be doing? Doing a volunteer call-out tonight, but here I am recording. So as soon as I get offline, I'll have to do the shout-out for volunteers. We have a very half-empty roster, and I'm up this week as RD.

00:15:27Tony O'Connell: Okay, I hope you go all right. We'll... Be away Sunday to run, so deal with it.

00:15:35Melissa Ellis: We'll see how we go.

Emails

00:15:36Melissa Ellis: But, Tony, we've got an email.

00:15:40Tony O'Connell: You've got mail.

00:15:41Melissa Ellis: So this week we heard from Tracy Leiper. She is Tutu Tracy and she said hi, was just catching up on last week's podcast and wanted to say that if Mel and TOC planned their Contiki tour, right, say the end of July, then they could throw a little marathon at that rock they were mentioning. Just throwing it out there, Tracy Leiper.

00:16:06Tony O'Connell: I think that's an excellent idea. The only problem, from my memory, the marathon that runs around the rock runs on a Saturday. Yes. Tracy, problem. I think they probably should change an event that's run for, you know, maybe 1,000 or 2,000, but they should change that so that parkrun has right away. Yeah.

00:16:35Melissa Ellis: Or we could just do a Freedo marathon midweek.

00:16:38Tony O'Connell: We could do that, make our own medals. I'm sure we've got someone clever enough to 3D print some medals.

00:16:46Melissa Ellis: Talk to Stephen Davis.

00:16:50Tony O'Connell: That was where my mind went, actually. No, look, we're going to have to plan a Contiki tour one day, and I think it's going to be bigger than Ben Hur when we do it.

00:17:01Melissa Ellis: Look, this podcast has been threatening Contiki tours since forever. They do it. One day it'll happen.

00:17:09Tony O'Connell: Maybe that's what we call palm. We just need to have a bus for palm.

00:17:13Melissa Ellis: There's going to be palm when they let me go overseas. Let's not go there.

00:17:20[background music]

Dazza's

00:17:23Tony O'Connell: Right. Mel, this week, Dazza's. Dazza's. This week, as I said, Britney Spears is celebrating her birthday today. What are you celebrating? A run, a walk, a morning in a volley vest. Come on in, place your order and tell us about your morning.

00:17:44Melissa Ellis: Well, and first we heard from Maz Strong, who said, Timekeeper at Parkville parkrun volunteer takeover for International Day of People with Disability. Now, Maz didn't share a photo, but I wanted to say thank you for volunteering and give recognition to the International Day for People with Disability, which I think was actually Sunday.

00:18:09Tony O'Connell: Okay, I wasn't sure on the date, but... And we also heard from Simon Mackley. Simon said, flying the ugly flag at Ecco Ripley. Once I'd gotten over the hill on the outbound, I thought, hit me, baby, one more time. And the pic that Simon put in was Simon zooming in his budgies. There's more budgies out there than a surf life-saving carnival, I thought.

00:18:44Melissa Ellis: Oh, I'm sorry. But you should have sung that. That was a little bit of a Britney song.

00:18:50Tony O'Connell: Anyway. Well, that was my version of singing.

00:18:54Melissa Ellis: We also heard from Heather Patzel in South Australia, and she said 10 years of Mount Gambier parkrun with the love heart emoji. And Heather shared a photo of herself in the Mount Gambier selfie frame in her Ugly Christmas Singlet budgie edition shirt. Happy birthday, Mount Gambier.

00:19:16Tony O'Connell: Yeah, happy birthday. It was good to see. I saw Phil cutting a cake and I saw another photo of Phil Ackland, who's been there right from the start, being interviewed on ABC Radio for their birthday as well. Oh, true.

00:19:29Melissa Ellis: Do they still go to the Metro?

00:19:32Tony O'Connell: I don't know, but for a long time, that, I think, had the record of being the longest post-parkrun VATH location. I know some days I was still there at lunchtime, and I think sometimes when the metro went to close at three in the afternoon, they're having to move them out.

