Episode 406 - White-marks the spot

00:00:00[intro theme playing]

Welcome

00:00:23Simon Mackley: Welcome to episode 406 of the parkrun adventurers podcast, a podcast about life, if your life is all about parkrun. I'm Simon Mackley and I'm coming to you as always from Quandamooka Country.

00:00:35Tony O'Connell: And I'm not Mel. I'm in fact the substitute host, TOC, and I'm coming to you from Bunurong Country. How are you, Simon? I'm doing well. How are you, TOC? Good. This is a bit novel. I don't think we've ever actually got together for a recording, just the two of us.

00:00:52Simon Mackley: We have not. The boys have been set loose. LAUGHTER So I know Sarah and Mel have had a crack a couple of times, but we've never been allowed to record together.

00:01:02Tony O'Connell: Is there something that they're not telling us both that they've kept us separate all this time? I don't know. What carnage can we wreak on the podcast tonight? Exactly. Evil laughs. Let's go for it. So we had a little bit of feedback from the last episode, and it came from the resident house guest. I said last week that the Northern Pathway and Southern Path in Auckland, the two parkruns, are on the same path, where they're not, in fact, on the same path, but they do share a common highway. There's a bridge in between them that... It doesn't allow pedestrians or cyclists, so that's the link that breaks the two of them apart. And Southern Pathway, or Southern Path, sorry, is a fairway south of Auckland itself, more towards the airport for those that know the area. Okay. So is it south of the airport or is it just south towards the airport? Just south towards the airport, yep.

00:02:06Simon Mackley: Excellent. Well, that's good feedback from Alison. Thank you. And we also have something else, which is Bellarine Sunset run early bird prices are going to be closing on the 8th of December. So hopefully the pod comes out in time for that. So that will be Sunday. So it's a run or walk at Portarlington on February the 8th. It's got a 4k, a 10k and half marathon options and flying brick cider at the finish line.

00:02:35Tony O'Connell: And, Simon, I've done this run before, and I know Mel's keen to get a big posse of people along there and to a parkrun in the morning, obviously, but the Flying Brick Cider is a really nice drop. Excellent. And when you said it was at the finish line, you are not exaggerating. They're probably 10 metres from the finish line, so you almost get your cider before you get your medal.

00:02:57Simon Mackley: I like that. And I'd much rather have a cider than a banana.

00:03:01Tony O'Connell: And the other thing, it's a community event. They donate quite a bit back into the community into a couple of health initiatives. It's run by a fantastic couple. Dion is just a rippin' bloke. And yeah, it's just got that real community event feel. So it's not a big mass thing. Out and back along the edge of the Port Phillip Bay. Yeah, rippin' event. Excellent.

00:03:25Simon Mackley: So it's coming highly recommended by you then.

00:03:28Tony O'Connell: Highly recommended by me. And as I said, the boss lady is keen to get a decent crew down there. Excellent.

Emails

00:03:36Tony O'Connell: And just another one, we actually got a message. So this is normally our email section, but we didn't get the email. No. Other than the advertising junk mail that we...

00:03:47Simon Mackley: The Kevin Bacon 5K. Yeah.

00:03:49Tony O'Connell: But we actually got a message from Christy Gange. And it's this weekend, Wallaby Track parkrun in Victoria are being taken over by their local scouts group. And they're trying to get a few extra numbers along there to participate. So visiting is strongly encouraged. Nice one. So where did you get to this week, Simon? parkrun Day has been and gone a couple of days. We're recording a little later this week on a Tuesday to fit in with flight schedules.

00:04:18Simon Mackley: Exactly, so that I could get my wife off to the airport last night. So I went to Minnippi parkrun's 11th birthday. So I got a late Friday afternoon message from Peter Pohlman, which set my plans in motion. So I met up with PP at the Minnippi. It was a wet start to the morning, which meant that some of the people probably stayed away. But Stones Corner, which is one of the closer parkruns to it, actually cancelled, meaning that there were some displaced parkrunners who came across from there and started a little bit late. So on the day, there were 227 participants and 23 volunteers. It was pace a week. So that's why there were so many volunteers. And that was being led by the local running group called T's. So the theme was your favourite milestone shirt and or crazy socks. And there were definitely a mixture of both. So there was a guy there who was part of the volunteer team and he had on his left leg, he had a sock that said left and on the other leg, it said not left on his sock. So I'm glad he had them on the right legs, which is good. He knows he's left and right. It was also the last RD stint of longtime RD and former ED, Jenny Reedman. And coincidentally, the last time that I went to Minnippi, she actually stood down as the ED. So I don't know if I'm a bad omen that every time I turn up, she seems to step down a rung from ED to RD and then back to, I'm guessing, adventuring around. So anyway, I had a great time catching up briefly with Peter and his sister and One of my old school friends, Andrea, who was actually one of those displaced from Stones Corner, and listener and our German language coach, Sarah and her partner. Now, you have been somewhere huge and I can't wait to hear about it.

00:06:12Tony O'Connell: So before I jump into that, the management team have just sent us another message and reminded us that with the Bellarine Sunset Run, there is actually a parkrun adventurers team registered for the team's comp. So another reason to get on board. Let's see if we can knock some numbers out and get a big team going. So is there a code or something they need to put in, or is it... There is, and we will put that into the show notes. Fair enough. Cool. Yep.

00:06:42Calum Burrell: Rightio, my weekend. Wow.

