Episode 460 - Across The Ditch

00:00:00[intro theme playing]

Welcome

00:00:19Tony O'Connell: Welcome to episode 460 of the parkrun adventurers podcast, a podcast all about life, if your life is about parkrun. This is TOC and I'm on Bunurong Country. Cooee across the ditch, Alison.

00:00:32Alison Fraser (King): Cooee, TOC. Hi everyone, my name is Alison. I'm recording in Ngongotahā, Rotorua, where tangata whenua, slash people of the land, are Te Arawa. Thanks for inviting me to host with you, TOC. I've been on the pod many times over the years. I think my first episode was episode 16, when Puarenga parkrun was about to launch. I've been mostly on as a roving reporter, so it's a real honour to join you in the office. And I'd love to share some tales of adventuring with you at the start of this pod, but I've actually done something I haven't done in almost six years of parkrunning. I've had four consecutive runs slash walks at my home parkrun of Puarenga. Most of these were planned, but I was going to go on an adventure last week, but it's been put off to this parkrun day. So sometimes the right thing is to stay at home. and actually had a fun day as a result. [Te Reo Māori: "people of the land (the Indigenous people of a place) — Alison glosses it herself as "people of the land""]

00:01:23Tony O'Connell: Yeah, it's funny, Alison, sometimes the right thing is to go to your home parkrun. Now, I've done that myself this week. I've been to Inverloch for the first time in 26 weeks, I think. So I've broken my little streak that I've had running. Puarenga is a great little place. I haven't done your parkrun, but Jacqui has. So Jacqui did it while I was on a on a long run over your way some years ago, and it's one that I want to get back to, because I've really enjoyed running through the sulphur flats.

00:01:53Alison Fraser (King): You would have to come back and Jacqui would have to do it again because we're on a different course to what she would have run back in, was it 2018?

00:01:59Tony O'Connell: It was 2018 and back then, are you still running beside the archery field?

00:02:06Alison Fraser (King): No and it's not an archery field anymore, either. But we still run through lots of sulphur areas and there's a bubbling mud pool that, if you just take the time to just look to your left as you're going along one part, you can see the mud bubbling away.

00:02:21Tony O'Connell: Cool. Well, thanks for joining me tonight, Alison. Lyndell, for those that don't know, is taking a break. She's travelled across to Hong Kong. Lyndell, as we've discussed a few times, is a World Triathlete judge, and she's quite high up in the organisation to the point where Lyndell quite often officiates at the Olympics and so she's over doing some world-level re-accreditation at Hong Kong so have fun over there Lyndell it's going to be stinking hot and humid I would imagine in Hong Kong and there's no parkrun there Look, moving straight into it, I'll go through some of my highlights since I recorded last. That was four weeks ago. The first one, we went back to McIvor Creek. The listeners might have recalled that last time I was there, it was cancelled at 20 past seven. We did a mad panic dash, got to another parkrun. This time we went back to try and regain our greatsmanship, and we Succeeded. McIvor is a lovely little trail located in the Goldfields town of Heathcote. Brendan Peel and Jodi Mazey were both there and they were on the volunteer roster, so it was great to catch up with them and a couple of others. Jo Taylor, one of our good friends, my parkrun daughter, and Scotty they visited as well. Jo actually had a fall, she joined the stack club, so she finished with the claret running down from the knee, lots of holes in the knee so hope you're running better Jo. The course itself is a H-shaped course along a river, you run out one side, back the other and then repeat. A great location in that the toilets are right near the start line, there's heaps of parking and the cafe that they go to, The Watering Hole, is about a 100 metres up from the parkrun and they basically give parkrunners a massive discount on both coffee and we got a pretty big discount on breakfast, so I was pretty impressed with that. After that we've been back to Koonwarra for a repeat visit. Cooney is one of the local courses that I helped set up. It was one of the little children that popped out of Inverloch, so nice close local. And then we've been back to Phar Lap Track, which is where the great horse Phar Lap did all his training many, many years ago. Alison, you're probably going to pick up that Phar Lap was a New Zealand horse.

00:04:33Alison Fraser (King): Of course.

00:04:34Tony O'Connell: That we hijacked, like all good things New Zealand, we claimed them.

00:04:37Alison Fraser (King): You can keep Russell Crowe.

00:04:41Tony O'Connell: So Phar Lap Track's a fairly flat gravel track the whole way around. That got us up to our tourist streak of 25, which is where we wanted to get to before we broke it. How about you, Alison? What have you been up to?

00:04:53Alison Fraser (King): Well, as I mentioned just before, I haven't done any actual adventuring, for weeks, but I've been to many new parkruns to me this year and I will have many more adventures coming. I don't know if you want to hear some of my highlights of the year, but they have involved other adventurers such as going to Japan with Roberta and I was in Singapore with Helen and VKP and I know I've got a few I'm catching up with you actually next month TOC so I'm looking forward to that.

00:05:24Tony O'Connell: There's been lots of activities and you've certainly been travelling around a little bit and enjoying a lot of the New Zealand ones as well and we'll probably get to those a little bit later.

Listener Feedback

00:05:33Tony O'Connell: Why don't we go across to some feedback from the last episode that Simon and Sarah put on. And we had lots of love for the interview they conducted with The Office Lady. Some of the comments that we received on our post include one from Michael Lyttle and Michael said, thanks to the team for four mentions in the last two pods. We feel very special. I love the interview with Sam and we're privileged to see her finish her 24 hour run. We had a great few weeks in Perth catching up with all the Western adventurers and the occasional Eastern ring-in. Chris and Karen Gore, Lucille Pead, Chloe and Dave Bravos, Sarah and Matt and Sam and Luke. Alas, we have begun our journey East again after continuing our little adventure. Let's see who we find on the other side of the Nullarbor. And there were a couple of other comments that were in the feedback as well. And they were from Yvette Turner and Gabby Wade. And Michael, I think you can now make that five mentions in three podcasts. You've done very well on your little adventure.

00:06:33Alison Fraser (King): Peter Pohlman replied to Ali Sheppard about the beach runs with the following: Ali Sheppard, FYI, all of the all-beach, all-year parkruns. One, Portrush parkrun, Northern Ireland, UK, September 2012. Two, The Beaches parkrun, Australia, November 2014. Three, Inch Beach parkrun, Republic of Ireland, May 2018. Four, you've stitched me up, TOC, Melkbosstrand parkrun, South Africa, July 2018. 5, Hafan, is it Hafan Pwllheli? I have no idea with my Welsh. Sorry, Ali, I've completely butchered that. It's spelt P-W-L-L, which is a ph sound, H-E-L-I, parkrun in Wales, UK, February 2019. 6, Narin Beach parkrun in the Republic of Ireland, June 2019. 7, Great Yarmouth North Beach parkrun. England, UK, February 2020, and that is on my wish list. Number eight, we've got Laytown Beach parkrun, Republic of Ireland, March 2024. And there are some others, Peter says, that are nearly all sand or now closed, and they are Burrum Heads in Queensland, Australia, that's summer only, Big Bay, South Africa, they've changed course, and Strand Beach in South Africa, and that has closed. And Peter's comment generated a whole lot of response and comments.

00:08:00Tony O'Connell: Ali, it'd be fair to say that I didn't stitch up there. I just put your name beside that one. It had some really difficult ones to pronounce. Who'd have thought that that had happened in the show notes? I think there were about 11 or 12 comments on Peter's post there. And one of them was a reply from Inch Beach parkrun. And they said, thank you, with lots of smiley face emojis, for interviewing us. We would like to express globally to all those who participated at Inch Beach parkrun a virtual hug, and thank you parkrun adventurers. And, The Beaches actually replied back to Inch Beach and said: hashtag waves from down under hashtag get your feet wet hashtag see you on the sand.

00:08:40Alison Fraser (King): Our friend, Ryan the Running Guy, posted a pirate video and it looks like he made his coffee extra special with a tot of rum.

00:08:47Tony O'Connell: Yes, I think that might have been a little bottle of Bundy that was made an appearance there and slipped into the "Talk like a pirate day" and if he had too many of those he probably would be talking like a pirate at the end of that. Righty-o, that's some of our feedback for the week but if you enjoy the pod we'd love it if you could rate and review us on Apple, Spotify or whatever platform you listen on. It helps other people to find us and we can keep spreading the adventurer's love.

parkrun news bulletin

00:09:13Tony O'Connell: We're going to go straight into news. And my first thing in news, and it's affected a lot of the adventurers over the last month, or not affected, it's impacted a lot of the adventurers, has been Streaky September. I've really loved Streaky September this year. It's been reinvigorated. Bingoe card was great. The Bingoe card had some really good ways of mixing things up. I actually completed obviously the whole month of streaking. I think I'm now on 2,950 days of streaking, so I've just got past the month tally. But I've loved following people's streak journeys on the Facebook group. We've had loads of new people this year which has been great. It's been great to see some new locations, some new names popping up and just some of the things that were on the Bingoe card have been really creative with the way people have looked at and interpreted and I think that was the Office Lady's intention was that we would all interpret it differently. I probably interpret things a lot more black and white. Boring, but there's some people had some great interpretations in there. Special thanks to Pippa, our Streakmeister, and to the Office Lady for the Bingoe cards and all the hard work that she did on the socials for the month.