00:19:49Melissa Ellis: Okay. And look, adventurers, if you have not been to Mount Gambier parkrun, do yourself a favour and get there, especially this time of year. It is the right time of year for that lake to be very blue.

00:20:02Tony O'Connell: Righty-ay. Next, we heard from Jo McLean in New South Wales. Natalie Wilson and I celebrated Rouse Hill parkrun's fifth birthday this morning with a Christmas theme and chocolate cake. My jingle tree Christmas singlet got a showing today, and then saving the budgies for the 16th. And then we had a whole string of emojis. We had a Christmas tree. We had a Santa, a present, and a cake. And I do like cake. And surprisingly, the photo was a pic of Joe and Natalie eating chocolate cake.

00:20:33Melissa Ellis: And happy birthday to Rouse Hill. Yeah. Now, we also heard from Martine Barrot down in Tassie, and she said, Andrew and I celebrated Wynyard Foreshore's arbitrary 245th parkrun, our first official result on a course with a beach component. Thanks, Val, for the tip of doing it on low tide day. Enjoyed this double out and back course. I even enjoyed running on the sand. And there was a photo of Martine and Andrew with Eric Banner.

00:21:05Tony O'Connell: And moving around our around Australia trip, we caught up with Dave Bravos from WA. I was prepared for the hilliness of Mount Clarence, but I wasn't prepared for it to be warm, still and humid. Lucy, who covered most of the distance in the pram, even asking me to let go on some of the downhill bits, didn't know what I was going on about. And the photo was a picture of Lucy and David in their adventurers shirts in the selfie frame.

00:21:35Melissa Ellis: Cute little Lucy photos. And we also heard from Mark Scarborough. He came to us from the ACT and he said, whoops, forgot to scan in at Gungahlin parkrun. And he had a very sad looking photo of himself with his token, which looked like it was taken at brunch. So I don't know what you did there, Mark.

00:22:01Tony O'Connell: Not too sure about the Run Directors that forget to scan.

00:22:06Melissa Ellis: Was he RD? Yeah.

00:22:08Tony O'Connell: No, no, no. Just a very experienced Run Director.

00:22:11[crosstalk]

00:22:12Melissa Ellis: He is an experienced Run Director, yes. So, yeah, shame. Maybe we need to give him a fine. We haven't had the fines roll out for a while.

00:22:22Tony O'Connell: We haven't had fines for a while, Mel. We haven't had the cha-ching.

00:22:26Melissa Ellis: No. Well, leave that to me.

00:22:33Tony O'Connell: Rightio, moving off the continent, we had Natalie Soper report in from Munich. Dazza, what a snowy adventure I've had at Westpark parkrun in Munich. Started yesterday with an eight-hour bus trip from Slovakia through driving snow to get to Munich. It continued snowing heavily throughout the night, but to my delight, parkrun was on. There was a hasty reshuffle of volunteer positions and a last-minute amazing volunteers stepping in including Run Director as people couldn't drive there. Other park users were cross-country skiing and tobogganing. Very cold but enjoyable double lap through the snow with my only goal was to stay upright on the slippery paths. Count myself very lucky that this parkrun went ahead and that my hotel was close enough that I could walk to the start. Trains were down which meant that other tourists couldn't make it. Bonus was the delicious treats afterwards for milestone celebrations. And we had a little emoji of a little smiley lovey face and a snowman. My next parkrun in two weeks is in Singapore and it's going to be a vastly different experience. And the pic was of Natalie in the snow at Westpark parkrun in Munich. And Mel, you'd have to say going from the snow in Munich to Singapore is going to be a very shocking experience.

00:23:55Melissa Ellis: What an adventure Natalie has had. And thank you, Natalie, for bringing all those to us as you travelled around, even if you did have a 12-week hiatus, but we'll forgive you for that. But yeah, it looks like it's been amazing. Now, we also heard from Peter Leroux over in South Africa. Hmm, looks like I've got some pronunciations to get through. He said, knocked off my NENDY at Yzerfontein parkrun, two kilometres on sports fields and two kilometres on tree cross country, including some very swampy steam crossing. Just miss Johan Duvenhage by one week. And then he said something that I, in Afrikaans, that I can't.