00:06:45Tony O'Connell: It was epic. It was not quite as big as a palm, but it was the next best thing. 19 intrepid adventurers from all over Australia and New Zealand flew out from Essendon Airport, one of our smaller airports, and we were met by two others who flew in from Burnie. We met on the lands of the Palawa people on a Sam's Plans weekend trip. Our destination was the somewhat difficult-to-get-to Flinders Island, which is located between Victoria and Tasmania on the eastern edge of Bass Strait. It's part of the Furneaux Island chain, and ironically... We drove two and a half hours to get to the airport to get on a plane flight that flew directly over the top of our house and we could see our house. And we flew home via the same route, so we saw our house and we kept flying. The event that we went to was Whitemark Wharf parkrun. Whitemark requires a flight from Tassie on a small plane or a flight from Essendon on a 19-seater. And we had a couple of people in the group that were... Not plain friendly and 19-seater. I think because it didn't come with a drinks trolley and a toilet, it was probably a little bit too small for some of them. Okay. There's also a shipping transport that services the island. The island is fairly famous. In 1797, there was a shipwreck, the Sydney Cove. It was a barely worthy sea boat that was loaded to the scuppers with alcohol when it went down on the island. A crew got off from the boat into a longboat and they decided to strike out for Sydney, which is about 600 kilometres away. They go as far as the 90-mile beach in Victoria before their longboat sank as well. They then decided to walk inland and trek to Sydney. Only three out of the 17 that took off actually made it to Sydney. But one of the really important things was they were able to describe that Tasmania was actually part of an island, and it was a chain of islands across to Victoria, but there was a passage between them, and it saved a significant amount of time for shipping into the future. Okay. The Indigenous population lived on the island, obviously, for many, many millennia. They've been there for a long time, but sometime around 4,000 years ago, all trace of Indigenous population disappeared from the island. There's no reasoning why, and I try to... dig deep into that and I couldn't find any logical reason okay in 1833 a community was established on flinders island known as Wybalenna many indigenous people from Tasmania were transported to the island to as described at the time protect civilize and christianize them um proved to be very unsuccessful, and many died from poor living conditions, including respiratory conditions, and just from being separated from their culture and their country. The cemetery at Wybalenna holds the remains of 107 victims at the time, and the settlement closed in 1847. We found it a very haunting place to walk around, and it was a place of great reflection to actually stand there and read some of the descriptions of what happened. But on to better news or happier times. The parkrun. The parkrun starts at Whitemark Wharf and it's an out and back along a sandy coastal trail hugging the edge of Bass Strait. And we'll hear a little bit more about that later. Three of our group actually completed Tasmanian statesmanship on the day. So it was a double celebration. Well done to Martine Barrot, Andrew Johnston and Leanne Evans. And well done to Matt from the West who took out the coveted number one token. Well done, Matt. We had the big kahuna swim off in the ocean. And in fact, we had a couple of swims over the weekend. Water was actually quite pleasant. And we actually saw a number of other people from our party jump in the water as well, as the photographic evidence will testify. So it wasn't that cold. Breakfast, park faff, and then we went off for a walk to Trousers Point. Now we walked a walk called Trousers Point where it drizzled and rained for the entirety of our walk. Not to be outdone, we then travelled to a winery where there was a little bit of partaking of wine for showers and then a group tea at the pub. Sunday was breakfast. We visited Wybalina, the site itself. There's still the chapel there and the graveyard. Then off to Castle Rock, which is a massive rock, a bit of granite. And then half of our group flew out. They were at the Sunday flight. The rest of us had another swim and we flew out on Monday. So all in all, such an amazing parkrun weekend to share, three meals or three teas to share, three breakfasts, and just to share the day and talk, parkrun stuff, comparisons. What events have you been to? Where have you been? What did you think of this one? Where do you want to go? What's the challenge that you want to go to next? Because everyone there was so like-minded. It was just an awesome, awesome time. Didn't matter that we got 80 mil of rain on Saturday. Yeah. We had a ball. And the other interesting fact, City strides for white mark cog, an absolute flogging. I can imagine. To the point that on Sunday we may have walked up a hill and we may have gone into an area that was restricted because there were Nodes apparently further up the road. Oh, for sure, so now all in all fantastic trip so well organised the locals there are so friendly the island I'd highly recommend it in fact I was running with someone tonight who's going over there at Christmas and oh no she's grabbing information from me she's now look really looking forward and pumped up about it um Yeah, just well worth doing. Difficult to get to, as we've said, but well worth the effort. It's a step back into time where you don't have to lock everything up, where everyone knows everyone. Right. The advice we were given to drive on the road was make sure you wave at every car, because every car waves at you. Right, okay. So, yeah, no, look, absolutely fantastic weekend. Can't recommend it highly enough, and... Yeah, roll on next parkrun because I'm pumped now for parkrun.

00:13:14Simon Mackley: I bet you are. So has Sam got other plans in mind?

00:13:18Tony O'Connell: Yeah, so anyone that's interested, if you have a look at the Facebook group, Sam's Plans, there are plans coming up for Broken Hill, for Launceston, for Kalgoorlie, and who knows what else is going to pop up in that group. Interesting. Okay. Some really good ideas coming up. And so many people that were there on the weekend have already booked flights while we're there on the weekend, or they're booking trains, or because we had such a great weekend, everyone wants to be a part of it, yeah I can imagine yeah so I know budgie got handed over do you want to tell us about that yeah so budgie made the trip the little plane went on the slightly bigger plane and budgie arrived at flinders island in a gust of wind and in fact many gusts of wind because as well as 80 mil of rain on Saturday the winds got up to about 80 k's an hour Gosh. So Budgie was passed on from Sherry Brandtman to Doc, to Daniel O'Connell, and he's now going to be, he or she or they, are going to be heading back to Victoria. The plane that Budgie flew home on, a must note, was not that much bigger than Budgie. Maybe it was a bigger brother or a bigger sister. Fair enough.

00:14:33Simon Mackley: So why the change of plans? Why has it gone to dock and not gone to WA?

00:14:39Tony O'Connell: That's probably going to all pop up in the next few weeks.

00:14:42Simon Mackley: Okay.

00:14:43Tony O'Connell: With further travels and giving Budgie opportunity to go to a couple more events before heading over to the West Side.

00:14:51Simon Mackley: Okay, fair enough. Stay tuned is what you're saying.

00:14:54Tony O'Connell: Budgie will end up on the West Side, but not... Not for a couple of weeks.

00:15:00Simon Mackley: Ah, yes. Okay. I might be clicking now as to how Budgie's getting down to A-side. Okay. That's all right. We will leave that to, yeah, whenever that happens. Yep. So also over the weekend, our parkrunning friend, Phil Gore, broke his own Oceania record for a 24-hour track race that he was in. He was invited to in Taipei in Taiwan. So he broke the record and set a new one at 270.8 kilometres for those 24 hours around the track. So from what I understand, he was part of an invitational meet that was set up to expose Taiwanese runners to an international field. And yeah, he was invited over there. So when he broke this record, he actually broke his own record that he'd only set in April this year. So he added another 5,147 metres to his record. So as always, amazing work, Phil.

00:16:05Tony O'Connell: Yeah, and it's interesting to see that when he broke the record, he broke it by a parkrun.

00:16:09Simon Mackley: Exactly, just over a parkrun.

00:16:12Tony O'Connell: He must have started well back from the start line at parkrun. So, yeah, well done, Phil. And another record that went over the weekend, Andy Buchanan, parkrunner A742-0000, set a new Australian marathon record at Valencia this past weekend. He's taken the title from Brett Robinson with a two-hour, six-minute, 22-second marathon.

00:16:37Alice: Wow.

