Episode 396 - Oh What a Feeling!

00:00:00[intro theme playing]

Welcome

00:00:24Tony O'Connell: And welcome to episode 396 of the parkrun adventurers podcast, a podcast about life, if your life is all about parkrun. My name's TOC and I'm joining you from Boon Wurrung Country.

00:00:36Melissa Ellis: And my name is Melissa Ellis and I'm coming to you from Wurundjeri Country. Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you.

00:00:47Tony O'Connell: birthday, TOC. Thank you for recording on your birthday thanks mel it's just another year older and uh apparently if you look at the socials and what janet's put up another year more colourful you are known for your colourful attire Yes, I might have commented back and said I need to find some brighter clothes than what I currently wear.

00:01:08Melissa Ellis: What did you get for your birthday? Did you get anything colourful? Did you get new shorts?

00:01:12Tony O'Connell: No, not yet. Actually, present's still in the mail. It's still on its way. But, yeah, a couple of little things that I need for some of my running. So...

00:01:22Melissa Ellis: Oh, good. Mel, how are you? I am good. I am recovering. Thank you very much. Back on track this week, back recording on a Monday night.

00:01:33Tony O'Connell: Back with the extra time for the editing and everything else that goes on in life.

00:01:37Melissa Ellis: Yes, yes. It was a bit of a rush last week, but anyway.

00:01:40Tony O'Connell: Mel, I believe we finally have an update on our little friend, the Budgie.

00:01:45Melissa Ellis: We do. Thank goodness. Budgie has been passed on, and he has been passed on to adventurer Karen Hamilton, who is one of Schlaba's RDs.

00:01:58Tony O'Connell: So it's heading down south from Sydney town, and... Down to the national park there, Killalee?

00:02:05Melissa Ellis: It is. Well, I would assume so, but you know what else is exciting? Budgie's going to make an unexpected stop. Budgie's going to be heading to Germany. Okay.

00:02:15Tony O'Connell: So we have a date for that, do we, or is that still in the future?

00:02:20Melissa Ellis: Oh, well, I should have checked, but I was just assuming that... Is the Berlin Marathon any time soon? Because if Karen's going to Germany, I'm assuming that Ralph and Karen are running a major in Germany. I'm going to put some money on that. And TOC's looking up.

00:02:38Tony O'Connell: And I'm figuring that Budgie's not going to run around the Berlin Marathon, but the Berlin Marathon actually takes place in about two weeks, Mel. Wow.

00:02:46Melissa Ellis: Well, there you go. My money would be that Budgie's going to turn up at a German parkrun in approximately two weeks.

00:02:52Tony O'Connell: Okay, so now we need to work out a connection from the parkruns around Berlin across, yeah, through the rest of continental Europe.

00:03:02Melissa Ellis: Oh, Budgie's going to do a lap of Europe before it comes back. Well, you never know. Okay, Karen, if by some miracle there's another adventurer at Berlin, you have permission to pass Budgie on. But I really just need to release Budgie to the wild, don't I, and not try to control what happens to us.

00:03:20Tony O'Connell: to do a lap of Australia before it goes to the UK but you know I think Mel the budgie might have well and truly flown at this point I think I've lost control I've completely lost control that's okay maybe budgie needs to get across to Danny and nick and then come back and actually complete its journey around Australia

00:03:38Melissa Ellis: Let's just let anything happen. Let's throw caution to the wind. But something that was a result of our discussion about budgie last week, Alana Truig. I had seen that she was the Tail Walker at Pirrama. And we weren't sure if she was a listener, but anyway, she did pop in to Dazza's late news. This is breaking news. And she commented, so sorry, Mel and TOC. I was Tail Walker at Pirrama, but only started listening to the pod today, Sunday. I hope Budgie found another adventurer to continue its journey. So now we know that Alana is a listener as well. Fabulous.

00:04:21Tony O'Connell: That's pretty cool, Mel. And last week's pod was a fairly long podcast, so we couldn't blame people for listening to it over a couple of days or a couple of days of travelling.

00:04:31Melissa Ellis: Yes, that is very true. But anyway, would you like to let us know how your parkrun day was on Inverloch's birthday? Very close to your own birthday, coincidentally. It is, Mel. Inverloch...

00:04:47Tony O'Connell: Didn't quite live up to its vision of always sunny at Inverloch. We had a fairly big shower about seven o'clock and I'm afraid it's not just Bushy Park that has sugar people. Inverloch sugar people didn't turn out in droves. We did have a discussion last week about the possibility of our equal opportunity employee turning up at Inverloch. And I saw in the socials on Friday that they were actually looking at staying a little bit closer to Melbourne. And I thought, I'm going to miss out the opportunity to catch up with them. Anyway, they popped up on Saturday morning. So the Equal Opportunity employee, Dave, Chloe and Lucy all popped up down to Inverloch. We put a koala on in the tree for them, but unfortunately they didn't see the koala. There is photographic proof, but anyway. And Mel, I've got to say, you were nearest the pin with your guess on the attendance numbers. Yes. You guessed 127 people last week. I went a bit higher. We, in fact, had 125 people. So you were very close to it.

00:05:55Melissa Ellis: What do I get, a prize?

00:05:57Tony O'Connell: Yeah, you get to release Budgie.

00:05:59Melissa Ellis: Oh, right.

00:06:00Tony O'Connell: There's a prize. lots of fun was had crazy hats and socks was our theme and people certainly embrace that it's a really good theme for parkruns where you're having a theme day because it's so easy people can just grab bits and pieces you don't have to go to a full costume some people did go to full costumes in fact we had b1 and b2 the two bananas were in attendance we had quite a few other costumes and that there as well Look, really fun day. We had a fantastic chocolate mud cake. I might have consumed some of the chocolate mud cake before everyone got back, but there's no photographic evidence of that, so it didn't happen. Mel, how was your parkrun day?

00:06:43Melissa Ellis: Well, I was joined by Dave at Nhill parkrun for event 272 on the lands of the Wachabolik, Jaduwa, Jaduwa, Laji, Wagaya and Joppa Gulluk Nations. Gosh. Like five, five different Aboriginal nations in one place. Nhill is in the Wimmera region of Western Victoria and is about 370 kilometres northwest of Melbourne and approximately halfway from Melbourne to Adelaide. Nhill is believed to be a Wurundjeri word meaning early morning mist rising over the water. And a fun fact about Nhill, it was the very first Victorian town to have electricity after Melbourne, the capital. And it served as a major RAAF training base during the Second World War. So not insignificant town in country Victoria. We drove up after work on Friday, stayed in a motel in town before joining 21 others on the double out-and-back course, which takes place at the Nhill Swamp and Wildlife Reserve at JPEX Park on the Western Highway. So if you have driven between Melbourne and Adelaide, you literally have driven past the start-finish point of Nhill parkrun. It is a beautiful course through the treed reserve on soft wood chip path and it is very flat. We were lucky with very mild conditions, perfect for running and headed off to Mr Lee's afterwards on the recommendation of the locals for breakfast. I did profile the event when I was there for the launch back in February of 2018, from memory interviewing Bruce Purdy who was the then event ambassador. I must reiterate how lovely this event is and encourage adventurers to venture out to the more remote parkruns as our country towns are home to some real gems and are truly worth a weekend to explore regional areas. We did venture out afterwards to the Little Desert for a short nature walk as well as discovering some silo art and exploring the nearby Dimboola and the Pink Salt Lake. Stopping on our way home for more sights at the Sister Rocks install and Seppelt's Winery at Great Western. So definitely crammed a lot into 24 hours as I needed to return to RD at Eynesbury on Sunday morning.