00:10:26Alison Fraser (King): I managed to log a streak every day for September and in typical streaky September fashion I actually started my streak on August the 31st and I've kept on going this time. I think my longest streak that I ever did was 501 days something like that and then I broke my ankle and there was no way I could keep on streaking when that happened and every so often I have all these good intentions and then something happens, but I'm back streaking and I'm still streaking. So today is Monday. So I make that 36 days so far on this streak. I didn't complete my Bingoe card. I don't know why. I think I just put too much pressure on myself to do that. And I think, oh, I'll just go and do my walk or my run. That's all I need to do. But there was one that age, the age streak. I'm currently 49 TOC. There's no way I was going to stop at 4.9 kilometres because then I wouldn't be able to log a nottie. And I'm not going to do 49k's in September because I have my first 50k coming up in 12 days time and I thought that was just a little bit stupid. And I thought I could do 49 minutes but I never look at my watch so I was never going to stop it dead on 49 minutes, so that never happened. But one square I did tick off was the full moon and that was my weekly Monday 6K with my friend Janet. We go from her place to the lakefront where there's a jetty and we always stop and take photos. And Janet's moving soon so we're going to have to figure out a new loop to include the lake. From her new place to the lake it's 3Ks, which might just be a little bit too far. I don't know, we'll suss something out, but, like you, I thought it was really cool to see lots of new streakers in the group joining us and all the creative ideas for the Bingoe card. So with that full moon Heather spelling ,Heather Hunter, spelling out full moon with all these different signs that she saw

00:12:25Alison Fraser (King): and, because the moon was behind a cloud, I thought that was really inventive.

00:12:28Tony O'Connell: Yeah, now look I turned 60 this year and so my my streaky age was just taking a photo of the 60 kilometres an hour road sign into one of the towns. That was nice easy way and that was my interpretation. I walked along I saw the 60 sign and thought, bingo, there's my age! We've had some discussions previously on the podcast about the effects that marathons have on different towns and Berlin Marathon was held on the weekend of the 26th of September. And when Christine and Eman Vergara ran in the marathon, only one of the Berlin parkruns went ahead on the day, Tempelhofer Feld parkrun, and that's at a disused airfield so it's got plenty of space around it, which is probably a fairly good thing. It's a fairly new event - they're only on event number 23, so it's probably a fairly bold move of them to actually run given that Berlin marathon was going to be on. They have an average number of finishes of about 123. The day before Berlin marathon their attendance record jumped to 886, they had 80 volunteers. Now, 886 is a lot, but I actually thought being the only one that ran with a major in the town, I actually thought they might have had a few more than that. So I reckon they'd be pretty happy with 886.

00:13:45Alison Fraser (King): I thought it was very bold of them to go ahead, knowing that all the other Berlin parkruns previously have cancelled and people have gone further afield to the parkruns that are one to two hours away.

00:13:57Tony O'Connell: It'd be interesting to see what happens next year, whether other events are inspired to have a go at it or whether they look at that 886 and think, oh no, they've all done Tempelhofer now, they're going to want a new course, we're not running.

00:14:09Alison Fraser (King): Yeah, but 80 volunteers, that's like, it's almost one to every 10 parkrunners.

00:14:15Tony O'Connell: Yeah, no, good ratio there. It'd be interesting to look at how many Barcode Scanners they had on the day.

00:14:21Alison Fraser (King): Or Report Writers. Yes. Now Ocean View parkrun ran their last event on September 26 and in a very smart move they only announced the closing after the final event. After 379 events, Ocean View which was held on private land, has closed and another Queensland parkrun that recently shut down, Nathan Road, has relaunched under a new name in a new location this week and we'll have more about that later on.

00:14:50Tony O'Connell: We certainly will. Alison, you would be right over the top of this, and a lot of ambassadors are. We hear back from our events. We understand that everyone gets excited about their Christmas plans, and I'm already seeing messages to events saying, are you going to run? Are you going to run? Well... the parkrun as an organisation only sent out notification to the events in the last week. Events actually have till the 11th of December to declare whether they're going to run or not, so please don't message, don't email them asking them on and pressuring them to run. There's many factors that are in play and some of those include the likelihood of getting the required volunteers and that a lot of events won't know that until closer to the time. They're not going to know now how many volunteers they're going to have on Christmas day. Families ... you know, we all put a lot into parkrun and if people want to take the day off and spend time with their family, please respect that. It's, it's a really big call on events to ask them to organise for lots of volunteers in eight day. We have the Christmas day, the day after, New Year's Day and the day after. That's a big call on events and for a lot of events they need to apply for special permits as well, because they have a permit to operate on Saturdays but they don't have a permit to operate on days outside of that. So they have to go to a special permit from their land landowner as well. So give, guys just give everyone a little bit of time, give them a little bit of space. They will declare. There's quite a few events already declaring on the Christmas compendium which you can find online, but yeah, please just don't hassle events. They deal with a fair bit. What do you think, Alison?

00:16:31Alison Fraser (King): I'm in agreement with you, TOC. We had a quick discussion in our chat group among Run Directors. We've held a Christmas Day parkrun since 2018. That was our first one. And we're looking at putting one on again, but we will start advertising for volunteers for that this week. And we won't confirm for the compendium until we know we've got enough volunteers for the day. And it's also for Boxing Day as well. So I think we'll aim to fill both those rosters and then we'll confirm. But we tend to get, we get people who love to come and volunteer on Christmas Day.

00:17:08Tony O'Connell: Yep now look we get the same. I've volunteered, I've run directed I think every Christmas day since about 2015 or something and I love doing it, but it always is a bit of a hassle, especially when it's Friday, Saturday and then the next Friday, Saturday. You've got four days in really quick succession. If you've got the break in between it's probably not too bad, if it's a Saturday and a Wednesday but Friday, Saturday, it's it's a big call to ask so...

00:17:33Alison Fraser (King): Yeah, we don't do New Year's Day and we discussed doing New Year's Day this time and we were like, nah, we'll just stick to what we normally do and let people go and go travel elsewhere. And, um, one of our nearest parkruns to us, Taupō, which is I say near, it's, so it's just about an hour away. They've already confirmed Christmas and New Year. So people already got those options.

00:17:53Tony O'Connell: We're the same at Inverloch. We don't do New Year's Day either. And that's primarily because Inverloch is absolutely swamped with people. Our course doesn't handle big numbers really well. And we think if we went ahead on New Year's Day, we would have a massive crowd, and the other thing is we don't actually have a Run Director generally available for New Year's Day because everyone's on holidays, everyone's away. Now we live in a holiday destination, so we get away from the place, you know, for our holidays.

00:18:20Alison Fraser (King): I'm in a holiday destination also, so I will be looking to get away for New Year's. Go and do a couple of parkruns that are further afield. Now we would like to congratulate Nicola Forward from the With Me Now podcast for achieving the now official milestone of 800 finishes. That was such good timing for Nicola. They announced the new milestones just as she was, what, 790 something parkrun finishes to her name. So congratulations, Nicola. It looked like you had an awesome time at Druridge Bay.

00:18:53Tony O'Connell: It certainly did and I'd like to think that some of that was, behind that is Nicola's drive for the 750 to be officially recognised. They missed that so they went for her next milestone.

00:19:03Alison Fraser (King): I'm so envious of that colour. I really want that pinky purple top but I'm only on 360 parkruns so I've just got the orange.

00:19:13Tony O'Connell: Well done, anyway. Rightio, Alison, I reckon since we've got you on as a guest co-host, you should be able to give us a little bit of detail. We hear a lot about the Aussie events. Give us a little bit of the goss about New Zealand and what's happening in New Zealand.

00:19:28Alison Fraser (King): Oh, where can I start, TOC? Well, so far, we have had 10 launches this year. We seem to have, we had about eight quite early on in the year, most of them in the South Island. And we had nothing for ages. And we've just had two this weekend. And I know that we can expect at least another four, possibly five, more before the end of the year. And the majority of those are going to be in the North Island, which is great for me because it means I don't have to fly. But what some people might not know, is how we fund our events here in New Zealand. And I have heard that there have been some whispers and people not quite so happy with how things have been done. So I think I'm going to try to set the record straight. We now have a territory manager here in New Zealand, Jane, she's connected to Wanaka parkrun. She and her husband started that parkrun back in 2018. Before that we came under APAC. So before Jane, we were administered through APAC and that's been the case since 2019, I think it was. We started off with the country manager when parkrun New Zealand launched in 2020 and they were friends, Neil and Leanne, good friends of Paul Sinton-Hewitt, but in 2019 we came under APAC and that meant that we lost our New Zealand bank accounts. And as a result we lost our ability to get funding from organisations that could fund new parkruns. So it was agreed that APAC would just absorb all the costs for setting up the parkruns in New Zealand because we didn't have a sponsor either to pay for them. I think there's a few parkruns that had to fundraise to get started before that was agreed. I know Whanganui Riverbank, Otaki River, they all had to fundraise. But then we had, we had no parkruns launched for ages. I think there was one year we had maybe three launch and it was because of the funding that was just hampering us from getting started. Because if you can't get funding from grants, local organisations, because they will only pay into an account that's based in your country, then it's really, really difficult. What are you going to do? Just go around people and say, can you help us start a parkrun? And, you know, I know Ōtaki River, when they started, it was just the O'Sullivan family down there, they are so amazing. They've just, they're behind one of our newest parkruns, but they and their friends really wanted a parkrun in this community. So they raised the money themselves, you know, just chipped in. And we can't, we can't sustain that in New Zealand. So yeah, with just three parkruns that launched. I can't remember what year it was, I think I want to say 2022, like Whakatane Gardens, Northern Pathway and one other. APAC had realised they had to do something, because they wanted parkrun in New Zealand to grow to 100 events. And we were at 40 something then. So then without having the funding, we've been able to grow. I know that's been really controversial among some of the ambassadors and other passionate parkrunners in Australia. But if you actually cannot fundraise, how are you supposed to start a parkrun TOC?