00:16:38Tony O'Connell: Now, you do the maths on that, and that is running sub-three-minute kilometres for 42 kilometres. That is just epic. After the race, Andy said, I still consider myself to be a guy from Bendigo that does a bit of running. It's going to take me a while to process that I'm an Australian record holder. And I've noticed Andy has, in fact, done 16 parkruns, and he has a PB of 24.5. Wow. So I'm just trying to think of that. I don't think I could run half a kilometre at three-minute pace. No, I don't think so either. To run 42 kilometres at two-minute 59 pace is epic.

00:17:21Simon Mackley: Yeah, like to have a parkrun PB of 24.48 as well, I mean, that's not as swift as I would have thought because that's... That's not three minute Ks.

00:17:31Tony O'Connell: Nah, most of his parkruns have been in that 24 to 27 minutes. Obviously he goes along and cruises and uses parkrun as a bit of a social relaxed run.

00:17:42Simon Mackley: Yeah, or maybe it's part of a 35K run and it's just in the middle of it.

00:17:48Tony O'Connell: who knows but but if you convert his marathon time to a parkrun pace um he's running sub 15 minute parkruns yeah eight in a row exactly oh that's phenomenal oh dear um

00:18:02Simon Mackley: Yeah, so something I noticed in our email box is that we get an email from Podbean, which is how we put the podcast out every week and tells us every month how many people are downloading the podcast. So I found it interesting that November saw about three and a half thousand downloads, which sort of blew my mind that people want to listen to us. And we pumped out about 248 minutes of content just in November. So working on an average of about an hour a pod, That means that somewhere around palm25, if you've listened to every single minute of every episode, you've listened to about 25,000 minutes of the parkrun adventurers. So that is absolutely huge.

00:18:47Tony O'Connell: That blows my mind a bit, Simon. I listen to the pod and I don't like the sound of my own voice. I'm the same. The thought of listening to myself for 25,000 minutes would do my head in.

00:18:59Simon Mackley: I'm glad that, yeah... other Mel and Scotty have a lot of that and then Mel and Ollie obviously and we're yeah we're very new to this we're bit parts in that 25 000 but exactly it's an amazing figure it is

00:19:15Tony O'Connell: And in other news, Thanksgiving Day, the bonus day in the USA, was last Thursday. And we recorded, thanks to our Belinda Fairy, we had a consolidated club report where we had 17 adventurers across eight events in the USA. So well done to those 17 people who managed to get the extra event, and hopefully a few of them got an extra flag on their profile.

00:19:39Simon Mackley: Yeah, that's a good spread as well. 17 adventurers at eight events, that's... It's not like they all went to one. So that's even better.

00:19:46Tony O'Connell: That wasn't a big group. No. Running in on a little event and overwhelming.

00:19:51Simon Mackley: Yeah, exactly. So we also heard that Jonathan Morgan became the first ever ANZ pioneer and became an Aussie pioneer when he completed Launceston in Tassie over the weekend. So he's completed the pioneer of every first parkrun in every state and territory ever, plus the first ones in the South Island and North Island of New Zealand. So congratulations, Jonathan.

Roving reports & the Channel 5 News crew

00:20:19Simon Mackley: I think it's about time we threw to the roving reports. What do you reckon, TOC?

00:20:20[background music]

00:20:24Tony O'Connell: Yeah, I reckon let's hear some other voices other than ours.

Roving report Calum Burrell — Wendover Woods parkrun

00:20:34Calum Burrell: Good morning, parkrun adventurers. Calum, and we have a wee special event today. Team Borelli, a.k.a. myself and Lindsay, are heading to Wendover Woods. Today is St. Andrew's Day, and that is November the 30th. Little known facts, I was born in Edinburgh a wee while ago, and... Wendover Woods which is in officially the southeast of England they put on an annual tartan event on November the 30th so we're off there and hopefully get to speak someone to tell us about their wee event look forward to it Welcome today to Wendover Woods, it's actually event number 254, a very special day, we've got today Stuart Eakins and Nick Joseph, so we've got today's RD which is Stuart and one of the EDs, are you the ED or?

00:21:39Tony O'Connell: One of a few. One of a few Event Directors. In a transition period.

00:21:40[crosstalk]

00:21:42Calum Burrell: In a transition period, right, okay. Now, let Stuart explain what today was all about.

00:21:48Stuart Eakins: Well, this is a tradition which started with Tring parkrun, which is sadly no longer with us. But a number of the people from Tring came over to Wendover, and they've run the St Andrew's Day parkrun for a number of years. And we've carried it on, so I think this is our third or fourth year of doing it, it seems to get a little bit bigger and more crazy each year we've got Neil who comes and plays the bagpipes for us we've got the Loch Ness Monster we've got Tunnock's teacakes and Irn-Bru so it's uh yeah it's one of our kind of nicer annual events Mac Wendover Woods it says on the pop-up that's absolutely super yes we're all about stereotypes here

00:22:28Calum Burrell: no cultural appropriation at all yeah so lots of different tartan I'm wearing my black watch I got married in in black watch tartan for our themed wedding and uh so it was a we we found out about it a few years ago that you did the annual um tartan parkrun and fall you know we've got to come down we've got I say we got married in in black watch tartan I'm scottish we're born in Edinburgh so it's a absolute pleasure and thank you for hosting this today and you're very welcome So how did it go today?

00:22:54Stuart Eakins: Yeah, it's been a good event. Over 260, so slightly above par. Although our numbers are gradually going up anyway, aren't they? And no incidents to report. We've got a lot of happy people. I think because it's fairly mild, we had a lot of people.

00:22:56[crosstalk]

00:23:09Tony O'Connell: stay and linger afterwards um so it's quite a nice sociable feel it was a bit misty to begin with wasn't it yeah yeah I mean that adds to the atmosphere the pipe are coming through in the mist yes it's like being in Scotland yeah talk about scotch mist that is open on parkrun day that's the first time well are you just for the for the audio listener what are you referring to

00:23:13[crosstalk]

00:23:30[crosstalk]

00:23:33Steve: Well, we have this ice cream van that's been there for years now, and it's never open on part from morning, even in the summer.

00:23:41Calum Burrell: Oh, wow. And it's at the end of November, which means it's open.

00:23:44Stuart Eakins: They've probably realised that everyone's standing around with us rather than coming into the cafe, which is why they thought they'll try and get a bit of business while they can. So can you do a little description of the course for us, please? Yes. It goes downhill for about 2.4 kilometres and then it stops going downhill and then you come back to the start and it's uphill most of the way back. It is a challenging woodland course, mostly on trail. We're very fortunate that because we're high up we don't get flooded. We don't tend to suffer too much from extreme weather conditions, so we get to run most of the year round.

00:24:20Calum Burrell: I met a few people from Aylesbury who were saying that obviously they're on the floodplain, aren't they?