00:09:03Tony O'Connell: Mel, I'd have to agree with you there. Nhill is a little treasure that's probably often underrated. It's a town a lot of people just drive through on their way, Melbourne to Adelaide. But we've always stopped, and getting out and actually walking on the parkrun course is a bit of a break on the trip to Adelaide and the trip home. And the swamp's different every time you go on it. Sometimes it's fairly low. Sometimes it's full. The colours change. The bird life's incredible. And it's that really cool bridge. It's not part of the parkrun course, but you can go for a walk around the swamp. Yeah, Nhill's one of those little places it's really worthwhile pulling over at.

00:09:40Melissa Ellis: And we didn't actually go out and walk on the boardwalk around the swamp. And it was something that we did want to do, but unfortunately we were pushed for time. I have done it in the past. So during time where the swamp's actually been in flood and it's been beautiful. So you're right, different times a year can be completely different.

00:09:58Tony O'Connell: And the parkrun's one of those lovely little parkruns that, you know, they get 20 or 30 people every week, mostly locals and people travelling through, make up the rest of the contingent. It is a long way to go to run a parkrun, as you would well and truly be aware. But, yeah, the actual atmosphere and the crew at Nhill are lovely. It's a great little place.

00:10:20Melissa Ellis: And they will ask you once they realise you're a tourist if you are a doctor or a nurse. They are out to recruit for their town. I almost wish I was. Am I too old to do some training and become a nurse and retire to a country town?

parkrun news bulletin

00:10:35Melissa Ellis: Hmm.

00:10:36Tony O'Connell: Well, moving along with other things, the parkrun world. Last week, we were absolutely chock full and crammed with parkrun news and events. This week, fortunately, it's actually quite a bit more quiet. Things have settled down. Things aren't jumping out. A couple of things that are happening around, though. One of the friends of the podcast, Ryan Stoddart, is completing his round Tasmania clean sweep this week at Kingston Park. Ryan's actually from Queensland, where I believe was the statesman up there. May not be now that they've launched one or two more events in the time that he's been travelling around Tasmania, but he's living pretty much in the back of his car. He's got a really cool little setup in his little car. And just putting the call out to any of our Tassie friends that are around, Ryan's going to complete his statesman at...

00:11:29Melissa Ellis: Kingston Park this week and jump on board but you'll hear more about that later and well done Ryan he was at Whitemark last weekend I saw on insta because I follow him on insta the running guy I think he is the running guy yes yeah so and as we all know that is no mean feat to get over to Whitemark Wharf to tick that event off But also, TOC, there was a great blog in the socials this week about friend of the pod Cameron Storey hitting his 500th parkrun by the age of 20.

00:12:04Tony O'Connell: Yeah, that's really good news. Now, Cam, for those that remember at Palm when we had it over in WA, Cam was one of the Event Directors or is one of the Event Directors at the University of Western Australia where apparently they have fish in their pond. Oh, never going to live that down. Never going to live that down. So Cam is a very regular and amazing volunteer. And we actually interviewed him at the University of WA Palm. And he was also a contestant on our quiz.

00:12:36Melissa Ellis: Very exciting when you see somebody pop up in the parkrun blog and you go, oh, I know them.

00:12:42Tony O'Connell: It comes from a very big family of parkrunners too. So yeah, the whole family of, Cam's one of the last ones into the 500 shirt. So yeah, very big family of parkrunners.

00:12:53Melissa Ellis: He's got pedigree.

00:12:55Tony O'Connell: Yes.

Roving reports & the Channel 5 News crew

00:12:57Melissa Ellis: Well, I think that wraps us up for our intro talk time now to catch up on some roving reports. So we've got three roving reports to bring you. They actually were recorded the previous week. So we are a week late getting them to you, but let's have a listen to them now. Now.

00:13:05[background music]

Roving report Tracey Wood — Warner Lakes parkrun

00:13:20Tracey Wood: Good morning parkrunners, it's Tracey in a Tutu and I'm volunteering at Warner Lakes parkrun today. The Bridge to Brisbane event is on tomorrow, so I'm taking a break and barcoding and doing whatever else needs to be done. Okay, I've found the event. Looks like they're setting up. It's a lovely event, lovely shaded here, looks great. Let's see what I can find. Okay, team, I'm sitting here with Julia, who's the Run Director of the day.

00:13:51Julia: Julia, how did it all go today? Everything went smoothly, thank you. We had about 150-odd people, and we had the pacers, which was great.

00:14:01Tracey Wood: Ah, right. So were they from somewhere? I saw a couple of them with the same shirts.

00:14:05Julia: Yeah, they're from the South Pine Striders Running Club, so it's a local running club where we encourage people from all abilities to come and run on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

00:14:16Tracey Wood: Oh, you're part of it? Yeah, I'm part of it, yeah.

00:14:20Julia: And it's Warner Lakes' ninth birthday today, but no celebration? Correct, no cake or anything. Everyone's too busy to organise that, but maybe next year for the 10th. What a good idea.

00:14:32Tracey Wood: And what would you like the listeners to know about Warner Lakes parkrun?

00:14:35Julia: It's a fun and friendly course. We have some lovely undulating paths, which...

00:14:42Tracey Wood: I've heard about the hill at the 4K mark.

00:14:42[crosstalk]

00:14:45Julia: Yeah, a little bit of up and down, but no, it's a wonderful course. And we're right by the lakes, which is beautiful scenery. So, yeah, come along and try it.

00:14:54Tracey Wood: Right. So, Warner Lakes parkrun is located about 25 minutes north of central Brisbane. It's up in, I don't know, can you, my geography's terrible. That's all right.

00:15:08Julia: It's sort of near Strathpine. It's sort of halfway up to North Lakes. Probably 30 to 35 minutes drive north of the city.

00:15:16Tracey Wood: It's located at Dragonfly Park. I'm not sure of the traditional owners. It could be the terrible people in this area. The course is quite interesting. It's sort of like a figure eight, but... I got confused, sorry.