00:22:58Tony O'Connell: And we all know that every town needs its own parkrun.

00:23:02Alison Fraser (King): We do. And do you know when parkrun, when they came over to New Zealand in 2023 and they said, our dream, our vision is to get parkrun in New Zealand up to 100 events, we were like: What? 100? We're on 40 something, you know, it was almost 50. And I was like, where are you going to put these other parkruns? Well, we're at 77 now, TOC, with at least five more launches to come. And there's maybe a dozen other prospects.

00:23:31Tony O'Connell: So you're going to get close to your 100 fairly, fairly comfortably at that rate.

00:23:35Alison Fraser (King): Yeah. And so, now we've got our own territory manager again. Jane's come on board, because we have grown so much. As from August the 1st, any new prospect is now having to fund, like raise the money for their new events. It's that $10,000 startup fee. So Australians, you don't need to have to worry about subsidizing us anymore, you know, and our dollar's weaker. So actually it's probably going to be more money, but we have the, we're connected to a charity called the Tauawhitia Trust, and that was set up by passionate, three passionate parkrunners. It's got charitable status here in New Zealand, and it's a ways and means for them to raise money for parkrun in a way that where the parkrun itself isn't handling money, because you and I both know that that's a no-no for parkrun events, we cannot handle cash and it also bypasses anything to do with having an entity in New Zealand because they are our fundraising partner.

00:24:38Tony O'Connell: I think it was interesting what you said there about, I think it was about 10 launches this year so far. If you put that in Australian context, like you were coming off the background of about 65 events, so it's about a 15% growth. If you put that into an Australian context... that'd be 75 new events in Australia for the year so far, and I think we're on about 15. So the growth in New Zealand has been phenomenal. You've, you've really exploded over there and there's a couple of regions I've noticed, like around Auckland, there's a little pocket where there seems to be a new parkrun pop-up every three or four weeks.

00:25:12Alison Fraser (King): Auckland is definitely growing and I know of maybe at least three other prospects there, but it has got. We're a country of five and a half million and there's over two million people live in Auckland. So it's not like they don't have the population base for it. It's just finding the places that would fit a parkrun.

00:25:32Tony O'Connell: Which is a standard problem, not only in New Zealand, but probably globally, is finding that five kilometres that doesn't involve 27 loops of a football ground or...

00:25:43Alison Fraser (King): Yeah, trying to be inventive.

00:25:45Tony O'Connell: Yeah, creative course, man. So, you know New Zealand, it's, um, it is interesting listening and it's interesting watching it across the ditch and seeing the names pop up. And you know every time they come up for the launches, you know, you jump on the map and "where's that one"? And you know, having been there a couple of times, you think "oh, that's another trip I'd love to do over there." It, it's a really great place, New Zealand, to go to. Yeah, you should be pretty happy you live over there.

00:26:09Alison Fraser (King): I am pretty happy, yes, um and that's why when I do my roving reports I try to put in for

00:26:15Alison Fraser (King): our overseas listeners, when I say overseas, I mean you guys in Australia mostly, where the nearest airport is, like how to get to it, because just placing that geographically in the country, just, oh, you fly to Auckland, or best fly to Christchurch and High Rock Isle, you know, that just makes it a little bit more accessible.

00:26:35Tony O'Connell: Give it a little bit of context on the location because most of us do know where the major regional places are so when you give that context it does give us a bit of an opportunity in the mind. You know you say it's near Wellington or it's near Christchurch or Queenstown or whatever Auckland you can sort of place roughly where it is so that's really great to have that little bit of context sort of like someone you know announcing we've got a Queen's Park in Australia but If we don't give you that context of where it's near, you've got no idea.

00:27:05Alison Fraser (King): It could be anywhere. It's like all the King George V playing fields parkruns in the UK.

00:27:10Tony O'Connell: Yeah, yeah.

Watching the numbers

00:27:11Tony O'Connell: Right, Alison, I reckon we've heard a little bit about the growth. How about the stats? What's been happening in the last few weeks in New Zealand?

00:27:19Alison Fraser (King): Oh, we've got so much for you and I'm going to put some extra context in this for you, too. So for the parkrun New Zealand attendance and milestone stats for September the 26th. In New Zealand, there were 73 parkruns with 11,240 parkrunners and 1,196 volunteers. Raumanga Stream parkrun in Whangarei set a new attendance record of 200 finishers up from 137 because their neighbour, Whangarei parkrun, was cancelled that week. The biggest New Zealand parkruns on the 26th of September was Hagley with 707, that's in Christchurch. The second largest was Waitangi in Wellington with 565 and the smallest were the South Island parkruns Lost Lagoon, which is in Westport on the west coast, and East Otago High School, which is in Palmerston on the east coast, with 26 each. And across New Zealand 27 events had a higher attendance than the week before, 44 had a lower attendance and two had an identical attendance. Now, this most recent parkrun day on October 3rd, there were 77 parkruns, a new record, with 12,041 finishers and 1,249 volunteers. The biggest New Zealand parkruns, once again, Hagley had the most with 604, and the second biggest for this week was Hobsonville Point parkrun in Auckland with 359. The smallest were Hamilton Park, that's in Gore, not in Hamilton, and East Otago High School with 21. It was the middle week of school holidays where people travelling, it reflected in the attendances with half of the events having an increased attendance on the week before and the other half having a lower attendance. So I guess people were going out and about.

00:29:10Tony O'Connell: It's interesting, Hamilton Park in Gore, as you quite correctly pointed out. I've actually done a freedo of Hamilton Park in Gore. We deliberately stayed in Gore so that we could go and do a freedo of the parkrun. And we met some locals that were out there walking a freedom parkrun at the time. So it was a really random little place to see, and to see it come up reasonably regularly as one of the smallest, to know we've been there and we ran into parkrunners there. And we also went out for tea with Brett Bailey so we, you know, had a good time while we were out there as well.

00:29:44Alison Fraser (King): You probably spent more time in Gore than I did, TOC, because when I visited I stayed in Invercargill and just drove up on the morning.

00:29:50Tony O'Connell: Now we spent the night there. I had a look around, lots of good murals and that, and a really interesting visitor centre in Gore. Fun fact for those playing at home.

00:30:00Alison Fraser (King): It's known for its country and western.

00:30:02Tony O'Connell: They have both types of music, country and western. Rightio, back in Australia on the 26th of September we had 84,061 participants, 6,934 volunteers at 541 events. Two attendance records were set, being Oaklands Estate Reserve in South Australia and Old Golf Course, Narrogin in Western Australia. Old Golf Course is of course one of our newer runs and they're attracting a lot of people down there at the moment. On the 3rd of October, we had 77,126 parkrunners and 525 events.

00:30:40Tony O'Connell: 6,724 volunteers.

00:30:42Tony O'Connell: That probably reflects the weather that we had. There were quite a few cancellations this week. Thunderstorms, excessive rain, some courses resembled more an Olympic swimming course. This week we also had 3,375 first timers ever, so that's a pretty cool number, they're still keeping reasonably consistent there. Six attendance records were set, Grafton and Jubilee, Tenterfield in New South Wales, Kingston Park in Tasmania. Glenoma, Queensland, Moot Yang Gunya Swamp in South Australia, that's I think is their second or third week. So they're fairly new events, so lots of people getting down to there. But it is a reasonably long drive from Adelaide. And Old Golf Course, Narrogin once again in WA. So there's a couple of weeks in a row which quite often happens at new events as word gets around. And in the juniors we had five events and that number hopefully is going to start to rise soon, especially in the Queensland area. There were 373 little legends and they were guided around by 105 volunteers. On the 26th of September, our smallest parkrun was Puckapunyal, the army base, the military base, so a very select entry into there, and then Surat Memorial Park with six, Cloncurry and Sunrise Beach with nine. The largest, and this is another unusual thing, Alison. Quite often, we actually joked a few weeks ago about Hagley not being the biggest in New Zealand because it just seems to be there every week, we seem to have Albert and South Bank is our biggest between them every week. Well, on the 26th the largest was Rhodes with 724 Macquarie University with 741 and The Ponds topped the lot with 859. The Ponds was getting huge. On the 3rd of October the smallest was once again Puckapunyal with three, Sunrise Beach and Surat Memorial both had six and the largest were Newy with 650, Pakapakanthi with 651 and Endeavour which is one of our new events with 826 finishes. So we have three completely new events this week into the top list none of those have featured before in our three biggest.