00:24:24Stuart Eakins: It's very, very difficult for those guys. They've now got three variations of the course and all three have at various times flooded. So it's a real challenge at Aylesbury. And I know that the ED there is looking at alternative courses. Hopefully they'll get it sorted because that's where I started parkrunning. It's where a lot of these guys started parkrunning. So we'd like to see it come back as soon as possible. Hopefully it'll be back for Christmas Day because we don't get to open on Christmas Day. The woods are shut. Ah, okay. So I'm hoping that that's where I'll be going.

00:24:25[crosstalk]

00:24:42[crosstalk]

00:24:54Calum Burrell: Right, okay. So have you done much in the way of going to other parkruns? So are the parkrun adventures like to have a, if you can, have a favourite free moments in parkruns? What would be your favourite free moments or different locations?

00:25:06Stuart Eakins: Um... I think my favourite moment wouldn't be adventuring, it would be brand new trainers and my first ever proper PB at Aylesbury. I think that was late 2014, early 2015, I've never managed to achieve that again. I think up in Glasgow, Queen's Park, where the guy on the first corner said to me, only nine more hills to go. I didn't realise it was three laps with three hills on the ice.

00:25:35Calum Burrell: Yeah.

00:25:36Stuart Eakins: And then I guess it would have to be the inaugural event here, which I was also RDing when we set that up in September 2018. And that was quite special, actually.

00:25:48Calum Burrell: Yeah, yeah. Brilliant. OK, well, thank you for today, Stuart. It's been absolutely superb. I'm going to save myself for walking around. There's a Christmas lights place at Waddesdon Manor. That's an excellent event, yeah. So I'm going there and that's why I wanted to just take in the views and, well, try to take in the views, whatever views I had, but I appreciate today and... Any few words you want to say? Oh, no, he's got something in his mouth. We've got tea cakes and Scottish delicacy and we've got a bit of Irn-Bru made from girders. So that wraps up Wendover Woods parkrun. Calum, over and out.

Roving report Lyndell Murray — Underwood Park parkrun

00:26:28Lyndell Murray: G'day parkrun adventurers, it's Lyndell and today I've ventured south of the Brisbane River but I am still on the lands of the Turrbal and Yagura people about 20 minutes maybe south of the Brisbane CBD at Underwood Park, parkrun and I found Steve who is today's Run Director and also Event Director. How did today go apart from the obvious it's a bit soggy?

00:26:53Steve: Look, it was still a great run, good crowds of people here. I was a bit surprised because it's rained constantly the entire time, but everyone's had a smile on their face. Everyone's enjoyed themselves. No-one's got lost. No-one's complained. Yeah, it's been a really nice day, actually.

00:27:06Lyndell Murray: Brilliant. I always say if they complain, you can give them their money back.

00:27:08Steve: Yeah, that's right. Yeah, yeah. And we get almost no complaints here. It's a really nice crowd here.

00:27:13Lyndell Murray: It is. Now, you are a yew parkrun, so you must get a lot of... Did I say that right? Yew? Yeah, yew. Yeah. Got a bit of waterlogging in my brain today, maybe. You're a U Park on, so you get a lot of tourists here, you were saying?

00:27:28Steve: Yeah, so we get lots of people here. Sometimes, sorry, people come here for their final letter of the alphabet, so it's always a bit exciting. But, yeah, lots of people travel from quite a while. For a while, we were the only U, but now there's one, I think, south of Coffs Harbour where you can get one as well. But, you know, we were still the first, so that was our claim to fame for many years. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

00:27:51Lyndell Murray: And now Underwood Park is in a suburb of Brisbane, but it's really lovely parkland here, isn't it? I've been here before and I forgot how lovely this park is.

00:28:00Steve: Oh, yeah, it's a beautiful park. It's really nice and very picturesque and it's a sporting mecca. So on any one day, just over there right now, there's the triathlon club, there's a rugby league club, rugby union. Soccer, cricket, there's mountain bike tracks, BMX parks. My girls have all played netball on these courts here. There's been orienteering courses. I do all of my running through the trails of Daisy Hill Forest from Underwood Park. So most of my life revolves around this centre here. It's great.

00:28:29[crosstalk]

00:28:31Lyndell Murray: And so there's all the amenities here. The course itself, when you were doing the first-timers briefing, you were a little bit worried that the course is a bit complex. It's not that complex.

00:28:40Steve: Yeah, no, I'm glad to hear you say that. But often when I'm doing the first-timers briefing, I see people's eyes just glaze over and go, I've got no idea what you just said. But, yeah, it's basically there's two out and back sections and finish back near where you start. So, yeah.

00:28:55Lyndell Murray: And a bit of tree cover too for summer.

00:28:57Steve: Yeah, it's actually quite nice in summer. There's trees probably for half the course. It doesn't get too hot. And if you get bored of a flat course all the time, we don't have any of that boring flatness either. We've got some just nice undulations, a bit of a steep hill towards the end. It just makes it more fun, I think.

00:29:12Lyndell Murray: It sure does. There's some nice little undulations for sure. Now, Steve, we've talked a bit about Underwood parkrun. Let's talk about your story with running and parkrun. How long have you been involved with Underwood Park?

00:29:26Steve: Yes, so we're celebrating our eighth anniversary in December, the one just before Christmas. That'll be our eighth. And so I've been one of the Event Directors from day one. My Co-Event Director, Mark Morton, and I, we both live here in Rochedale South, and we actually went to the first Wishart parkrun ever, which was about a decade ago. And then most Saturdays we would run from Rochedale to Wishart, do the parkrun. It was about a... We'd end up doing about 20, 21 Ks with a round trip. Loved it. It was fantastic. But then we thought it might be nice to actually for the rest of our community to have one. And so we found there was another guy, Darren Ryan, that was also thinking the same stuff. So the three of us got together. A lot of help from the council. And then we were able to create one here. It was a fair bit of effort to get it started, but so worth it, and every week we'd hear stories of people who were never runners, only came because they heard you could walk the course, they'd walk the course, and now they run the entire thing, and they're ambassadors for running and telling other people how great running is. And always, we keep hearing stories about doctors, stories of how, oh, wow, you were so unhealthy, but now you've started this running, this is fantastic. How did you become so healthy? And you can see people's lives are being improved because of what's happened here. Yeah, so it's been fantastic being a Run Director here. And just the community. Every week you see bunches of people who never knew each other beforehand have now developed lots of deep friendships. So I sincerely think this is the best community development thing I've been part of in my life. It's been fantastic.

00:31:03Lyndell Murray: How good is that? I can see your eyes lighting up just with you talking about it. That's brilliant.

00:31:07Steve: Yeah.