00:24:39Tony O'Connell: Maybe I'll ask Janet.

00:24:44Melissa Ellis: Anyway, the photo was of the cross-country course section at Yzerfontein.

00:24:50Tony O'Connell: Moving right around, and we're certainly covering a lot of the globe here today, Mel. We had Monty Slade in the UK. Boy, that was a chilly one at Ross-on-Wye parkrun. Minus six at the start and minus six degrees centigrade at the end. Double gloves of event. And he gave us the double thumbs up emoji. And the picture was Monty's familiar thumbs up with glove and adventurer's buff on a very foggy Ross-on-Wye view.

00:25:19Melissa Ellis: And wrapping up Dazza's today, we heard from Sarah J in the USA. Delaware and Raritan Canal for me today. A bit colder than Brizzy last week. And we had a lovely photo of Sarah by the pop-up sign out there at Delaware and Raritan Canal. So all around the globe and the country we were this week, Tony.

00:25:45Tony O'Connell: We've certainly covered some kilometres there with the adventurers, Mel.

the Obi Award — Heather Patzel

00:25:49Melissa Ellis: And who are we going to award the Obi to?

00:25:53Tony O'Connell: Well, this week the Obi goes to Heather Petzl. With a photo at Mount Gambier.

00:25:55[background music]

00:26:09Melissa Ellis: Yay. Congratulations, Mount Gambier. You are one of our favouritest South Australian parkruns. Not that we have favourites. They're all our favourite.

00:26:19Tony O'Connell: They're all our children. They're all our favourites. Yes.

00:26:20[background music]

Consolidated Club Report

00:26:23Melissa Ellis: But now it's time for us to throw to the Consolidated Club Report.

00:26:37Tony O'Connell: So, Mel, that brings us up to the Consolidated Club Report. And I think if we look at the numbers, there's probably going to be a few less due to the number of cancellations across the UK and due to the just wet, miserable weather across the south of Australia. So let's have a look, shall we? The adventurers Consolidated Club Report for Saturday, the 2nd of December, 2023. Of a total of 513 members, 384 took part on this date in six countries across 202 locations. In the UK, there were adventurers at 29 events. USA and South Africa had two events and Germany one. Locally, we had adventurers in Queensland with 42, New South Wales with 41, the Great State with 40, WA had 14, South Australia had 13. ACT and Tassie had five. The North Island had four. The South Island, three. And one in the Northern Territory.

00:27:40Melissa Ellis: And, Tony, our largest fronds. We had a frond of nine at one event, which was Casula Parklands in Australia, where there was some Shellharbour people on tour, let me tell you. Bec Bailey, Chris Fraser, Richard Fulshan, Sherry and Jason Cottell, Cherie Brantman, Ingrid Botha, Roberta Winters and Sam Schroder. We also, funnily enough, still had seven adventurers at Shellharbour and there was a frond of five at four separate events. There was Cyril Curtain Reserve, which was your lovely South Point Cook, also in the Great State. South Toowoomba up in Queensland and Two Rivers Wines in New South Wales.

00:28:26Tony O'Connell: And now this week we've had a couple of our adventurers run milestones. So congratulations to the following people. Michael Tran Cong, 4596618, ran his 100th milestone. Heather Hunter. 760611 ran her 250th milestone and last week we also had Geoff Glaab run his 100th on Thanksgiving day at Joe Creason that was one that slipped through as a midweek run congratulations Jeff and thank you for volunteering all that you do at Joe Creason yeah really great participation there And remember, if you'd like us to track your achievements, you can add the Adventurers Club as one of your five affiliations on your parkrun profile. It's nice and easy to do.

00:29:14Melissa Ellis: Yes, it is. And we love seeing all our adventurers popping up in the results every week.

Launches and anniversaries"Where is the cake?"