00:33:04Alison Fraser (King): Now, my Co-Event Director, Megan, was at the Ponds this past week and was like, oh, Ponds, that's usually one of the biggest. Well, they had less than 400.

00:33:12Alison Fraser (King): And she said it was still packed.

00:33:16Tony O'Connell: Which from the week before of 859.

00:33:19Alison Fraser (King): Yes, it's a big drop.

00:33:21Tony O'Connell: I know With Me Now, they quite often talk about the sugar people at Bushy. Well, I think we had a lot of sugar people this week with quite excessive rain. I know a lot of the eastern seaboard, especially down towards Victoria and lower end of New South Wales, probably had 50 to 80 mil of rain over two days.

00:33:40[background music]

00:33:40Alison Fraser (King): Oh, I don't want to rub it in, TOC, but it was glorious here in Rotorua.

Roving reports & the Channel 5 News crew

00:33:44Alison Fraser (King): Anyway, I think it's time that we throw to the roving reports.

Roving report Eman Vergara — Moussette parkrun

00:33:55Eman Vergara: G'day guys, Eman here, just finished the lovely Moussette parkrun.

Talking to Dominique — Co-Event Director, Moussette parkrun; parkrun territory manager for Quebec

00:33:59Eman Vergara: Joining me is Dominique from parkrun in Canada. Not only is he involved in Moussette parkrun, but he's also looking after the parkruns in the Quebec province. Dominique, how is your parkrun today?

00:34:12Dominique: parkrun was a very, very good turnout for sure. Of course we had the 10th anniversary of parkrun Canada but also it was our 22nd event on imagine the 22nd of August.

00:34:24Eman Vergara: Yeah, that's awesome 2-2-2-2-2 what a great event so if you're following Nelson challenges or if you like dressing up in tutus today was the perfect day to do it. Um, tell us Dominique, how did Moussette parkrun get started?

00:34:36Dominique: Well, Moussette parkrun got started because my wife and I volunteered at Orleans parkrun, which is a 40-minute drive from here. So volunteering regularly, so we decided that might as well start one close to home and hit the mark. It's going to be five years in two weeks, and it's growing.

00:34:54Eman Vergara: Yeah. Wow. Yes. Unfortunately, we're missing out on that in two weeks, but I got to experience this. But even better was we got to check out the B course today, which is actually a beautiful scenic course. Could you run us through that course for our viewers?

00:35:08Dominique: Well, for sure. With pleasure, so the first of course there's that little shoot here which is very inviting for the finish and to a start. But then we go towards uh the Chief William Commanda Bridge, which is used to be an old train uh train bridge, which was converted for pedestrians and you got a nice view of the Ottawa river. It's uh and this is used to be the trail used to be used by uh explorers in the 1600s so uh it's all been paved and it's all

00:35:38Dominique: managed especially for events like this.

00:35:41Eman Vergara: Yeah, so there's a bit of undulations, but it's nothing too bad to, to worry about. Um, for our visitors from Australia and and people who haven't visited Ottawa, or even Canada, are there any other events that you've done that might be worth for our viewers to check out?

00:35:56Dominique: Well, they're all good. There's not a bad parkrun in the area. You've done the Kanata parkrun last week and that one sits around the pond and it's a mixture of trail and pavement. It's a very nice parkrun. Orleans is similar to this one and the Ottawa Carlton Trailway is a good one to check out as well because it uses the Trans-Canada Trailway. It's a very nice setting.

00:36:24Eman Vergara: And you mentioned earlier that there's actually three parkruns in the Quebec province. What are the other two and then how far are they?

00:36:30Dominique: Well, yeah, per capita, we have almost no parkruns in Quebec. We only have three. The next one is about 200 kilometres from here, which is the Montreal. The other one is about 300 kilometres from here, which is Saint-Paulin, around Trois-Rivières.

00:36:45Eman Vergara: Okay, so a bit bit far from here, but if you're checking out the Quebec province highly recommend you check it out. And and one last thing. One of the things that I really like about being in the Quebec province in the parkrun is, they do the briefing in both French and English. So as a final comment for our french uh speakers or listeners out there would you like to say something in French, uh just to to to wrap it up? Merci, thank you very much Dominique and all the best with the parkrunning journey. Eman, signing out. [French: "Thank you"]

00:37:04[8 seconds of French that could not be transcribed]

Roving report Lyndell Murray — Gloucester (Gloucester District) parkrun

Talking to Tracey — Run Director, Gloucester District parkrun

00:37:17Lyndell Murray: G'day parkrun adventurers. It's Lyndell and today I'm on the lands of the Guringay people in Gloucester, New South Wales, and I found Tracey, one of the Run Directors. Tracey, how did you go today? You had a run today?

00:37:30Tracey: I did, and I got a PB thank you to Steve, one of our locals who keeps everybody going when you come back from a injury or something like that. He's always good for a pacer.

00:37:41Lyndell Murray: Oh, there we go, thank you, Steve. Well done Steve. All right now in

00:37:46Lyndell Murray: Gloucester is, describe the location, it's sort of west...

00:37:52Tracey: Mid north coast of New South Wales and we've got a few, we're close to everything but we're near nowheres. So we've got Forster, Taree and we're about three hours from Coffs Harbour. So we've got a few parkruns around and about. I'm yet to do... Port Macquarie, but I've ticked off a few in my travels. Yeah, so been to Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania. Yeah, so still got a few to go. Got two more to go for my alphabet. So yeah, so inspiring adventures to come.

00:38:26Lyndell Murray: Brilliant.

00:38:27Lyndell Murray: You'll have to join the club. I'll show you how to do that later. All right. So let's talk a little bit about that. With all your adventuring, do you have a top three, not including Gloucester?

00:38:39Tracey: There's a few on the Central Coast. San Remo used to be my home parkrun but I used to walk the dogs at 6 o'clock so I didn't run into the park crazies. And now I'm one of those crazies and I love it. My aim this year was to complete my alphabet and to do 50 events. So going well so far. I only missed one and that's because my daughter took me all the way to Dorrigo where there was nowhere in sight and my partner wouldn't take me anywhere.

00:39:07Tracey: I made up my own apparently but nice.

00:39:10Lyndell Murray: All right, so you're not going to buy into the top three, Tracey, we can come back to that. We can talk a little bit about Gloucester. So, small community here in Gloucester and let's talk about the course. The course is a two lap, out and back.

00:39:29Tracey: Two lap, out and back following the cones. We don't have any marshals, so we rely a lot on our cones and our front runners to lead the way.

00:39:37Tracey: So we have a grass start and then we go around and then it's paved all the way and then you run along by the river, which is a beautiful way to come out and back to admire the river, and then we come back and do it twice. We have had a few people that come across for the first lap and think they've got a personal best and that's the... but yeah. And it's a friendly, it's a friendly course and lots of friendly volunteers. So, it's we've got four Run Directors that we just tag along and make sure that our places are all things and most of the locals put their hands up at least once every three to four weeks. So. And the Tail Walkers and that tend to bring our cones in for us at the end, so it's just a pack up and away we go until next week. So, yeah, it's really good.

00:40:24Lyndell Murray: So, tight ship here at Gloucester.

00:40:26Lyndell Murray: That section there along the river was absolutely beautiful, I must say.

00:40:29Tracey: Thank you.

00:40:30Lyndell Murray: Yeah, it's a really lovely parkland that you run through here.

00:40:33Tracey: And we put on the sun for you today as well.

00:40:33[crosstalk]

00:40:34Lyndell Murray: The sun followed me from Queensland.

00:40:36Tracey: Thank you for that. Better than minus three last week.

00:40:40Lyndell Murray: Okay, so note to the adventurers, if you come in winter, bring your new adventurer's hoodie. Now, what else? So we're talking about the community here. We had a new first timer who's new to the town this morning. What's the community like around the parkrun and Gloucester in general?

00:40:59Tracey: Very friendly, like everybody's always willing to cheer you on and yeah, and everybody's always encouraging everybody, there's no like oh I'm better than you or anything like that. And you've got your young ones that tend to run off with the parents and things like that and it's good just to watch everybody smile. And, yeah, on a cold morning we do tend to have more tourists than we do locals.

00:41:24Lyndell Murray: We're stuck here, so we've got to come.

00:41:27Tracey: We've got to get that G. We've got to get that G. Yeah. It's a beautiful community. I've only been here for nearly four years. It's a lovely place to live and to relax. Yeah, It's a great place.

00:41:39Tracey: Come join us.

00:41:42Lyndell Murray: Yeah, come. Definitely do. Alrighty, is there anything else that you would like the adventurers to know about Gloucester or the parkrun?

00:41:50Tracey: Come see us, come join us, eight o'clock in the morning. And if you want to get a volunteer tourist tick, we're all up for that as well. Come join our page.

00:42:00Lyndell Murray: Brilliant, well thank you, Tracey.