00:15:33Julia: But that's not hard. That's all right. You do a couple of laps of the lake and then there's a dog leg at the end that you go up twice. So, yeah, there's a couple of loops and then you come to the end chute. Oh. The finished chute is on the grass.

00:15:45Tracey Wood: You make it sound so easy, but I'm sure there was a figure eight there somewhere. Yeah, maybe. Yeah.

00:15:46[crosstalk]

00:15:53Julia: And how long have you been doing this, Julia? I've been doing this about, well, maybe six years now, so quite a long time, yeah. We've got about five different Run Directors that alternate through, so we can do it once every month and a bit, so it's good.

00:15:58[crosstalk]

00:16:07Tracey Wood: Okay, and how did you get into parkrun?

00:16:09Julia: I actually wanted to get back into fitness. I was actually doing dancing, and it really wasn't enough, just one dance a week. So I came to do running, and I started running around about the 27, 28-minute mark, and I wanted to get quicker. So then I joined the South Pine Striders Running Club from doing this.

00:16:27Tracey Wood: So, yeah, excellent. All right. Well, the event's gone really well. I can see sort of people packing up. I think the Tail Walkers are... Not too far away, so it might be time to upload my results. Oh, yeah, they're the Tail Walkers.

00:16:40Julia: And head off home. Have a lovely day and thank you for talking with me. You're welcome. Have a great day, everyone.

00:16:46Tracey Wood: Okay, parkrunners, this is Tracey in a Tutu heading off from Warner Lakes parkrun. Beautiful location, lovely sunny day up here in Queensland. Have a good weekend. Bye.

Roving report Calum Burrell — Newbiggin-by-the-Sea parkrun

00:16:58Calum Burrell: Hello parkrun adventurers, Calum, and I'm up for the Great North Run in the North East of England. So we travelled up overnight. Well, actually, I got here at 11 o'clock last night, but I'm with someone who you travelled up on the coach. Introduce yourself.

00:17:13Nadege: Yes, I'm Nadege. I'm French, actually, but I'm from Solihull. My home parkrun is Brueton, so near Birmingham. And, yeah, I started travelling last night.

00:17:24Calum Burrell: And what time did you get here last night?

00:17:26Nadege: So, Digbeth in Birmingham at 10.30pm. National Express all the way to Newcastle arrive at 5.30 this morning and jump on another bus.

00:17:38Calum Burrell: to Blyth and then I carpool with my friends to Newbiggin parkrun and I believe your friends are doing the Great North Run tomorrow they are doing the Great North Run yes both of them yeah I'm doing the Great North Run it's my second time doing it I did it 10 years ago and that was my second ever half marathon but yeah I kicked myself I stayed up for the weekend that time didn't do parkrun the day before but I've learnt my lesson now never miss an opportunity for parkrun Absolutely. So tell us, what do you think of today's course? I must say, it's one of the first times. You can probably hear the sea in the background. That's the brilliant thing about it. You can hear the waves crashing on the shore. Probably the first time I've actually heard waves crashing on the shore at a parkrun. We have done Fleetwood Prom and Morecambe Prom, but never quite this close to the sea. So it's gorgeous, isn't it? It's gorgeous and we can see the statue. Oh, just see the statue now, yeah. There's a famous statue that's out in the, it's called the Cup Halls, I think. And I wasn't sure whether we were going to see it because when we got here, it was pea soup fog.

00:17:46[crosstalk]

00:18:27[crosstalk]

00:18:38[crosstalk]

00:18:38Nadege: Very, very foggy since Durham services, actually. The course is a lovely course. I had actually two further than I thought. The incline they were talking about, I imagine a small incline, yeah it's quite a long and steep incline actually but you've got some elevation after and and you can see when you can see beautiful beach and the sea and yeah it's a lovely one not a messy course it's all on tarmac yeah tiny bit of grass but it's really a gorgeous course I really enjoyed it

00:19:08[crosstalk]

00:19:08Calum Burrell: Yeah, so it's kind of out and back a couple of times along the prom, and then you go up onto the cliff, I suppose you'd call it, where you're next to some houses, and then you go around the back of the bowling green, which is, again, different.

00:19:22[crosstalk]

00:19:23Nadege: Very friendly volunteers, as always.

00:19:25Calum Burrell: Absolutely, absolutely. As someone put it, a bit bonkers in some ways. But yeah, absolutely fantastic. So how long have you been part running then?

00:19:35Nadege: 15th of October, it'll be eight years. So I'm going on eight, yeah. But the start I wasn't dedicated as I am now, let's say. It was just, well, just turn up my home one on the Saturday, really. And a year after, there were travellers on our course, so it was cancelled. And with my friend, we decided to venture a bit further.

00:19:56Calum Burrell: Remember which one that was?

00:19:57Nadege: Arrow Valley. Arrow Valley. I've done that one. I think they changed the course since, but yeah, that was seven years ago. But really, as a tourist, two years ago, really. Started two years ago. When I was getting slower and slower on my home one, so I was a bit done, let's say. And I thought, no, I need to do something. So I decided to volunteer a bit further afield, because if you volunteer you have to go and it started like that and I can't stop now yeah I believe you do uh the juniors as well I do the juniors which is your junior event that's more than park junior in solihull usually when I'm staying the weekend I will find a junior on the Sunday but well tomorrow it's not doable obviously ah okay so a week off yeah yeah a week off tomorrow my uh My coach is at 10 a.m. and next week I'm in Cork, so I will do a junior in Cork. Oh, nice.

00:20:26[crosstalk]

00:20:50Calum Burrell: So which one are you doing in... Oh, I can't pronounce it.

00:20:54Nadege: It's an Irish name starting with a P in Ugal. I have no clue how to pronounce it. Pobalscoil or something like that. I'm just attracted by the name. Typical Irish one, so I'll give it a go.

00:20:58[crosstalk]

00:21:09Calum Burrell: So with the parkrun adventurers, we'd like to pinpoint what your favourite, well it doesn't have to be your favourite three, but what three parkruns stand out in your mind? So if you can think of three.

00:21:22Nadege: Yeah, I really enjoy Newborough Forest on Anglesey.

00:21:25[crosstalk]

00:21:26Calum Burrell: Yeah, that's a little bit of a sandy bit as well, isn't it?

00:21:28Nadege: Yeah, yeah. Let's have a look. Edinburgh, Holyrood.

00:21:35Calum Burrell: You know what? I want to do that because I turn 50 next year. Oh, do it. And I was born in Edinburgh. Oh, were you? Yeah, that's the closest to where I was born. So I'm hoping to do that.

00:21:37[crosstalk]

00:21:45Nadege: Definitely a tough one. Yes. One mile up, one mile down. Yeah, yeah. So I'm looking forward to doing that one. Really nice, one on tarmac.

00:21:51Calum Burrell: Yeah.