00:31:08Lyndell Murray: Now, I'm interested in your running journey as well. You said that you used to run 20Ks, a lazy 20Ks on a Saturday morning. And your shirt, I'm taken by your shirt. Tell me about your running adventure. I hear that that running 20Ks to Wishart has evolved into backyard ultras. So he's a man after your heart talk. Tell me about that, Steve.

00:31:31Steve: Yeah, so back at ultras, a lot of people won't know what they are. Basically, you do a 6.7 kilometre lap. You've got one hour to do it. If you finish, you then get the privilege of lining up at the same start line at the start of the next hour. And then you try and do another 6.7 and then another 6.7. And there is no finish line. You just keep on going, until your body forces you to stop or your brain just says, oh, I've had enough of this. Or you're the last one standing and you get to be the winner. And so there's about 500 of these races around the world and they've been going for 13 years. Lazarus Lake started them in Tennessee and now they're all over the place. And a lot of the... biggest, best races in the world have been here in Queensland. And I've done a few of them, and I just love it. I'm a pretty slow runner, but I can just keep on going, and with a bit of rest and a bit of food, I can just keep going for, by my standards, fairly long distances.

00:32:10[background music]

00:32:25Lyndell Murray: Okay, two things there, TOC and Mel. The best ones are in Queensland. So maybe Queensland's the greatest state for backyard ultras. And you just keep on going. So how many laps... Have you done? What's your PB for Backyard Ultra, Steve?

00:32:42Steve: So my PB I did about, in August this year, the Clint Eastwood race, I did 24. So the winners were 72. So nowhere near them.

00:32:51Lyndell Murray: So you're a loser like everybody else.

00:32:51[crosstalk]

00:32:53Steve: That's right. You get a big fat loser. In fact, the first one I did, they actually give you a cup with the word loser on it. And L-O-S-E-R stands for Last One Standing Endurance Race. Yeah, which is quite clever I thought I've heard of races giving out quitters bitter yeah and so there's a weird culture in this that everybody's a loser except for the winner and that makes it so much it's such a fun event because every race whenever you stop there's some amazing story about people going the furthest they've ever been or some crazy reason why they've stopped. And so that's why I actually wrote a book about it, as you mentioned, just because I kept on being overwhelmed with all these great stories. And I found I was just constantly talking to people about these stories. Every race I've done has been an epic journey. I've written up huge amounts on Facebook. So then if you look at all the other races around the world, it's lots of fun. It's incredible stuff.

00:33:02[crosstalk]

00:33:48Lyndell Murray: This is a book I need to get my hands on. So tell me about that. It's called There Is No Finish, The Backyard Ultra Story. Where can we get this book?

00:33:59Steve: Yeah, so it's available in Wildfire Sports has got it, Amazon, or there's a website, just runningforever.au. And so there's a lot posted over there. That's probably the easiest way. Or turn up to Underwood Park parkrun and I've often got copies floating around here. LAUGHTER

00:34:17Lyndell Murray: You might get an autographed copy.

00:34:19Steve: Yeah, that's possible too. And then you can avoid postage costs too.

00:34:23Lyndell Murray: All right, Steve, before I wrap up, is there anything else? Thank you so much for telling me your story. Is there anything else you'd like the parkrun adventurers to know about Underwood parkrun?

00:34:33Steve: Oh, well, if you haven't been here, you have to come. We're one of the nicest communities around. 21st is our anniversary.

00:34:37[crosstalk]

00:34:38Lyndell Murray: Yes, we've got the anniversary.

00:34:40Steve: And I've just been told 21st is our anniversary, so come along for a Christmas break. It's always lots of fun here, so, yeah.

00:34:46Lyndell Murray: Excellent. Thank you, Steve. Thank you for sharing your story and thank you for everything that you've done for parkrun, particularly in your community and these wonderful relationships that you've helped build by getting Underwood Park, parkrun started. Thank you so much.

00:34:59Steve: My pleasure. And thanks very much for coming along. Great to have you here. Thank you. And hi, everyone on the podcast.

Roving report Emma — Event Director, Kirra parkrun — Whitemark Wharf parkrun

00:35:06Emma: Good morning. It's Emma, better known as the bossy, obnoxious, loud ED from Kirra. And I've been entrusted with doing the roving report this morning from Whitemark Wharf. And I'm here with Lynne, the Event Director. Hi, Lynne. How are you? I'm good, thank you, on this rainy day. Yeah, look, first of all, I'd like to say thank you for making this event possible. There's been a few of us that have travelled for a long way to come here, so the fact we actually got to have a run this morning. Can you start for me by describing the course here?

00:35:31Lynne: So we start in Whitemark, which is the biggest town on the island, outside Whitemark Wharf, which is a cafe. And we run along a track parallel to the foreshore. It's an out-and-back course. Generally fairly protected by trees because we do get horizontal rain and howling gales.

00:35:52Emma: So Flinders Island, I understand, has a population of about 900. How long have you lived on Flinders Island and how did you come to be here?

00:36:00Lynne: So my story is similar to a lot of people. I first came here about 20 years ago and just loved the island. And so whenever I could, I'd come back and do some work. And then I've been here more permanently for about the last 10 years. And how did you learn about parkrun? Oh, that's an interesting question. I'm trying to think back when my first parkrun would be. I'm actually a GP, I'm a doctor, and so I'm very... A big part of my work is about lifestyle medicine and encouraging people to exercise and take control of their own health. So I suspect it was probably some avenue through that that I initially became aware of parkrun. Have you been the Event Director from the start, from the initial set-up of Whitemark Wharf? No. So I was involved in the concept and I was a bit sceptical at the beginning whether or not we'd be able to get it up and running and sustainable here. So I was very supportive and have always sort of helped coordinate the volunteers, but became the co-director. Maybe two years ago.

00:37:08Emma: So we understand that Flinders Island is a bit of a tourist destination. What's the furthest that you've known someone to come to Flinders Island simply to do Whitemark Wharf?

00:37:18Lynne: So it's not a huge tourist destination. So I want to make sure people have got the right perspective on the island. It's very much a farming local community. We welcome tourists, but it's not necessarily one of those major tourist destinations. And I just warn people about that because we have tourists who come expect a lot more facilities than we actually have, such as the supermarket shuts at 12 on a Saturday, shut all day Sunday. It can be hard to find places to eat. So obviously we welcome everyone who comes and it's great. We tend to get the people who really enjoy the outdoors and are happy to be a bit self-sufficient. The furthest people have come mainly we get people probably from Australia who are trying to tick off parkruns people who've come from overseas generally are probably visiting other people here on the island is rather than making a specific trip here I know we had one couple who came for their honeymoon because they wanted to pick the parkrun that was most interesting so that's how they chose to come and do their honeymoon here on flinders

00:38:23Emma: So I've come here as a part of 21 parkrun adventurers to the island. What do you think the impact of parkrun tourism is on the local community here?