00:42:02Tracey: No, thank you for visiting us and making us part of your adventure.

00:42:06Lyndell Murray: Absolute pleasure, thank you for everything you've done for the community and for parkrun.

00:42:10Tracey: My pleasure. Take care, enjoy your trip.

Roving report Eva Blanda — Farfalle parkrun

Talking to Andrea — Event Director, Farfalle parkrun, Italy

00:42:13Eva Blanda: Hi, this is Eva here at Farfalle parkrun. We've just finished this lovely little four lapper of a parkrun and I'm here with Andrea, who is the Event Director for this course. Good morning.

00:42:27Andrea: Hi, good morning.

00:42:29Eva Blanda: Can you tell me a little bit about the parkrun and how did it start here in Farfalle?

00:42:34Andrea: Yes, so our parkrun started in 2018, and it was formally managed by another person that moved. And so the real turning point was the COVID break. So we were stopped for one and a half year and it also risked to finish, but with a group of friends we were meeting here when possible and running among us. And then we decided to restart. So now it's event 346.

00:43:09Eva Blanda: Good, that's, that's lovely, that's, that's good that you've been able to keep it going even during that Covid time.

00:43:10[crosstalk]

00:43:13Andrea: And the group of volunteers keeps a bit evolving so.

00:43:17Eva Blanda: Yeah I noticed that you've probably got about half tourists half locals. Uh, is this the normal sort of number? I came in as a walker at number 32 - is this the normal kind of numbers you get?

00:43:28Andrea: Yes, actually our record is uh 61.

00:43:32Andrea: When we had like, several children from classes, coming with their teacher,

00:43:39Andrea: teachers and uh minimum is like four.

00:43:43Eva Blanda: Okay!

00:43:44Andrea: With heavy rain.

00:43:45Eva Blanda: So lots of uh you can get some good numbers if you are looking for a small parkrun.

00:43:50Andrea: But uh sometimes tourists are even more than locals.

00:43:54Eva Blanda: Well, thank you very much for keeping this going for all of us. Now, what is so special about this Farfalle parkrun? What makes it special and why do people keep coming back?

00:44:04Andrea: Okay, I think there's a kind of family atmosphere. We are all friends. So it's also, and what is strange is that we are very different. We come from completely different situations, social classes. Then sometimes we meet also to go dancing in the house of somebody. So, it's a, it's a, it's a very heterogeneous and funny group, I would say.

00:44:10[background music]

00:44:30Eva Blanda: Perfect! Thank you so much for having us today in your parkrun and hopefully we'll bring some more tourists here.

00:44:37Andrea: Yes, thanks for coming and we are very happy to welcome new people - it's part of the joy of parkrun.

00:44:44Eva Blanda: Perfect, thank you.

00:44:45Andrea: Thanks.

00:44:47Eva Blanda: And a tip for visitors to Farfalle parkrun, make sure you meet around the cafe area rather than at the start point that's listed on the map. And, I can't forget a big shout out to Clancy and Sam from Armidale, New South Wales.

Roving report Johan Duvenhage — Dorothy Nyembe parkrun

Talking to Tebogo Nzimande — first finisher, Dorothy Nyembe parkrun, Soweto

00:45:05Johan Duvenhage: Good morning parkrun adventurers, Cooee, it's Johan and today I am in Dorothy Nyembe park in Soweto in South Africa. And, we've had a bit of strange weather, but it was awesome for running. And with me is Tebogo Nzimande - he's our first finisher today. Good morning Tebogo.

00:45:24Tebogo Nzimande: Good morning, good morning, sir, how are you?

00:45:25Johan Duvenhage: Very well. Tell me, you've been running at Dorothy Nyembe quite often, I think around about 17 times.

00:45:30Tebogo Nzimande: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:45:32Johan Duvenhage: What does parkrunning here in Soweto mean for you?

00:45:35Tebogo Nzimande: parkrunning here in Soweto means a lot because firstly I have to represent my townhood, my country as well. Because, we do tend to have a lot of different runners from different places around the world and stuff like that. So me being able to run the times I run in my home ground, because this is basically my home ground, means a lot so that other people from other places can see we're also capable of doing crazy times here.

00:46:03Johan Duvenhage: Yeah, so what's your best time here at Dorothy Nyembe?

00:46:05Tebogo Nzimande: My best time here is 19:52.

00:46:07Johan Duvenhage: All right, so how was the run today? Did you enjoy it?

00:46:11Tebogo Nzimande: Run today was a bit crazy because I had to fight against the wind. That's why my time today wasn't really that best, but I tried, I tried.

00:46:18Johan Duvenhage: Yeah, so do you think there's some work that we still need to do to get more of the locals to come run?

00:46:24Tebogo Nzimande: Yeah, there's a lot of work we need to do. Because a lot of people tend to hear about the parkrun, but they don't actually come and try it. So we have to at least encourage people to come here and get more locals in the parkrun.

00:46:37Johan Duvenhage: Yeah. Anyways, thanks for talking to me and all the best.

00:46:40Tebogo Nzimande: Thank you. Thank you, sir. Thank you.

Talking to Gill Fordyce — parkrunner celebrating her 600th at Dorothy Nyembe parkrun

00:46:41Johan Duvenhage: Good morning, Gill Fordyce.

00:46:44Gill Fordyce: Hi, Johan, how are you?

00:46:45Johan Duvenhage: Very well. It's a bit chilly, but perfect running weather.

00:46:49Gill Fordyce: Beautiful running weather, yes.

00:46:50Johan Duvenhage: So today has been a bit of an unofficial thing, but shortly it will be a thing. You did your...

00:46:56Gill Fordyce: It's my 600th today.

00:46:56[crosstalk]

00:46:57Johan Duvenhage: Congratulations.

00:46:59Gill Fordyce: I was wondering if I should do it today with Paul Sinton-Hewitt here at the parkrun with us, or if I should wait two weeks until it's official. So it was a bit of a which one, so I decided to do it today.

00:47:10Johan Duvenhage: So, Gill, just let the cat out of the bag. We have someone important here today and I'll see if I can get some words with him as well. So, Dorothy Nyembe, how's the parkrun going? It's now about six months or almost a year.

00:47:26Gill Fordyce: Yeah, it started in November last year, so it's going, it's, you know, it's slow. Township runs take a little bit longer to get going, but it is going and there's an enthusiastic team, so, and a good leadership, so I think it's fine.

00:47:40Johan Duvenhage: Thank you very much and all the best with your next 100.

00:47:44Gill Fordyce: Okay, thanks, Johan.

Talking to Paul Sinton-Hewitt — parkrun founder (PSH)

00:47:46Johan Duvenhage: Guys, so Gill had already let the cat out of the bag, and with me is Paul Sinton-Hewitt. Good morning, Paul.

00:47:52Paul Sinton-Hewitt: Hello, there. How are you?

00:47:54Johan Duvenhage: Very well. It's a bit chilly today, so unfortunately, due to the weather, we had to cancel the Airlink flyover that we had planned for you. I'm terribly sorry about that.

00:48:03Paul Sinton-Hewitt: I was expecting a flypast, jets, streamers, all sorts of stuff.

00:48:07Johan Duvenhage: You know, it's not always that we have royalty coming here, parkrun royalty. So, Paul, it's your first time back at parkrun in South Africa in a while.

00:48:15Paul Sinton-Hewitt: Yeah, I think 2019 was my last one. I mean, I did Bryanston, so it has been a long time.

00:48:20Johan Duvenhage: So thanks for coming and joining us here at Dorothy Nyembe. How did you find the run in Dorothy Nyembe?

00:48:25Paul Sinton-Hewitt: Actually, I would want to recommend that anybody who's interested in doing a real African parkrun comes to Dorothy Nyembe parkrun in the middle of Soweto. It's one of the most fantastic parks. I mean, South Africa's got some beautiful parks, and this is a very holistic, old park. It's a bit run down. The infrastructure's not been looked after, but it's a proper cross-country run. It's beautifully green, some very, very large trees, hundred-year-old trees. So, and you get a real look into what South Africa is all about. I mean Soweto, you know, has a reputation. I found it really easy to get here today. No issues about safety or anything of that nature. So I really want to recommend if someone's coming to South Africa and they want to experience a South African parkrun, get to Dorothy Nyembe parkrun. It is beautiful.

00:49:26Johan Duvenhage: And, what's news in parkrun world that you can share with us?

00:49:30Paul Sinton-Hewitt: Well so much, you know. We're, we're on the move. parkrun is on the move. And we have an excellent team. There are about 80 employees now. Great boards, great executives. Here in South Africa we've just appointed, it's a it's a bit of a secret, I'm not going to tell you who they are, but we've just appointed two new directors and the purpose is to move the whole game forward. So we're looking at growing and expanding over the next five years and Africa is a very important place for us to do that and to do it safely and to do it without breaking any rules, principles or so on. So it'll be a soft but continuous pursuit to make sure more people get access to our parks, more people get access to this wonderful thing that we know and love called parkrun.

00:50:20Johan Duvenhage: Thank you very much and all the best for your visit. When you're going back?