00:21:52Nadege: And a Severn Bridge, I will say.

00:21:55Calum Burrell: A classic. We did the Curly Whirly instead.

00:21:59[crosstalk]

00:21:59Nadege: I haven't done it yet. You haven't done that yet.

00:22:01Calum Burrell: So we almost did Severn Valley. We chose to do Curly Whirly when we were down in Bristol a couple of years ago. It's a classic.

00:22:04[crosstalk]

00:22:07Nadege: Pick up a nice day and you'll have a nice time. Brilliant.

00:22:10Calum Burrell: OK, well, lovely to meet you today.

00:22:12Nadege: Lovely to meet you as well.

00:22:13Calum Burrell: Good luck to your friends in the Great North Run. You too, come. Thank you. You too. And you can actually see, weirdly, in the time that we've been chatting, the whole base opened up in front of us. Absolutely amazing. So I'll take a photo. But yeah, it's lovely to speak to you and enjoy the rest of your weekend. You too. All the best for tomorrow. Thank you. Take care. Thank you. Okay, parkrun adventurers, we've done Newbiggin-by-the-Sea, fantastic little out and back on the promenade. We're in the fog today, but you know, you take it how it comes, but it was a fantastic day. You can now see the statue, but I'm here with today's Run Director, Michelle. How did today go?

00:22:19[crosstalk]

00:22:53Michelle: It went really well. We've had a really good turnout. I think we had more tourists than regulars this morning because it's the Great North Run tomorrow.

00:23:02Calum Burrell: Yeah, I'm doing that tomorrow. And yeah, it lasted it 10 years ago. But yeah, we'll give it a bash.

00:23:09Michelle: I'll be there too as well.

00:23:11Calum Burrell: So how long have you been involved with Newbiggin-by-the-Sea?

00:23:15Michelle: I've lived in Newbiggin for coming up to three years now, but I've been either running it or helping at it since it started. And I think we're on the 287th this morning. But it's a really good event to do. It's so welcoming. We do a really fun chant at the start to set everybody off.

00:23:37Calum Burrell: That's brilliant. That's absolutely bonkers.

00:23:39Michelle: Yeah, yeah, it's quite rare to have somewhere. So if you go to a normal race and there isn't a chant, you actually don't know what to do anymore. How do I start if there's no chant?

00:23:49Calum Burrell: Yeah, that's quite unique. So what is the actual chant? Go on, run through the chant.

00:23:53Michelle: So the chant, we always start everybody off saying, can you give us a booyah? And everybody shouts, booyah! And then it's... Feel the rhythm, hear the rhyme, Newbiggin's ready, it's parkrun time. Fantastic. And we'll sometimes change it a little bit and we'll shout Timekeeper's ready or Bingo Sister's ready because we play Timekeeper's bingo as well.

00:24:15Calum Burrell: We have lots of good fun stuff here at Newbiggin. Really, absolutely super. But yeah, thanks for having us today. We've really enjoyed it. And yeah, no, it's... Yeah, lovely to be... I was just saying, it's the first time I've actually been at a parkrun hearing the waves crashing against the shore. Absolutely love it, yeah.

00:24:31Michelle: Yeah, it's an amazing place to run, an amazing place to live as well. And maybe if you're going to Café Bertarelli, that's where we all go in afterwards. And he's actually just opened his chip shop behind as well. Brilliant. So he'll be open a bit later on.

00:24:46Calum Burrell: So before Newbiggin, did you do parkrun before?

00:24:51Michelle: I had been, sort of as we go up to Druridge Bay, which is another nice one up the coast, just up the north, a few miles. So that was lovely. And I think my first one, I did the Town Moor at Newcastle and I've done Gateshead parkrun as well. But this one's on my doorstep. And it's so welcoming. The course is really wide, so you can get a really nice run. It's so congested. We normally get around about 120 runners, something like that. So it's just a great place to be. And my son runs it as well.

00:24:54[crosstalk]

00:25:04[crosstalk]

00:25:20Calum Burrell: Brilliant. So do you do a bit of touring at all? If you could narrow down three of your favourite parkruns, would you narrow them down at all?

00:25:27Michelle: Chesterley Street Riverside parkrun is wonderful because I'm part of our Shittenhurst Running Club and we do a parkrun tour, so we try and pick a different one every month. But I've done Princes Park at Liverpool. Oh, yeah.

00:25:38Calum Burrell: Did that earlier this year, yeah.

00:25:39Michelle: That is lovely. I was there for a weekend, so that was really, really nice. And another one... Prudhoe is really nice as well. It's a little bit like here. It's two laps. It's got a hill in that you hit twice, but obviously it's not the seaside. So Prudhoe's really nice as well.

00:25:58Calum Burrell: Brilliant. Okay, well, thank you. I better let you get to your processing. I better hold that up. But nice to meet you. Lovely course. And thank you to all the volunteers today. That's been absolutely superb. Nice to meet you. Great. Hope to see you again. All right. Nice one. Thank you. Look forward to it. Thank you. Bye-bye.

Roving report Tanya Bailey — Hanmer Forest parkrun

00:26:11Tanya Bailey: Hey everybody, it's Tania from Across the Ditch. We journeyed north this weekend to the inaugural parkrun at Hanmer Springs, Alpine Village. Beautiful course through forest and sculpture trail and a great turnout of tourists and new people as well some great feedback from some of the first time ever parkrunners saying how they will do it again and again so that's really good to hear I'm going to try and catch up with the ed up here Peter and have a quick chat to him Here he is, here's Peter. Hey, great course today, excellent.

00:26:48[crosstalk]

00:26:52Peter: Yeah, a lot of really positive feedback about it, you know, and it's been windy, but in the forest it's not. It's really sheltered in there, it's just beautiful.

00:26:59[crosstalk]

00:27:02Tanya Bailey: Well done. I see that we've got in excess of 200 people, so that's a fantastic turnout for the first one.

00:27:08Peter: In fact... The people approaching us now, one of them is number 200. And we've still got a few out on the course, so we'll be a little over 200. But that's pretty cool. We didn't know how many possibly would turn up. It's sort of staring into a dark room thinking, gosh, I wonder how big this room is. Yeah.

00:27:29Tanya Bailey: And I think it's going to be a really popular one for us tourists that travel around for parkruns and things. And I think a few of the Aussies that are listening to this now, when they come over, I think they'll turn up.

00:27:39Peter: Yeah, well, one bloke from Townsville here today. Oh, cool. Yeah, so happy days, you know. I'd imagine he'd just be nodding at me.

00:27:53Tanya Bailey: of the questions we ask on these recordings for the adventurers is about your parkrun journey. How did it start?