00:29:20Melissa Ellis: Now, this week, there was three launches around the world that we are aware of. And the first one, Tony, is the University of Galway in the west of Ireland. They launched with 222 finishes supported by 26 volunteers. Now the course is described as two loops of the meadow to start, then turn right onto the riverside pathway for an out and back. Finish with one final loop of the meadow. This is a flat course on gravel pathways. So welcome to the family, University of Galway. Now we are very lucky that we've got some assistance this week, TOC, with our two South African launchers. So we've got Johan to tell us all about them.

00:30:15Johan Duvenhage: And in South Africa this week, we were set to see the return of One parkrun and the launch of two new events. In the Great Karoo, north of the Swartberg Mountains, an event has been on pause for 193 weeks since the Great Lockdown. It was about to return with a new cause and a new name, but retaining the event history of Prince Albert parkrun. However, a last-minute change saw event number 251 of Odendaal Stadium parkrun in the small village of Prince Albert, 400 kilometres northeast of Cape Town, being postponed this weekend until the 13th of January, when it will have been on hiatus for a whopping 199 weeks. We are really looking forward to the eventual return of this event. Then in the Western Cape Garden route to the south, Curro Mossel Bay School parkrun launched in the coastal resort town of Mossel Bay, about 400 kilometres to the east of Cape Town. The pretty single lap course starts at the parking lot of the school and traverses through a bushy and mostly sandy trail before opening onto a grassy pathway with a full view of the Southern Indian Ocean. Although the pathway is single track in places, it's generally quite wide with little congestion. The route description mentions, and I quote, some easy climbs to get your heart rate going. But that last climb just before the end made most participants break their trot and they rather walked it out before sprinting to the finish. Event number one had an excellent turnout with 311 finishers, of which 61 were doing their first ever parkrun. The event will be a sure hit with the holiday makers that will soon be crowding into the region. However, please be aware that this route is much more challenging than the nearby Hartenbos village parkrun and that whilst prams and buggies are allowed, it may require significant additional effort in places due to the terrain and soft sand. Unfortunately, dogs are not allowed at this event. And then lastly, a particularly scenic event launched in KwaZulu-Natal just outside of Eshowe, about 150 km north of Durban. Dlinza Forest parkrun is a multi-lap trail through the lush vegetation of the majestic indigenous Dlinza Forest Nature Reserve, beginning and ending at the visitor centre. The Dlinza Forest is a 250 hectare coastal scarp forest, and is one of the great five natural forests in KwaZulu-Natal, which are the most important forests in Southern Africa from the aspect of their unique biodiversity. The name Dlinza is derived from isiZulu, meaning a grave-like place of meditation, an apt name taking into account the peaceful setting. It's a bird watcher's paradise with 65 species to be seen. There are also a host of other small forest creatures, including 80 butterfly species. Be sure to visit the aerial boardwalk that extends 427 metres and is 10 metres above the forest floor for amazing views. Understandably, no dogs are allowed at this event either. Whilst prams are allowed, the tracks inside the forest are much narrower, so please take extra care. Event number one saw 132 finishers, of which 85 were brand new parkrunners doing their maiden parkrun. This concludes the launch schedule for 2023 in South Africa, and we are looking forward to a very exciting 2024.

00:33:41Tony O'Connell: And I'd really like to thank Johan for all the effort that he went to giving us a description of the course. It's almost like we ran it, the description he gave. It was really good. Thanks, Johan. So welcome also to Dlinza Forest and Curro Mossel Bay School parkruns. Mel, it's interesting, since the start of November, so we're looking at five weeks and There have been 10 launches worldwide, and it's interesting, five of those have been in South Africa. So they've had a fairly big run of launches in South Africa. Greedy.

00:34:17Melissa Ellis: Greedy. They're greedy.

00:34:20Tony O'Connell: And we have had two in Australia. There's been two in Ireland and one in New Zealand.

00:34:25Melissa Ellis: Oh, okay.

00:34:27Tony O'Connell: Yeah, just a little fun fact there. But, yeah, it's interesting that half the launches in the world in that time have been in South Africa.

00:34:34Melissa Ellis: Yeah, they're hogging them. Now, good luck to them. Very good to see the growth out there.