00:38:32Lynne: Oh, it's obviously helpful. You know, anything that brings people in, as long as they've got the understanding of what we have here to offer, are really welcome. So definitely there is an impact on tourism, which is, you know, that's a great thing, bringing money into the island, supporting local businesses, really positive. So Lynne, what would you say is the best bit about Flinders Island? That's a hard question. There's so many good things about Flinders Island, but it has to suit you. The scenery is spectacular. It's an absolutely beautiful place to be. I like the peace and quiet. It really is true. If you go to a beach and there's someone on that beach, you discreetly turn your car around and you head somewhere else. It's pretty special. The community is really supportive. People are really friendly. There's an amazing amount going on if you're willing to get involved in things. So there are many pluses about living on the island, but it doesn't suit everyone.

00:39:30[background music]

00:39:33Emma: Tell me a little bit about how to get out here. Is it only just a plane or are there other modes of transport to arrive here?

00:39:40Lynne: So there are flights from Melbourne, from Essendon Airport, which don't run every day, depends on the time of year. There might be two or three a week up to daily over the Christmas period. Mainly we link in with Launceston and there are flights usually every day to Lonnie, but it's all weather dependent. So it's not unusual for planes to be cancelled because of poor visibility, bad weather. And then we have the barge coming in once a week. Again, depending on the weather, it comes from Bridport, but it takes 10 hours and it's a really rough crossing, mainly freight. So a lot of people would tend to put a vehicle on there, but maybe not go as a passenger because it's not a nice journey. So yeah, those are the ways of getting to Flinders.

00:40:10[background music]

00:40:24Emma: So do you ever feel isolated being on this island and knowing that you can't necessarily get off? I like feeling isolated.

00:40:34Lynne: No, the only challenge, because we actually have generally what we need here. With things like online shopping these days, you can get anything you want. The only time it can be tricky is if you need to go off the island for a reason and say the flight is fully booked and you need to go, then that can be a challenge.

00:40:52Emma: But generally, no, not a problem. So it sounds very much that Flinders Island is a fairly tight-knit community here. What's the involvement from the locals in your parkrun? I understand you probably get quite a few tourists who are making this a destination to get to this parkrun. What's your usual turnout for a parkrun on average?

00:41:10Lynne: We're really pleased is that at the beginning when we were talking about parkrun, we thought we might get, if we had 10 every week, we were going to be really happy with it. I'd say we normally get 20 to 30, which are generally locals every week. It's lower numbers, I'm sorry, this week because there's a singing camp and a lot of people are on the singing camp this weekend. So we get a mixture of mainly people, probably more people walking than running. We are proud that our average time is about 10 minutes less than the average general parkrun time, which reflects that it's a very inclusive event encouraging people to come doesn't matter how fast or slow you are we have a few regulars who run so it's a real mixture yep and we have up to I think our biggest is over 100 when we have had the flinders island running festival which happens September every year so come along in September first weekend of September great running weekend tell us about the running festival it's over three days so on Friday Afternoon we run at Trousers Point, which is a really beautiful run, 4.4K. Trail run, you have to guess your time, so no watches allowed. So that's the Friday. Then on Saturday we do parkrun, which is obviously 5K. And then Sunday is the Pub to Pub, which is about 25K from the pub in Whitemark down to the tavern in Lady Barron. Are there beers at the end? There's definitely beers at the end.

00:42:39Emma: Beers, food, whatever you need. Definitely sounds like my sort of event. How do you go as far as volunteering? Have you got a core group of volunteers or do you just gather people from week to week? We have a core group of volunteers. So I come from the Gold Coast, which is a big place, and a lot of our listeners come from cities. So the whole fascination of Flinders Island being this population of 900 is So you're a GP. Tell me a little bit about what the infrastructure is like on a community. Like how many police officers do you have? Is there a hospital?

00:43:12Lynne: Yep. We run a lot of things here with volunteers. The community has a very high volunteer rate. So the ambulance volunteers, fireys are volunteers, the SES are volunteers. We have two policemen, and I think that may increase to three in the future, but they basically are on call the whole time. We have three GPs, two whom job share. We have a little hospital, GP clinic. We have a school that goes right through from kinder up to year 12. so we have most things here um obviously can't offer the whole breadth of services that you're going to get elsewhere but you will get most things here yeah

00:43:55Emma: So if you're looking for a sea change, it definitely sounds like Flinders Island is the place to be. I think I might fill that third vacancy.

00:44:02Lynne: So, yeah, if you are an electrician or you're a plumber or you're a builder, if you've got a skill, childcare worker, please come to Flinders Island. We'd love to see you.

00:44:12Emma: There, you've heard it yourself. Lots of places to come down here and a wonderful parkrun. Thank you so much, Lynn.

00:44:15[background music]

00:44:19Lynne: Yeah, no, it's been a pleasure. Thank you.

00:44:22Unidentified speaker: MUSIC

00:44:29Tony O'Connell: And Simon, we had a great range of roving reports there coming to us from, well, basically from where I am, from north, from west, and from south. So we heard from Calum at Wendover Woods. We heard from Lyndell from Underwood Park. And an interesting side note is she was talking to Stephen. Stephen wrote a book about Backyard Ultras, of which I recently purchased. So another good little connection there. And we heard from the lovely Em from Whitemark Wharf, who was talking to Lynne, the ED over at Whitemark Wharf. Nice.

Dazza's

00:45:04Tony O'Connell: Moving along from our roving reports, and we come up with Dazza's. And this week, Dazza has said, it's National Tree Week, a time to appreciate the nature around us. And given parkrun started in the UK, if nothing else, we can appreciate one certain tree. How was your Saturday morning? Did you get close to nature? Or maybe it was more concrete jungle than regular jungle. Wherever parkrun took you, come on in and tell Dazza all about it.

00:45:31Simon Mackley: And so the listener challenge this week was to add a Mo for Movember to Dazza's post. And of the 98 comments we got, the first one I'm going to read out is from Martine Barrot, who was in Tasmania. So she said, Hey Dazza. Andrew, Eric and I travelled to Flinders Island with a special group of people to complete Whitemark Wharf parkrun. Oh, and Andrew and I may have done a thing and become Tassie Statesmen. And there was a picture of Martine using Budgie as her moustache.