00:28:00Peter: I started on Christmas Day in 2016. A friend of mine said I'm going over to do this parkrun at Pegasus and do you want to come over with me? I had no idea what parkrun was but I signed up for the barcode and all that sort of thing. Pegasus has kind of been I've done 49 now, I've been saving my 50th for here and when I'm not run directing I'll be doing it. I've done I think 35 or 36 in Pegasus and I've done Palmerston North and I lived in Wellington for a while so Porirua was my home parkrun there for a little while. Probably the most exotic one was Colchester in England. Oh lovely. This time last year and it's three laps around a castle. Now three laps of anything sounds a bit tedious but not when it's a castle.

00:28:47Michelle: No exactly.

00:28:48Peter: So yeah I did chuff with that and I set this one up and

00:28:53Tanya Bailey: you know people who come to town over holidays and things it's just one more thing they can do at no cost yeah absolutely it's brilliant now one more question we like to ask you've done a bit of touristing um we like to ask people the top three parkruns not including your home ones I don't know where your home one is it's probably Pegasus but we all know Pegasus is lovely no doubt my

00:29:05[background music]

00:29:15[crosstalk]

00:29:18Peter: My home one's here now. I've always said to people and continue to say to them that for me Pegasus is the most beautiful one especially in winter when it's there's mist coming up off the lake as you're running around Pegasus is probably my favourite one outside of here Palmerston North was pretty because it's alongside a river And I did one in Queen's Park in Invercargill some years ago.

00:29:51[crosstalk]

00:29:52Tanya Bailey: Oh, we did that one a couple of weekends ago.

00:29:53Peter: Yeah, that was lovely. And look, despite the fact that it was howling a gale and pouring down with rain, I'm a kid from Southland, so running around Queen's Park was gorgeous.

00:30:00[crosstalk]

00:30:03Tanya Bailey: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, really lovely. Hey, look, well done for today. It's excellent. We look forward to catching up a bit more over coffee later. And yeah, keep up the good work. We will be back.

00:30:12Peter: Cool. Yeah, I'd love to hear that. So thank you.

00:30:16Tanya Bailey: Okay, I've got Chris here from Pegasus. He's our ED down there. Hey, Chris, what did you think of the Hanmer parkrun today?

00:30:25Chris: Hey, Tanya. Well, this was a really magical course going through the forest and around the sculptures. It was pretty, pretty cool. The team here are really, really friendly. And I think this is definitely going to be a winner. So I reckon, folks, if you come up to Hanmer Springs and you're coming on holiday, this is a must-do course, right? So try and get down here and do it because this is, as I said, it's a great course and a great team running it as well. And you're not going to be disappointed.

00:30:50Tanya Bailey: Great. Thanks for that, Chris. Okay, guys, that's me, Tania from across the ditch, signing off from Hanmer Springs Alpine Village. And honestly, it's just beautiful. It's just about to start raining here, but that doesn't spoil the atmosphere at all. And we'll go and find a coffee somewhere. Thanks. See you.

00:31:05[background music]

00:31:19Tony O'Connell: Well, Mel, that was another awesome set of roving reports there. We had Tracey coming to us from Warner Lakes and Tracey was talking to the RD Julia. We also heard from Calum at Newbiggin. He was up there for the Great North Run. We saw a few people taking part in that. I saw Claire's name pop up a couple of times. She was up there for it and a few others. Calum was talking to Naj from France and the RD, Michelle, and he made a comment about the bay opening up. And I assume it's some sort of a landlocked bay that every now and then the tidal influences allow it to open up and run out to sea. I know we have a couple of those through Victoria that have actually recently opened up down here as well. So I'm guessing that's what the bay was. Probably a bit more context there, Calum.

00:32:08Melissa Ellis: I meant to look that up, actually. I meant to do a... a Google search on that to see if I could figure out what the reference meant. But yes, maybe Calum could just get back to us.

00:32:18Tony O'Connell: And lastly, we heard from across in New Zealand from Tanya Bailey at Hanmer Springs with Peter the ED and a little bit blowy over in New Zealand there, Mel.

00:32:28Melissa Ellis: It did sound a bit, but great to hear from you, Tanya. Well done. Thank you for bringing us that report from their launch out there a couple of weeks ago.

00:32:37Tony O'Connell: As we said, we were a little bit behind on a couple of the roving reports and we've got another swag of them in the mailbox now. So yeah, plenty of roving reports coming in the next couple of weeks.

Dazza's

00:32:48Tony O'Connell: Now, moving across to Dazza's. And this week, Dazza's said, we had a Friday the 13th yesterday. Unlucky for some. Hopefully it was a lucky weekend, even if the week wasn't. Did you get to have some luck at parkrun? Maybe you just got a good spot when you arrived or there was no line for the coffee. However it went, the queue is always manageable at Dazza's and the company is always lovely. Tell us how you went.

00:33:15Melissa Ellis: and first in the door from the West Side visiting the great estate was Chloe Bravos who said after listening to the pod at 10 p.m last night we realised we'd better actually make the trek to see TOC at Inverloch so we got up at 5 3 a.m Perth time for a non-adjusted Lucy and made the drive enjoyed some cake and zoomed straight off after so couldn't hang around for all adventurers, unfortunately. And Chloe shared a photo of Dave, herself, and little Lucy with you, all dressed up, TOC. I recognise that costume.

00:33:52Tony O'Connell: Yeah, that costume's been to a couple of running events. It's been up to Wonderland. Wonderland. I thought crazy hat theme, Mad Hatter, would be the appropriate dress. And... I brought out my multicoloured unicorn socks, which much to the lot of my granddaughter that was out at our place yesterday, she was running around in my unicorn socks with wings.

00:34:14Melissa Ellis: And I should say that Dave, Chloe and little Lucy also made it out to Eynesbury Juniors with the family. So there was a couple of extra bravos kids as well that did their first junior parkrun with us on Sunday morning. So it was great to see them out there. And I hope they enjoyed Phillip Island.

00:34:35Tony O'Connell: And moving up to New South Wales, Mel, Sonja Pohlman. Delightful to park faff at Dubbo with Miriam Morris. And there was a breakfast photo of the Polmans, Miriam and a few others enjoying breakfast in the sun. And they look like they're under some umbrellas, but you can see the blue skies in the background.

00:34:54Melissa Ellis: Now moving west to South Australia, we hear from Dan Baldwin. And he says, Rattaladian on a damp morning at Mount Barker. And there was a picture of himself and Sandy in the Mount Barker selfie frame. Good job. Typical, topical. We were just talking about the Rattaladian challenge last weekend. So 27 of Adelaide's ring of steel events. I don't know what else you'd call it.