00:50:23Paul Sinton-Hewitt: Well we're off to Mauritius to celebrate a friend's 60th birthday and then we come back and we go to the game farm for a week so I only get back to the United Kingdom at the end of September, so I still got a bit of time.

00:50:35[background music]

00:50:36Johan Duvenhage: All right, thanks a lot and all the best.

00:50:39Paul Sinton-Hewitt: Cheers.

00:50:47Tony O'Connell: And thanks to all our roving reporters for those excellent little comments in. We had Eman having a chat with Dominique, who's co-ED and Quebec Territory Manager. The parkrun that he's at actually crosses between Ontario and Quebec, so into a couple of provinces there in Canada. We had Lyndell. Lyndell was chatting to Tracey, who's an RD and a parkrun crazy. And. But she ran on the day and she PB'd on the day, so congratulations Tracey. That was on New South Wales' mid-north coast. We had Eva Blanda at Farfalle in Italy. That's one I'd love to go to. She was speaking to Andre, the Run Director, and they had some rockin' tunes in the background. Someone had the music turned up loud, and there were some very useful tips there on visiting the local area. And once again, Johan's stolen the limelight. Johan's coming to us from Dorothy Nyembe in Soweto, South Africa. Johan keeps pulling out all the big punches. First of all, talking to Tebogo, the first finisher, about getting more locals involved in parkrun. And then Gill Fordyce running her 600th parkrun, and then managed to get a chat with parkrun founder PSH, Paul Sinton-Hewitt himself. So Johan just keeps pulling out the stops. He's had nearly everyone of importance. So well done, Johan.

00:52:11Alison Fraser (King): What I'm going to take from that, TOC, is that you must go and run in South Africa because if you run in South Africa, you're going to meet the bigwigs.

00:52:17Tony O'Connell: Well, you seem to. He's had Lil, he's had PSH, he's had a couple there. He had Carol, great roving reports. Alison, you do a lot of roving reports. What are your tips for submitting a roving report?

00:52:29Alison Fraser (King): Well, I know it's been said on here before and I'm just going to reiterate that you do not need to have any special equipment. I record on my iPhone. I use the inbuilt Voice Memos app and I try to move out of the wind if I can possibly do that to record the audio. I don't add any extra microphones to it because that microphone on the phone is pretty good. I hold my phone so that the microphone is facing the person who is speaking so that will mean I just switch between. like I quite often will switch between myself and the subject. or if I just feel a bit awkward doing that. I'll just hold it like with the microphone towards their end because they're the ones whose voice we want to hear not mine. And the last report that I recorded, which we've ascertained is in a very long queue, I was with the Event Director who was on finish tokens that day. And I didn't have the time to hang around afterwards but there was a good break between finishers so we made that work by having a chat while waiting for finishers to come through. When I first started submitting roving reports I used to try to find about three people with stories to tell and I'd record my intro and my outro separately but these days I find just one person and it's usually the Event Director or the Run Director because I love to find the story behind the event. And I do it all in one take which means that there's just one file for you to put in at the end. And I think I've edited maybe twice but I very, very rarely do it. I'm a big follower of the done is better than perfect.

00:54:09Tony O'Connell: Yeah, and I think what we really look for is those conversations that you have with people that you'd have at a parkrun. And when you're standing at the finish line, there's no editing. It's a conversation and I think that's an important bit. About the parkrun and the roving reports you get a bit of a sense and a feel as I said earlier. Yeah, we had the rock and tunes going on in the background, yeah, you get a bit of a vibe with the parkrun just listening to that sort of thing. So I agree, they don't need to be heavily edited. It's just those conversations that we have.

Dazza's

00:54:40Tony O'Connell: I think we'll move on to Dazza's and we've chosen several comments from each of the last two weeks of Dazza's posts. There is so many comments. Every week we have about 120, 130 comments. It's really hard to pick. I find it very difficult. And Dazza does remind you all that he loves a good landscape photo. Works much better than the portraits.

00:55:01Alison Fraser (King): So Dazza's on Saturday 26th September. Today is Better Breakfast Day and Dazza doesn't like the implications. Anything you eat after parkrun is definitely better and nutrition has nothing to do with it. So come on in and tell us all about your better morning.

00:55:18Tony O'Connell: And from our 92 comments this week, we had VKP, Victoria Knight Phillips, and VKP was pictured with hubby Peter, Paul and Jill. And Paul and Jill were part of the team behind Rokeby Trail parkrun. Paul was RD when I time kept there a couple of weeks ago and we run at Ulladulla about a month ago. So it's a small parkrun world.

00:55:49Alison Fraser (King): It sure is.

00:55:51Alison Fraser (King): Ian Brown from Jeune Park wrote, Suzanne Brown and I enjoyed our breakfast after completing Jeune Park parkrun. And today, we had delicious mushrooms with avocado, feta, spinach and a poached egg on sourdough toast at VK Everydays in Beaudesert. It's an unusual event where they get the locals to raise their hands as most of the participants are visiting for a J. Can't think why that would be. And the posted photo is Ian and Suzanne in their adventurers t-shirts in the Jeune Park selfie frame.

00:56:25Tony O'Connell: Our next person coming to us is Ian Lidia Knox. Ian said, Casula parkrun, Parklands parkrun, that's a tongue twister, Parklands parkrun, with Tracey Wood and Ingrid Paris before the local markets, down the course with spinach, feta and mince. Oh God, I've stitched myself up here. Gozleme? Where do you say that one, Alison? Don't ask me. Eating afterwards. I'm going to say it sounds yum anyway. The photo is Tracey in the foreground with a trademark bucket hat. The Knox's were next inside the selfie frame and then Ingrid's completing the photo in the background.

00:57:08Alison Fraser (King): Next we heard from Val Warwick, who was at Bells Parade parkrun. She wrote, We had a frond at Bells Parade parkrun. Three of us are resident RDs. The other was Amanda Lake, co-ED at Kerang, discovering how beautiful Bells Parade parkrun is. And Val posted a photo of herself, Steve, Amanda and an unnamed RD in the Bells Parade selfie frame. Steve Warwick also called in to Dazza's with a photo of Amanda and himself and this week Steve has an operation on his hand so we send him all our best wishes and hope that goes well.

00:57:41Tony O'Connell: Yep, definitely, and I've seen Steve's post-op that it has gone fairly well and he's back out into recovery. So, yeah, hope it goes well, Steve. Next, we heard from Tara Behrmann Wakefield and she was at Warwick. And her comment was: breakfast and parkrun chats with Abi Archer from our sister parkrun Warwick Racecourse parkrun in the UK. Only the sixth person to do both Warwick parkrun and the UK one, and she tagged Linda Coombes and Hollie Pleasance in there. And Tara posted a group photo with several big breakfasts in the foreground. And that was right on point for Dazza's.

00:58:21Alison Fraser (King): I really need to go to Warwick parkrun because when I was a fairly new parkrunner I thought that I could visit Warwick parkrun while back home um when my local parkrun there is Stratford-upon-Avon which is in Warwickshire I used to drive through Warwick to college every day. So could you imagine my disappointment, TOC, when I found out it was in New South Wales. I have run at Warwick Racecourse, so it sounds like I need to cross the ditch and complete this pairing.

00:58:45Tony O'Connell: Sounds like a good idea.

00:58:46Alison Fraser (King): The next we heard from Bill Barker, who was at Goulburn parkrun in New South Wales. He wrote: Leanne and I, in brackets Goulburn Adventures, in our bid to gain 1,000 members for the adventurers, have recruited Goulburn's own romance novelist, Kim McGillion, sitting in the middle, famous in Goulburn. In one of her books, she has a couple meets at a community run in Goulburn. Does not mention any names, but what could that run be? Away onto 1000 Adventurers, he writes. And there were two photos. One is of Kim's book titled Hope and Healing in Cosy Clothes and a second photo of Bill, Kim and Leanne sitting on the grass after parkrun.

00:59:26Tony O'Connell: Right, another book that features parkrun. There's a few of those out there in the wild now. People are getting right on board. Rightio, Dazza's on Saturday the 3rd of October, last week, Dazza said, it's Buy British Day, so Dazza's whipped up some black pudding for a full English breakfast, or he's got some toad in the hole if you'd prefer, come on in for a pot of tea and tell us about your morning.

00:59:51Alison Fraser (King): And we heard first from Heather Hunter, who was at Yodogawa kasenkoen Hirakata chiku parkrun in Japan. She wrote, I had to leave my hotel before breakfast open this morning, so all I had was a banana that I bought at a 7-Eleven last night. So worth it, though, for the one hour journey by public transport to pick up another country flag at Yodogawa kasenkoen Hirakata chiku parkrun, Japan. The other Aussie tourists I spoke to had had a house built by none other than TOC. And Heather shared a photo of herself in her adventurer's shirt with the parkrun sign and flag with a stunning bridge in the background. We're so pleased that you got to parkrun in Japan while visiting Heather and you got another flag for your profile. And also, how good are the 7-Elevens?