00:46:03Tony O'Connell: Yes, moving further westward from South Africa, our friend Johan. I had a quick stopover in Cape Town, back from Namibia, and at long last managed to get a pic in the selfie frame at Green Point parkrun, on their regular route, which is a rare occurrence these days. Then I headed to the Century City parkrun to join friends for the post-parkrun breakfast and lecker kaya. And I'm not sure what Kaya refers to, but I had to go to my pronunciation aid to try and get that one half correct. And I'm sure our South African friends out there are going to be screaming at their devices at the moment saying, you butchered that. But Johan actually posted a photo and he was using the whole selfie frame as his moustache. He was. It was very clever. Yeah.

00:46:55Simon Mackley: We also heard from Chris Gore, who was coming to us from South Australia as opposed to Western Australia. So Chris said, Hi Dazza, Karen and I certainly did get close to nature this morning as we took part in our first parkrun of our road trip. We left Perth three days ago to get to Port Augusta parkrun. It's a lovely course alongside the Spencer Gulf and passing all the mangrove trees. It was a windy morning which made for a slow outbound leg, but a faster return. It was a very friendly team that cheered us on as we crossed the finish line. And it looks like both Chris and Karen were sporting some cardboard moustaches that they cut out, I believe.

00:47:36Tony O'Connell: Great. Into the theme there. Next, we heard from Carolyn McRae, who was in New South Wales this week. Surrounded by nature this morning at Queanbeyan parkrun. Alongside the tree-lined river in which the level had risen significantly by the end of the run, Jan, Tracy and I collected many raindrops to take on a drowned rat look. And the rat was actually a little emoji. We found this moe for Movember in Uber following breakfast. And there's a picture... of the Movember air freshener.

00:48:07Simon Mackley: And we heard from David Johnston, who wrote, a couple of beauties in the wet at Mount Beauty, and there was a photo of David and Dermot with sticks as their mows.

00:48:18Tony O'Connell: Back up to the ACT, and we heard from Tyson Flynn, helped out at PHP, which we all know is Point Hut, Point... Point Hut Pond. Point Hut Pond, so we don't all know it, we're all incorrect. LAUGHTER At PHP with course check and Tail Walker duties. My 50th day volunteering for the year. And a picture of Tyson with what appears to be a genuine real Movember Mo.

00:48:47Simon Mackley: It was indeed. And then we heard from this guy named TOC. And he said, hi Dazza, blonger gale in Whitemark Wharf parkrun. Nearly blew Movember moustaches off. Latte, please. And there was trees in the background. I think I've missed some emojis that you put in there. But TOC, Sarah and Matthew were using their adventurer's buffs as their moustaches.

00:49:11Tony O'Connell: And we seem to have a lot of people commenting from White Mark Wharf this week because we also had Alison King joined a frond at Whitemark Wharf where the treeline course meant we were sheltered from the wind until we returned to the finish. So windy, my barcode moustache wouldn't stay put. And there's a picture of Alison using the barcode as a moustache with Heather Morgan using her finger to look... look like a moustache as well.

00:49:36Simon Mackley: And last but not least, we heard from Yvette Turner, who didn't actually write anything, but she sent us a photo, submitted a photo of a FOMO in Umbagong's selfie frame.

00:49:49Tony O'Connell: Rightio, Simon, we've been east, we've been north, we've been south and we've been west.

the Obi Award — Chris Gore

00:49:54Tony O'Connell: Do we have an Obi winner in that lot? I think we do have an Obi winner.

00:49:59Simon Mackley: So the Obi this week goes to...

00:50:05Tony O'Connell: Chris Gore well done Chris um great to see the two moustaches inside the selfie frame yes and hope you enjoy your trip across to South Australia from the West Side interesting Simon this week lots of people out of the West Side and travelling exactly

00:50:29Simon Mackley: I guess we'll see that in the Consolidated Club report soon.

00:50:30[background music]

Club Corner

00:50:32Tony O'Connell: We shall do. But before we get to that, I think we shall hear from Reginald.

00:50:45Reginald Yardley Pomphrey III: This is Reginald Yardley Pomphrey III, with Club Corner, where we talk about the what and why of parkrun clubs, and I am coming to you from Arrernte Country. Today we hark back to Club Corner number 55 where we talked about Run Directors. We mentioned that the person with the authority to cancel a parkrun is the RD, so let us talk a little about how that happens. Sometimes there is advance notice of an impending cancellation, e.g. another event in the same location, or the course is otherwise unavailable. Other times, to prove the necessity for the Event Day Course Check roll, something quite literally pops up, like a tree, or a fence, or a boat, or mud, or ice, or, well, you get it. The number one reason for a must cancel is if the AED is unavailable. Whatever a cancellation happens, the process is basically the same. And to quote parkrun HQ who use bold font on the website. So it must be serious, start quote, the Run Director at an event has the ultimate authority to cancel and cannot be overruled in this situation, they should always err on the side of caution and be supported in that decision by their fellow volunteers, end quote. If an event needs to cancel, these are the broad strokes of what happens, e.g., if an event is to be cancelled next month, the team logs into EMS, heads to event cancellations and follows the prompts, which clarifies event name, date, and reason for cancellation. Once saved, this will trigger various updates to that event's website. If there were people already in the roster, then the team must notify those people via EMS. The event should then use all relevant event social media accounts and subsequent pre-event briefings to remind the community of the forthcoming cancellation. Note that cancellations can happen right up to the scheduled start time and or during the actual event if it is felt that it cannot continue for some reason. If the decision to cancel is made on the day then the RD must also if safe to do so make an announcement at the normal meeting point giving the reasons for cancellation. There are specific images to be used on social media for events. Different images are used for 5k or juniors. For events that are cancelled, the RD decides who is eligible for a volunteer credit on that occasion and the RD should then update and confirm the roster. Cancellations should never be reversed. It is important that participants take announcements seriously and do not turn up on the off chance that the event has changed their mind. Yes, cancellations are annoying and frustrating, especially as an adventurer, but remember, safety of the team and participants is paramount, and there is always another parkrun. Cheers, and be sure to stay tuned for our future Club Corners.

00:53:20Simon Mackley: And we're back from Reginald, who was talking about cancellations, starting with predetermined cancellations, where there's another event in the park or something like that, through to right up to the event, where Someone's gone out and done the course check and found fallen trees or a new fence across the course or for some reason it's unsafe to go ahead. And just remember that the Run Director's decision is final.

00:53:46Tony O'Connell: And probably of note, Simon, I heard of an event on the weekend that basically cancelled just before they yelled go. Because between when the Event Day Course Check was done and go, which was only a matter of about 20 minutes, the creek rose a metre and a half.

00:54:02Simon Mackley: Wow. When was that?