International Ugly Christmas Singlet Day

00:34:40Melissa Ellis: But what is coming up, Tony? What are we looking forward to over the next few weeks?

00:34:47Tony O'Connell: Mel, we're starting to see the budgies in the wild, but the big day...

00:34:53Melissa Ellis: It's never going to get old.

00:34:56Tony O'Connell: The big day coming up is the 16th of December, which is Ugly Christmas Singlet or Shirt Day, where we encourage everyone to wear whichever version you've got and... Let's try to flood the socials with some really great photos. I just love the colours in these, the way that they actually stand out in the crowd. So let's flood some of the socials.

00:35:18Melissa Ellis: Yes, that is very true. Now, so don't have to just post in Dazza's with your Ugly Christmas Singlet or shirt on the 16th of December, but don't forget to go over to the actual Ugly Christmas Singlet or shirt page. So it is completely separate to the parkrun adventurers and it's probably always worth mentioning that we actually don't create the shirts here. They are created by the elves. and they are separate to the podcast. However, we support it every year because we just love the ugly.

Sign-off

00:35:53Tony O'Connell: We certainly do, Mel. And Mel, looking, I guess, into next weekend, where are you next parkrun Day?

00:36:02Melissa Ellis: adventuring again hooray I'm jumping on a plane to Sydney I am going to go up and tick off a rainfarer event up in Sydney Tony I am going to go to Campbelltown, don't know anything about Campbelltown I'm just gonna turn up and uh No, learn all about it when I get there.

00:36:25Tony O'Connell: Turn up and enjoy a parkrun.

00:36:26Melissa Ellis: Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. So the adventurers out there in the area that want to rock up and say hi, come and meet me there and, yeah, we'll have a frond.

00:36:34Tony O'Connell: I've got to say, Mel, my geography is pretty poor. I cannot even place in Sydney where Campbelltown is, so maybe I need to look it up.

00:36:45Melissa Ellis: Oh, wait. Oh, details. I'll work that out when I get there. I've got half a day. I'll land at lunchtime on Friday. I'll work all that out when I get there.

00:36:53Tony O'Connell: Minor details.

00:36:54Melissa Ellis: Yeah. So what about you? Last week, Tony, you didn't know where you were going to be. Do you know where you're going to be this week?

00:37:02Tony O'Connell: Mel, Mel, Mel, no. Well, this week we're heading off. We're going to head off early. We're heading up to a little race up on a hill. And I think we're going to be in Melbourne once again on our way through. So I'm thinking probably the Kirkdale or Aurora parkruns, one of those two.

00:37:23Melissa Ellis: Now, Dano is a Run Director out at Kirkdale.

00:37:26Tony O'Connell: Yep, Dano's a Run Director, but his next RD, I think, is not until the 30th of December. So we'll catch up with Dano and find out if he's going to be at home. If he is, we'll do Kirkdale. If he's away, we'll probably go a little bit further and do somewhere like Aurora. Okay, nice little – is it Fall Lap or Aurora? Yeah. Yeah, haven't done it for a long, long time, Mel. So I thought, yeah, might be one. Nice and close to the Hume as we're travelling up the Hume, so it's nice and easy to get off and go to.

00:37:58Melissa Ellis: Absolutely, yeah. No, I remember it well and I remember it being quite fast and a nice surprise little parkrun there.

00:38:06Tony O'Connell: I can remember we had a really good breakfast the day we went there, so I remember the important things.

00:38:10Melissa Ellis: You're just remembering the cake.

00:38:12Tony O'Connell: Yeah.

00:38:15Melissa Ellis: No surprise.

00:38:17Tony O'Connell: Yeah.

00:38:17Melissa Ellis: Well, thank you for joining me again, two weeks in a row. So I appreciate that. Thank you for making the time. We should have Ollie back next week. Hopefully he has recovered. Hope you're doing well, Ollie, and look forward to chatting to you next week. But everybody, as always, you can contact us via parkrun adventurers on Facebook or our email, which is parkrunadventurers at gmail.com. That's it for another week. We'll see you all next week for more adventures.

00:38:35[outro theme playing]