01:00:42Tony O'Connell: It was rather funny. I got a message from Heather on the morning photo. And it was Heather, Bill and Louisa who I built a house for about 200 metres from my own house. So they live in the same estate that I live in. And when you came down and stayed at our place, Alison, they're actually the double storey house behind where I was in the last house. Right. So... Yeah, very funny that she's bumped into them in Japan. Bill is a university professor and he quite often is in Japan. He spends several months there, a year between there. And I think he goes to Finland, the other country he goes to, to teach in. And he does parkruns in both those countries.

01:01:22Alison Fraser (King): I think I remember you telling me about how he was a parkrun tourist.

01:01:26Tony O'Connell: Yep, yeah, I'm very envious because his work makes him go to Japan.

01:01:30Alison Fraser (King): Yeah.

01:01:31Tony O'Connell: Terrible. Rightio, next one in Dazza's is Brett Bailey and he come to us from Pegasus parkrun in New Zealand. Hi Dazza, wet one at Pegasus today but still had 150 parkrunners and I got a doubly wobbly 31.31. When we were on our OE in the UK in the early 90s, I cooked many a full English breakfast while working at the pub in Kent. Not a bad zoomie once, I ditched Brunner, and for those playing at home, Brunner is their dog. We were supposed to be on a summer two-lap course, but due to slippery bridges, we stayed on the out-and-back. Could have done with a bit more neoprene than just one leg. Straight home for a nice warm spa. And Brett shared a photo of himself in zoomy mode with the morning looking very foggy and misty. A spa afterwards sounds delightful.

01:02:22Alison Fraser (King): Next we heard from Adrian Luscombe who was at Strokestown parkrun in Ireland. He wrote: this Englishman headed across the Irish Sea for a day trip to County Roscommon and the beautiful Strokestown parkrun. Post-parkrun breakfast, in brackets Irish, not English, did the job. Sláinte. Cheers! And Adrian shared a photo of his Irish breakfast, including egg, baked beans, sausages, hash brown, bacon, and black pudding. And the word sláinte is the traditional Irish and Scottish Gaelic toast, meaning health, essentially cheers. And I know for Scottish Gaelic, we say sláinte, which means good health. [Irish (Gaelic): "Health — used as a toast, "cheers" (Alison explains it on air)"]

01:02:59Tony O'Connell: That's a great one that you picked up there, Alison, because I would have absolutely butchered that and I would have pronounced it phonetically as it's spelt and I would have had people saying, what are you doing? But you've had a bit of duolingo on that and you've done very well. Thank you very much. We're going to go to Broken Hill Racecourse parkrun next. A lovely course, I really enjoyed that one and we heard from Anne Fry. Visited my 111th location at Broken Hill Racecourse, saw Sturt Desert Peas and debuted my new shirt, a very fitting colour for an Outback event, and she had a photo of herself in her 300 shirt in the Broken Hill selfie frame. Great to see all that orange dirt and what an adventure.

01:03:45Alison Fraser (King): Next up was Monty Slade who was at Severn Bridge parkrun in the UK and he wrote: went from Wales to England and back again then to a cafe for a spot of Earl Grey with a crumpet. And Monty posted a post with his classic thumbs up and of course his adventurer's buff in front of the Severn Bridge parkrun mural. And you've got to love a crumpet. Extra crispy with lots of hot butter.

01:04:11Tony O'Connell: Yes, definitely. I'm a fan.

01:04:13Alison Fraser (King): Mine do two cycles in the toaster. Yep, got to give it a suntan.

the Obi Award — Victoria Knight Phillips

01:04:17Tony O'Connell: Now, Alison, I think our Obi envelope has probably crossed the ditch this week and I reckon it might be you with the Obi envelope. So would you like to share?

01:04:27Alison Fraser (King): Absolutely. I think I can I just see it poking underneath the door? So let me grab it and rip it open. And the Obi for this week goes to VKP for Transcontinental Relationship Building.

01:04:41Tony O'Connell: Well done, VKP, and great to hear from you as always. If we've given you a shout out at Dazza's today, send us an email or a comment on the post on Facebook and let us know if you're a listener or not. A lot of people like to post into Dazza's and we'd love to hear if they actually listen and hear their name on the podcast.

Emails

01:04:59Alison Fraser (King): Sad face here, TOC. We don't have any emails this fortnight.

01:05:02Tony O'Connell: You've got no mail. No old man communication this week.

Club Corner

01:05:06Alison Fraser (King): Well, next we are going to throw over to Reginald.

01:05:10[background music]

01:05:14Reginald 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. Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, pause for you to reply as expected. Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, pause again for you. Aussie, pause, Aussie, pause, Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, pause for you one final time. Today we are getting back to our roots, with Australia, shall we continue with a song, with apologies to Geoff Mack. Well, I was humping my bluey on the dusty Old Thomson River Road. When along came a semi with a high and canvas-covered load. If you're going to Darwin, mate, um, with me you can ride. So I climbed in the cabin and I settled down inside. He asked me if I'd seen a road with so much dust and sand. I said, listen, mate, I have travelled every road in this here land. I have been everywhere, parkrunner, I have been everywhere, parkrunner, crossed the desert's bare, parkrunner, I have breathed the mountain air, parkrunner, of travel I have a had my share, parkrunner, I have been everywhere, I have been to Main Beach, West Beach, Town Beach, Workman's Beach New Farm, Newy, Newport Lakes, Champion Lakes, Bayview Road, Harris Avenue, Newcastle Park, Underwood Park, Kingston Park, Garvey Park, Our Park, Karoola Park, Bunyaville, Dawesville, Campbelltown, George Town, Rocks Riverside, Chermside, and Black Swan Lake, for PSH's Sake. I have been to Town of Seaside, Woodbridge Riverside, Margaret River, Canning River, Riverway, Greenway, Greenbank, Jubilee Way, Queens Domain, Queanbeyan, Kingscliff, Redcliffe, Nightcliff, Seacliff Esplanade, The Avenues, The Beaches, The Terrace, The Ponds, The Entrance, Lakes Entrance, North Shore, South Bank, and The Phar Lap Track, I am going to go back. I have been to Fodder Forest, Forest Lake, Beaufort Lake, Emerald Lake, Lake Colac, Blackbutt, White Rock, Blue Gum Hills, Churchill, Rooty Hill, Broken Hill, Nhill, Phillip Island, Hamilton Island, Birtinya Island, Kangaroo Island, Birdsland Reserve, Wallaby Track, Cowpasture Reserve, Kirkdale Reserve, Lake Mac, Port Macquarie, and Macquarie University, Am I Pithy? I have been everywhere, parkrunner, I have been everywhere, parkrunner, crossed the desert's bare, parkrunner, I have breathed the mountain air, parkrunner, of travel I have a had my share, parkrunner, I have been everywhere. Actually, this was only 71 of the over 550 named events one could have mentioned, but I think that we all could take a little less Reginald and a little more Lucky Star. And remember, in parkrun life parkrun now hosts various renamed non-milestone clubs in their app, so they are now official and supported by parkrun. So stay tuned for our future club corners where I may actually start to profile Australian events.

01:08:10[background music]

01:08:23Tony O'Connell: And thank you once again to Reginald. I'm not sure about their singing style or their singing performance but there was 71 parkruns mentioned in that. I've slowed it down. I've added it up and I believe that I've been to 26 out of those 71, so I'm challenging the listeners: slow Reginald down and try to count them up and put a comment in the episode post telling us how many of the 71 mentioned that you've been to and done.

01:08:54Alison Fraser (King): I'm going to have to slow it down, TOC, but there's one that stood out for me, and it's probably the only parkrun that needs mentioning from Australia, and that's Inverloch.

01:09:01Tony O'Connell: I'd have to agree with you there, so 100%.

Consolidated Club Report

01:09:05Alison Fraser (King): Let's go over to the adventurers Consolidated Club Report for Saturday the 26th of September. And of a total of 985 members, 695 took part on this date in 13 countries across 364 locations. That's almost one for every day of the year. Locally there were adventurers at New South Wales 64 events, Queensland 60 events, Victoria 55 events, Western Australia 23 events, South Australia 17 events, Tasmania, 8 events, the ACT, 5 events, Northern Territory, 2 events, North Island, 7 events, and 3 events on the South Island. I think that's a bowling strike. And internationally, there were adventurers at the UK, there were 87 events. In South Africa, 15 events. Germany had 5 events. Poland, 3 events. Two events each for Ireland, Italy and the USA and one event each for Finland, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden. The adventurers Consolidated Club report for Saturday the 3rd of October of a total of 985 members, 698 took part on this date in 15 countries across 373 locations. Locally there were adventurers at New South Wales 59 events, Victoria 56 events, Queensland 55 events, South Australia and Western Australia each had 20 events, Tasmania 9 events, the Australian Capital Territory 6 events, Northern Territory 3 events, North Island 5 events and the South Island had 4 events. Internationally there were adventurers at the UK 96 events, There were 12 events in South Africa, Germany had 5 events, Poland and the USA each had 4 events, Ireland, Japan and Netherlands each had 3 events, 2 events in Italy and then 1 event each for Austria, Denmark, Malaysia and Singapore.