00:35:25Tony O'Connell: Righto, Mel, moving down to Tasmania. And we heard from Ryan Stoddart. We said earlier that we'd hear more from Ryan. Today's parkrun was at Xantharia Garden, which starts with an X, I might add, Mel, adjacent to Whitemark Wharf on Flinders Island. Unfortunately, it's named after the latter and not the former. So I got a W and not an X. Number one finish token today, which also symbolises how many parkruns I have left to do in Tasmania. I've spent the last five months in Tassie doing every parkrun in the state, and next week will be my final parkrun. So if you're in Tasmania, come along to Kingston parkrun next week, September the 21st, and celebrate this milestone with me. It's also Kingston parkrun's fifth anniversary, so double the celebrations. And the big question to fellow parkrun adventurers, where to next? Which state should I head to? And there's a picture of Ryan with his number one token. And that is a big question, Mel. Which way should Ryan head? He's conquered Queensland. He's been down south to Tassie. Which way next?

00:36:35Melissa Ellis: I would say that South Australia, it would be my guess. It's a small estate. Probably not that many more events than Tassie. Has Tassie got 50?

00:36:47Tony O'Connell: No, Tassie's about 21, I think. 20, 21 events. Really small.

00:36:51[crosstalk]

00:36:54Melissa Ellis: Oh, I was a bit off the mark, wasn't I? But yeah, no, Adelaide is about half the amount of events as Victoria or New South Wales. So that'd be my choice if it was me. So let's see if I'm right. But next up, we've got Janice coming to us from WA. And she said, today, Keegan and I completed Mundy Regional parkrun. Tomorrow, we take part in Sunset Coast Marathon. And a little emoji of a, I don't know, crazy... Face? What face would you say? Worried?

00:37:27[crosstalk]

00:37:27Tracey Wood: Cross between worried and crazy? I don't know.

00:37:29Melissa Ellis: Anyway, Janice shared a photo of herself and Keegan in the selfie frame there at Mundy Regional. That is a tough parkrun. We know that.

00:37:37Tony O'Connell: Righty-o, Mel. Yep, Mundy is definitely one that's, it's actually one that's on my 10, in my phone, of 10 parkruns I really want to get to. So Janice, you've knocked one off that I am very envious of you. Well done. Okay, I haven't been there. Moving across to Germany now. And we had the legendary Lyndell coming to us from Germany. And her comments titled, Lucky slash unlucky. It's hard to say. Unlucky. The stair climb I was meant to do in Austria was cancelled due to the weather conditions. Unlucky. Lucky, my next stop was, scheduled stop was in Munich, where there were a couple of parkruns. Unlucky, the same inclement weather conditions also hit Munich. Lucky, Roma parkrun, Munichan, proceeded today. Unlucky, I ran in a feels like temperature of minus one degree. Lucky, I got to do a parkrun on parkrun day in a new location, specifically country number 9 and location 109, and a position bingo number of number 19. Actually, it's not hard to say, overall, pretty bloody lucky, and a love heart emoji, and a starry face emoji. And there was a great little selfie of Lyndell showing the wet conditions in the umbrella. And I think we might hear more about that one next week, Mel.

00:39:10Melissa Ellis: Yes, we've got some audio that we are going to hang on to for next week. So, yeah, no good that Lyndell didn't get her stair climb event. We know she loves her stair climbs, but at least she got a new country. So that's great news. Now next we've got Gareth Arnold coming to us from the UK. Hey Dazza, mixed bag of luck today. Missed a turn on the way to parkrun but then scored a great parking spot. Got a really good seat in the cafe with a nice view of the lake with swans and people playing canoe polo. But then someone sat in front of me with a giant 80s perm. Thankfully, I was in a splendid mood having just run Roundhay parkrun in Leeds, West Yorkshire. Seen a mate for the first time in years and then had good company at the cafe. So overall, pretty good. Oh, and I knocked off a couple of challenges too. And there was a pic of Gareth and his friend doing a Toyota jump over the Roundhay pop-up. Or you could say a cheetah jump.

00:40:14Tony O'Connell: Yes, Mel, I'm not too sure on the cheetah jump. I haven't seen it referred to as that. But for the Australians out there, we'll all know what the famous commercials with the Toyota jumps are. So well done, Gareth.

00:40:27Melissa Ellis: Don't you know about the dirty cheetahs always doing their big jumps?

00:40:30Tony O'Connell: Oh, I know about their ears and things, but that's as far as my knowledge of cheetahs goes. Cheetahs are fast and they wear ears. They eat zebras. Yeah, something like that. Moving right along, we're going to head across to New Zealand, the land of the long white cloud, and Paul Whelan was over there. The Viking done. Tick, his first international parkrun at Ōrākei Bay parkrun in New Zealand. So happy to get it done. Another tick. More on the cards in coming weeks. And then we had a whole swag of emojis there. And the picture was the Viking in the little New Zealand selfie frame with the flag.

00:40:37[crosstalk]

00:41:14Melissa Ellis: And we should describe to people, Paul calls himself the Viking and he wears a Viking hat. And I believe that is in reference to one of those northern football game clubs. Is there a rugby? Is it rugby?

00:41:32Tony O'Connell: I'll take your word for it. I've just seen lots of photos of Paul with the Viking hat and thought at least it's sort of covering his head up in Sunsmart.

00:41:40Melissa Ellis: Yeah, okay. Okay. He could have come to Crazy Hat Day, couldn't he, TOC?

00:41:46Tony O'Connell: He could have. He would have fit it right in an envelope this week. We had all sorts.

the Obi Award — Gareth Arnold

00:41:51Melissa Ellis: Well, okay, so that's our wrap-up this week of Dazza's. Definitely had a spread far and wide, but time for the Obilope.

00:42:00[background music]

00:42:01Tony O'Connell: Well, I'll open this envelope that I have in my hot little hand, and this week's winner is...

00:42:10Melissa Ellis: Gareth Arnold in the UK so there you go you do a cheetah jump and you get an ob hooray not his first one either good work Gareth and I know Gareth is a listener Simon said that's always good news to hear that it's a listener Mel Now, that's it from Dazza's note.

Club Corner

00:42:34Melissa Ellis: Emails this week. So perhaps it's time that we go over to Rachel, see if we're still on the dad joke corner, joke corner or not. I don't know. Let's have a listen and see what Rachel's got to say.