00:54:04Tony O'Connell: I believe it was a Queensland event. Oh, okay. So I'm not 100% sure, but yeah, there was a bit of talk about it on a couple of the groups that I'm on in the socials. Okay. But yeah, just as you said, the Run Director's decision is final because it's done purely for safety, not for any other reason other than

Consolidated Club Report

00:54:23Tony O'Connell: yeah we want to make sure everyone gets to parkrun has a good time and gets home again and if it's not safe it's always next week the Run Director wants to put the event on they always do yep yes rightio we're going to move on with our consolidated club report uh the adventurers consolidated club report for Saturday the 30th of November 2024 Of a total of 714 members, 500 took part on this date in 8 countries across 254 locations. In the UK there were adventurers at 45 events, 9 in the US of A, 6 in South Africa and 1 in Germany, Poland and Singapore. Locally we had adventurers at... Victoria came in with 46. New South Wales had 45. Queensland had 41. Western Australia had 19. South Australia had 13. Tasmania had 10. The Australian Capital Territory had 9. North Island of New Zealand had 6. The South Island of New Zealand had 1. And the Northern Territory had 1. That was all very precise there, Tom. That was to give each state and territory its full name.

00:55:42Simon Mackley: Proper name, yes.

the Frond — Whitemark Wharf parkrun — frond of 19

00:55:43Simon Mackley: So our largest international frond was at Southampton, where we had four people, which was Brian Grieves, Tamsin May-Smith, Stuart Smith and Morglan Smith.

00:55:55Tony O'Connell: And we finally had a bushy pilgrimage. Yay! Welcome Adrian Luscombe into the bushy challenge. It's great. After a few weeks, we've had a couple of weeks where we haven't had someone there. So well done, Adrian. Hope you enjoyed the experience.

00:56:13Simon Mackley: And largest frond in Australia. Well, this is going to come as no surprise to anyone that we had a frond of 19 at one event. That would be Whitemark Wharf. So we had Matthew Stevens, Tony O'Connell, Leanne Evans, Sherry Brandtman, Melissa Ellis, Andrew Johnston, Daniel O'Connell, Jacqui O'Connell, Heather Morgan, Emma Nicholson, Sam Schroder, Roberta Winters, Belinda Taylor, Sarah Jefferson, Heather Hunter, Alison King, Luke Schroder, Martine Barrot and Lee Cabarita. There were also fronds of six at four events and they were Emerald Lake, Jindabyne, Macquarie University and Rockingham. So I wonder how many of those people at Jindabyne actually ran in the COSI events over last week which was the cosy 30 the 50 and 100ks or the 100 miler I'm not sure but I know there's a few crazies out there that do do things like milers and then back up with the short parkrun just to loosen the legs down exactly the miler would have been the hardest to do because it was such an awful weather event but yeah those that did the 30 50 and 100k probably had a better opportunity. Well, 30 and 50 were actually the day before, so they would have been really shaking it out.

Launches and anniversaries"Where is the cake?"

00:57:34Tony O'Connell: And we only had one launch in the whole wide world this week. And just to keep up with the tradition that we've had for the last few weeks, New Zealand's come up with the goods again. We had South End Reserve parkrun in New Zealand, located east of the Coromandel Forest Park, about 150 kilometres east-southeast of Auckland, in the town of Pauanui, which has the meaning of big abalone, sourced through a number of different comments there and from our New Zealand correspondent so I've sourced that from a couple of spots they had 56 participants of which nine of those were the first time ever at a parkrun supported by 14 volunteers an out and back course running alongside the grass foreshore the stunning ocean beach side the start finish is in South End Reserve naturally and the You head north to the turnaround at Royal Billy Point Reserve before retracing your steps back to the start-finish area. And we had an email, late email, come in. Late email. Well, Brett Bailey shot an email in and just a couple of the dot points out of Brett's email from the week earlier, we were talking about the Nelson parkrun that launched. Nelson's a city of 55,000 people located at the base of Tasman Bay. Some of the other things, Nelson was given a city status in recognition of Lord Nelson. It's the second oldest city in New Zealand. Yeah. It's a five-hour drive north from Christchurch, and there's regular regional flights from Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, and several other airports. It's blessed with great weather, stunning beaches, clear, clean rivers, mountains, alpine lakes, national parks, and is one of the main fruit-growing areas in New Zealand. And they specialise in apples, pears, kiwi fruit, and berries, along with most of the hops that are grown in the area. There's a large logging and sea fishing industry, and it's a very popular tourist destination. I could go on. There's quite a bit of information that Brett's provided there. And of note, Brett sent a second email, and he said there's some pretty good wines produced in the area as well. He said, sorry, I forgot all about the vineyards. So great to have a local source and some local information there. Thank you, Brett Bailey. Yes, thank you very much, Brett. [Te Reo Maori: "Pauanui — 'big paua', i.e. big abalone; paua is the New Zealand abalone. The show gives the gloss itself; only the spellings are corrected."]

01:00:09Simon Mackley: So the challenge coming up for this next week, I'm thinking because we're now into ugly season that we should get you to slide the word ugly into your Dazza's post. What do you think about that, TOC?

01:00:22Tony O'Connell: I reckon it's a bit of a challenge and next week we'll have to make sure we give everyone the date for ugly Christmas in December. Indeed. One down. Yeah, no, great challenge. Let's see how creative we can be with the word ugly. Let's not make it all about ugly. Let's see if you take that as a challenge. And this week is the penultimate podcast before we take a Christmas break. The last episode for the year will be recorded next week on the 9th of December, and we'll return recording again on the 13th of January. So we're taking about five weeks as a bit of a break.

01:00:41[crosstalk]

Sign-off

01:01:05Simon Mackley: Indeed we will. Where are you going to be going on your next parkrun Day, TOC?

01:01:11Tony O'Connell: Well, I guess we'll probably hear about that next week, Simon, but I am uncertain at this stage. It could be one of the Gippsland events. I'll probably try to maybe travel over to one or maybe travelling up to Melbourne and sampling a different event up that way.

01:01:26Simon Mackley: How about yourself? I may go to Sirromet, which is one of the closer ones to me. But if I wake up naturally early, I might hit the road and head off to a NENDY like Warner Lakes or Old Esk Railway. So, yeah, I'd say it'll be Sirromet, but it will depend.

01:01:44Tony O'Connell: Depend on what time the body clock gets you up out of bed. Exactly. And, Simon, next week we have everyone for the All in Group Challenge podcast host Christmas episode special. Exactly. Spectacular. Looking forward to that one. And as always, you can contact us via parkrun adventurers on Facebook or on our email, which is parkrunadventurers at gmail.com. That's it for another week. We'll see you all next week for more adventures.