00:42:40[background music]

00:42:49[13 seconds of audio that could not be transcribed]

00:43:02Rachel: 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 am talking about volunteer roles, and I am taking you on a journey. The journey begins the day after parkrun, with the Volunteer Coordinator and communications person, parkrun day includes the Event Day Course Check and pre-event set up before participants arrive. Some events have a car park marshal to ensure safety, and new people experience the first time as welcome. There is sometimes Sign Language Support and usually a photographer. If you are at juniors, then the fabulous Warm-up Leader gets into the action. Before the group starts, they hear from the Run Director, then it's all about the Timekeeper. Some participants or volunteers may utilise a VI Guide as they go around the course, and previously there may have been a lead bike. Some courses encourage a parkwalker or two, and some weeks there are paces, but only for 5k events. The Tail Walker brings up the rear, and the Marshal or marshals encourage and tell people where to go. At the end, as people cross the line, larger events may use a Funnel Manager and Number Checker, but all have finished tokens. Some have finished token support on hand as required, and then participants head to barcode scanning. The tokens get sorted after scanning, and the results get processed, and an event report gets written. Then the post-event close-down crew ensures all is packed and prepped for the next parkrun. Noting that laundry is also done and events without facilities may use an equipment storage and delivery volunteer. For anything else, we have the catch-all, other. How many rolls did you count? Dot dot dot. How many of those rolls am I going to talk about? Dot dot dot dot. Am I excited? Dot dot dot dot dot. Yes, exclamation point. And remember, in parkrun life, all non-milestone clubs are unofficial and unsupported by parkrun, so stay tuned for our future club corners.

00:45:00Tony O'Connell: And thank you very much, Rachel, for taking us on a deep dive into parkrun Day. Mel, there's lots of roles there that most people just turn up on the day and have probably never heard of and probably don't even think about the background behind parkrun and what's needed to get a parkrun up and going and what's needed to make them function every week. I did a bit of a dive into my stats. I've done 29 different... distinct parkrun volunteer roles, and several of those are no longer available. I've still got one to go. I need someone to teach me how to do Auslan. I need to do the signage one. Do you know how many different roles you've done, Mel? I believe I've done 22, Tony. Yeah.

00:45:30[background music]

00:45:49Melissa Ellis: And I know there's a few that I haven't done. I never got the opportunity to do lead bike. I never got the opportunity to be a backup timer, which I believe is... legacy position.

00:46:04Tony O'Connell: It is one of the older roles that got rolled over and now you just have multiple timers. We used to get a lot of people at Inverloch that always wanted to be the backup timer, but they never wanted to be the timer. They always thought there was a little bit less pressure on the backup timer, but in reality, we seem to use the backup timer more often than we were using the real timer anyway, so...

00:46:25Melissa Ellis: I think because there's less stress, they made less mistakes. But I think it's not as scary these days with the app than using that old stopwatch.

00:46:35Tony O'Connell: No, the app's definitely made it a lot easier, both the timing and the barcode scanning. But more importantly, for the Run Director on the day, the processing on the new app is just sensational. Saturday, for example, I was Run Director at Inverloch. And before the witch's hats and cones and flags were packed up, I actually had results out. Wow. It's really good, really easy to use. If you know that you've had a really great crew on timing and finish tokens and scanning and that there's no issues, you just hit a couple of buttons and it's done.

00:47:10Melissa Ellis: But do you know what? I was also processing results. Mine took a little bit longer because I had... adjustments to the roster. And so I tend to do all those things before I process because when you process it...

00:47:24Tony O'Connell: It automatically confirms your roster. Yes.

00:47:27Melissa Ellis: Yeah. So I try to get all that squared away. And with Junior parkrun, we do have our juniors... stepping in and helping out on the morning but they're not added to the volunteer roster before the day it's just one of the rules we have that we leave the juniors off the roster so they have to be all added in on the morning and then sometimes we have little adjustments to the roles that people undertook on the morning they might have switched around for some reason Somebody was running late, so we sent somebody else out to their further martial point just for a strategy.

00:48:03Tony O'Connell: One of the things I love about the new app, too, is adding volunteers, and that is probably a lot easier than it was on the old system. And so we'll quite often find, at Inverloch, We put our poster up, and one of the other RDs will just wander along and... Once they've finished their run, they'll start adding people into the roster for us and putting a big tick up on the person so we know they're entered.

00:48:24Melissa Ellis: Oh, lovely. Good job.

00:48:26Tony O'Connell: Yeah, it works really well.

Consolidated Club Report

00:48:27Melissa Ellis: Yeah. But, Tony, the adventurers Consolidated Club report for Saturday, the 14th of September, 2024. Of a total of... That's a very big number I accidentally put there in the... In the spreadsheet, it is not that many. It is 682 members, I think. 519 took part on this date in 12 countries across 250 locations. In the UK, there are adventurers at 53 events. There were eight in South Africa, three in Ireland, two in the USA, and one each in Canada, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Poland, and Singapore. And we know that Germany was Lyndell, locally we had adventurers at 47 events in New South Wales Victoria had 45 and the bronze medal Queensland out of the top three this week with 42 15 in west Australia 14 in South Australia six on the north oh sorry no eight on the North Island seven in Tassie five in the act two in the

the Frond — Jezioro Górne parkrun, Poland — frond of six adventurers

00:49:36Tony O'Connell: And Mel, our biggest frond out of all those different overseas events, and it's amazing to see that number just constantly going up overseas. We had a frond of six people at Jezioro Górne in Poland. We had Christopher Miles, Andy Endevieri, Ali Soper, Colin Hare and Nicky Elway. And I did skip a word out of your... List there, Mel, but it's got too many little squiggles on it for me to come up with that one. I keep saying I'm a builder. Andy Airey sent in a photo. Deb Airey become the first female to finish a seventh parkrun alphabet. Nine of the posse travelled over to East Poland to get the final J at Jezioro Górne. And there's a photo of Deb with the alphabet flag with the parkrun pop-up.

00:50:32Melissa Ellis: Well done. Seven alphabets. Very good. And of their nine, six were adventurers. Woohoo! Good work, Andy. Good recruiting. Now, we had nobody at Bushy doing their pilgrimage this week, but we had some largest fronds. And one of those wasn't the highest, but it's the one we choose to highlight this week, was at Pirrama parkrun. And it was Budgie, hooray! No, no, no. Present at Pirrama was Eman and Kristine Vergara, Karen Hamilton, Philip Mount-Stevens, Delia Sharma, Paul Rainbow, Candice Ferugia, Peter Abela, Linda Coe, Sam Duncan, Mary DeLuna, Amy Miller and Ilana Trurig.

Launches and anniversaries"Where is the cake?"

00:51:19Tony O'Connell: Now, launches this week. Sorry, I just went off and I was doing some quick stalking and I didn't get my homework done quick enough there. Launches this week, we had three of them to bring our global tally for 2024 up to 96. So we're nearly at a black shirt in launches this year. Not sure how that's stacking up against our Taylor or parkrun's targets of number of launches. We'll have to do a deep dive on that next time I'm back on with you. But the first was at Samford Parklands parkrun in Australia. Located in Brisbane, event one had 514 finishes.

00:51:56Melissa Ellis: We also had Salmon Creek Trail parkrun in the United States town of Vancouver in the state of Washington. And they had 31 finishes this week.

00:52:08Tony O'Connell: And Mel, we had on the opposite end of the spectrum, we had Jessiefield parkrun in the UK. And I would suggest that this would be a closed facility as they only had 10 finishes and three volunteers. And there's no information on the website. So I'm guessing that's a closed facility.

Streaky September

00:52:26Melissa Ellis: radio so welcome to the parkrun family to those three parkruns Australia United States and UK but okay looking forward now we're still in streaky September how's your streaking going, TOC my streaking is going very well Mel I think I'm up to day 2000 and something so I just keep ticking them over I'm

00:52:48Tony O'Connell: I haven't broken the streak yet, but great to see all the awesome photos getting shared into the group and the different activities that are getting shared into the group. It's not just people going out for a run. There's plenty of other things that people are doing. And it's really great to see where people are out and about and what they're doing.

00:53:06Melissa Ellis: And one person said,

00:53:09Pippa White: that we do like to hear from every week who is out and about is our very own Pippa the Streakmeister so let's have a little listen to what she's up to this week hi streakers how's it going this week started quite well got out for my walk on Monday Tuesday I ran Wednesday I had got a planned program and then suddenly it stopped working And I didn't want to do what my watch said I was going to do. Decided I didn't want to do what the programme said I was going to do. Instead, I spelt my name out in street signs. Turns out there's a lot of P's around where I live. So Pippa wasn't a big problem, apart from the I. Don't have an awful lot of L's. Anyway. It reminded me, and alongside some of the messages about, oh, I've failed, I haven't got to where I want to be, that this streaking and running in general for the majority of us listening should all be about fun and relaxation. So my challenge to you this week is look at the Bingoe card. And if you fancy doing something, do it because it's fun. If you fancy going out for a run, go and do it because it's fun. If you fancy doing a walk, that's great. If actually doing your streak is going to cause you more grief than not doing it, then there's always another opportunity to start. There's always another day one. There's always another time to do it. The point about this is it's fun, enjoyment, happiness, excitement, and a little bit of time and headspace away from the rest of humanity. So have a brilliant week. It's certainly getting cold here in the UK and certainly suddenly very, very dark. I hope everybody else is having fun and staying safe. Happy streaking.

00:55:09Tony O'Connell: Thank you very much, Pippa. Another great little report and a reminder that sometimes you do need to slow things down a little bit and stop and enjoy life and make the most of it. Streaking is meant to be fun. It's not meant to be something that's a chore or something you think, I've got to go out and do this. I've had enough of it. The idea is it's just a bit of fun. Get out, enjoy it. And if you can get outside and enjoy it, all the better, but if your weather's really crappy and you can't get outside, try and find something indoors that works for you. Now, the other thing we did this week, as we announced, we released an update to the Bingoe card. And the challenge that we released this week was to sign a friend up to the adventurers. And I'd like to go one step further and say, not only should they sign up for the adventurers, but check in and see if they've actually listened to the podcast. We have a lot of people sign up that don't listen. So let's check in and see if they've listened to an episode as well. Good idea.

International Ugly Christmas Singlet Day

00:56:13Melissa Ellis: Alrighty, another update we have is a non-update. Is that like not parkrun, not update? So we're still waiting for the release date of the Ugly Christmas Singlet and shirts. Going to be any time now, should be any day. Hopefully by the time this episode is released. Keep checking, just keep hitting up the website for that big event. But I'm sure we will share it on our socials when it does happen.

00:56:43Tony O'Connell: It shouldn't be too far off, Mel. I know the elves have been busy working on getting the design just right and really looking forward to seeing how my reptile kangaroo comes out this time.

00:56:58Melissa Ellis: Jurassic kangaroo.

Palm update

00:57:00Tony O'Connell: Mel, we have other big news. Do we go with this big news or do we just let it slide? What do you think?

00:57:07Melissa Ellis: I think we need a drumroll for this big news. It's been long awaited. Long awaited ever since last Palm. You can do the honours. Mel, our Palm update.

00:57:20Tony O'Connell: We all know that Palm is going to be on the 12th of April 2025. Ah. This upcoming Palm for next year is going to be in the New Zealand town of Queenstown on the South Island. Really looking forward to that. Now, Palm will be a slightly different format. We've got plenty of details to come out. But as we've said, it will include parkrun. It has to include parkrun. We all know and love that. But it will be the 12th of April 2025 at Queenstown.

00:57:54Melissa Ellis: Fabulous. New Zealand premiere event, that one.

00:58:00Tony O'Connell: I think it's one of those destinations that most adventurers have on their list, on the bucket list. And so our buckets will run over. There will be plenty of people looking forward to that one.

Sign-off

00:58:12Melissa Ellis: Exactly. All right. Thank you very much for that. But we're coming to the end. So would you like to tell us where you are headed on parkrun Day?

00:58:23Tony O'Connell: Now, after standing on the stump this week as the RD or last week as the RD, I think I'm just going to head back to Inverloch and actually have a run. I haven't had a run there for a little while, so I think I'll get back there in preparation for some big adventures coming up. How about you, Mel? Which direction are you headed?

00:58:41Melissa Ellis: Oh, north. North for me. I am going to head to Sydney and check out Pirrama parkrun. We've been hearing a lot about this little event. I believe it's very nice. Hopefully there'll be some other adventurers there. I'm also going to the theatre. I'm taking my teenager to see Hamilton at the Lyric Theatre there in Sydney. So that's the reason for our weekend away. So very much looking forward to that.

00:59:08Tony O'Connell: And Mel, you're just a week late for Budgie, but I'm sure you'll enjoy the bridges. I believe there's a bridge at both ends to look at. And I just hear lots of Pirrama people saying that it's one of the new iconic parkruns to get to.

00:59:23Melissa Ellis: Fabulous. Can't wait. Can't wait. Adventures for me. Hooray.

00:59:29Tony O'Connell: Adventures for you. Adventures for me. And next week, Mel, what have we got next week?

00:59:34Melissa Ellis: Next week, we don't have us. Hooray! We get a week off.

00:59:38Tony O'Connell: Three weeks of listening to our voices. Yay, we get a roster day off.

00:59:42Melissa Ellis: We do. We're having a break. And Sarah and Simon are going to come to you next week and bring you all the news and all the wrap-up from around the country for parkrun adventurers. So look forward to that. Happy birthday again, TOC. Thank you for joining me tonight. Thanks, Mel. I hope you get some more cake before you go to bed. And don't forget to check out the Aurora. Hopefully there's a gap in the clouds. TOC, the Aurora's going off tonight, apparently. I know.

01:00:10Tony O'Connell: I've heard lots of reports that it may go off. It depends on the direction, apparently. So, yeah, I'll wander out the backyard in a second, just have a look what I can see from my back window, which is a really convenient way of looking for auroras.

01:00:27Melissa Ellis: Very good. Very jealous. All right. Thank you very much. And adventurers, 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.

01:00:35[outro theme playing]

01:00:56Unidentified speaker: It's free, it's free, it's free.