01:11:12Tony O'Connell: So, Alison, we've got to 15 countries there, so we're only missing a couple of countries. It'll be great to see people out at every one of them, and I guess we're probably going to have to wait until the Ascension Day holiday next year again to see adventurers at all 20 countries in one go. And you made the comment that 364 locations on the first week was almost one for every day. Well, 373 days... or 373 locations on the second week gives us a few bonus days as well.

01:11:44Alison Fraser (King): Who doesn't love a bonus parkrun? I know I do.

01:11:47Tony O'Connell: Always love a bonus parkrun.

the Frond

01:11:49Tony O'Connell: Rightio, our largest international frond on the 26th of September, we had a frond of 11 at one event, and that was Brickfields Park in the UK, and that was Dave Thornton, Kie Farrell, Denise Evans, Christopher Miles, Ivan Storer, Nicky Alway, Ellie Soper, James Noott, Miriam Salo, Debbie and Andy Airey and there was also a frond of Nine at Tempelhofer Feld in Germany and they were Nicole Clark, Sunil Chamund, Kristine, Eman and Juno Vergara, Jerrold Magtagnob, Sarah Brett, Paul Dempsey and Helen Parr. On the 3rd of the 10th we had a frond of 14 at one event and that was Jeskyns Community Woodland in the UK and that was Stuart Henderson, Debbie and Andy Airey, Denise Evans, Rachel Dorsey, Martin Waller, Amy Dodson, Cameron and Sammy Gerrish, Nicola Wright, Ken Coggin, Kim Leonard, Rhiannon Taylor and Nadege Rutter.

01:12:54Alison Fraser (King): Now doing the Bushy Pilgrimage. We had on the 26th of September Adrian Luscombe and on the 3rd of October there was Gary Derwent, Andrew and Eva Blanda.

01:13:07Tony O'Connell: Our largest Aussie fronds. On the 26th we had a Frond of Nine at One event that was at Shellharbour. We can mention Shellharbour now and that was Ollie Spake. So welcome to Shellharbour. Blake and Julie Wells, Kristen and Delvene McKenzie, Patrick Shymitzek, Gordon and Julie Turner and Gaillyn Cooper. And we also had a frond of seven at Darwin and that was Bridge Muir, Andy and Christiana Charlet. Matt Jong, Louise MacInnes, and Helen and Stephen Davis. On the 3rd of the 10th, 2026, we had a frond of 22 at Endeavour, which was a launch, and we also had a frond of 7 at Ulladulla, and they were Josh McDonnell, Casson Hill, Bill Turner, Kristy Hill, Sara Jurek, Rebecca Gordon, Peta Crowder plus, a vet I know was on the roster as a volunteer.

01:14:06Alison Fraser (King): Now remember you can add the Adventurers Club as one of your five affiliations on your parkrun profile.

01:14:13Tony O'Connell: And an update from our research department. We had really big growth a couple of weeks ago, straight after we last recorded. I know the Airey Airways group promoted a bit. We had a bit of a spike. Numbers jumped to 983 by the time Simon and Sarah recorded. But in the last two weeks, we've only had two new adventurers. We're on 985, 15 to go to 1000. So we're trying to work out, can we get there before Christmas?

01:14:39Alison Fraser (King): Oh, I'm going to go on a recruitment drive this weekend. Before parkrun, the results are processed, obviously. Get them counted.

01:14:47Tony O'Connell: Yes, correct.

Launches and anniversaries"Where is the cake?"

01:14:49Alison Fraser (King): All right, now on the 26th of September, there were three launches globally. We had Moot Yang Gunya Swamp parkrun in Mundulla, near the South Australian town, Bordertown, on the Victorian border. This is a course with a couple of different loops, including runaway holes, which are unique to the area where floodwaters disappear underground to recharge aquifers. And that parkrun had 58 finishers and 16 volunteers. And 26 people completed their first ever parkrun, so welcome to parkrun world to those people.

01:15:23Tony O'Connell: And that's almost become our NENDY, so that could be one to look at in the future. The UK has welcomed Cockington Court parkrun near the seaside town of Torquay. They had 382 finishers and they were supported by 38 volunteers on a double out and back course.

01:15:42Alison Fraser (King): And also in the UK and located south of Cambridge, we welcome Chesterford Research Park parkrun to the family. Chesterford had 383 finishers and 34 volunteers and the course looks like a stingray in shape with two laps of the park and an out and back section.

01:16:00Tony O'Connell: That's ... as I was looking at the course that was my mind, I saw the little bent tail on the stingray and the stingray shape. So that's just my imagination. On the 3rd of October there were six launches worldwide. So now a couple of weeks we've got nine in total and that compared to two in the fortnight before. So, yeah parkruns are starting to launch again. A little bit more action starting to happen. The first of them on the 3rd of October was Endeavour parkrun in Australia and although it's shown as a launch, Endeavour is the rebirth of Nathan Road parkrun. They carried over the old team's Facebook page with a new name and location and during last week they've been putting teasers online on their Facebook page, and some fairly clear teasers, to let people know it was on.

01:16:45Alison Fraser (King): Even I guessed it.

01:16:47Tony O'Connell: It was no surprise that this new event in Brisbane had 826 finishers, which is an Australian record for a launch, and a generous 31 volunteers, including a lone Timekeeper. But I'm wondering how they felt. They were probably hoping to get 300 or 400, and they had 826. The course is a double out and back along the foreshore, and 22 adventurers were in attendance. And of note, it was the 16th largest launch globally. I thought it might have been up a bit higher than that, but Holme Pierrepont in the UK had 1,279 back in January this year. And interestingly, eight out of the top 10 have occurred in South Africa particularly in a time period between 2016 and 2018. They had just launch after launch that were up in that sort of thousand people category.

01:17:38Alison Fraser (King): Those kinds of numbers just make me feel really nervous. But continuing the explosion of parkrun around Auckland in New Zealand, we welcome Sunnynook parkrun to the parkrun whānau. The course is three big loops and two small loops and it had 154 finishers and 15 volunteers. [Te Reo Māori: "family ("the parkrun whānau")"]

01:18:00Tony O'Connell: Rightio, across to the Netherlands, PARK21, very original name there. It's just to the west of Amsterdam Airport or Schiphol for those that know that one. 17 volunteers guided 102 finishers around a barbell shaped course that runs partially in the forest and partially around a sporting complex.

01:18:19Alison Fraser (King): We also welcomed Queen Elizabeth parkrun, Kapiti Coast, in New Zealand to the list of our North Island parkruns and you'll notice this one's got a comma Kapiti Coast written in its name and that's because there are four parkruns in the world now that have Queen Elizabeth parkrun as their name and I'm sure you've been to one of those other ones, TOC.

01:18:39Tony O'Connell: I have, yes. Queen Elizabeth, Casino.

01:18:43Alison Fraser (King): And I've been to the original Queen Elizabeth parkrun in the UK.

01:18:46Tony O'Connell: Well done.

01:18:47Alison Fraser (King): So this one is a two lapper which follows the beach and runs through coastal dunes. It's not recommended for prams and buggies but it did not deter the 246 finishers on week one or the 22 volunteers that supported them. Now they posted earlier before their launch that this was not a PB course and it was going to add like 20% of your usual time to your finish time. And having heard from friends who went, yes, definitely one to savour. Enjoy the views.

01:19:18Tony O'Connell: I did see a YouTube clip of one of the local politicians that ran the course and yeah, he seemed to indicate that it was a lot harder than he was expecting and probably a lot harder than he hoped for. We're going to go across to the UK for their ... another launch, a North Farm parkrun. It's south of London towards the coast and north of Worthing. The trail course has approximately 130 metres of elevation in the course, and it was completed by 363 participants, including a solo first time ever parkrunner. They also had 54 volunteers, but that stat really grabbed me. Out of 363, they attracted one brand new parkrunner.

01:20:00Alison Fraser (King): Oh, I'm sure that number will grow as the locals learn about it. Also in the UK, we had Brimstage parkrun, which is in the Liverpool area. They had 38 volunteers guiding 422 participants, of whom four were first time ever parkrunners. And this course kind of looks like a giraffe on its side.

01:20:22Tony O'Connell: I had fun with the course descriptions this week, Alison. I had all sorts of animals going on in my head.

01:20:29Alison Fraser (King): Definitely a zoo theme here.

01:20:31Tony O'Connell: Just a comment on the general numbers at the launches. UK events always seem to have more volunteers that are launched than a lot of the other countries, but they often have fairly big numbers at their launches as well. I guess that the numbers are probably due to the compact nature of the country. We've got a lot of parkruns very close together and a lot of parkruns in the proximate area that get to know about the launch, whereas for our parkruns, quite often they're the nearest parkruns. parkruns aren't all that near. So yeah, it's just one of those things. I've just noticed in my observations that they seem to have quite a few volunteers at their launches.

01:21:08Alison Fraser (King): Yeah, our parkruns kind of, well, you look at the two that launched in New Zealand, one had 15 volunteers and 150 something finishers and the other was 246 finishers and 22 volunteers. So it's a very similar ratio. One of these parkruns was more well known about than the other. I wonder if you can decide which one was which.

01:21:31Tony O'Connell: I wonder. And you've got a few more coming up over there, so lots of things happening on your front.

01:21:37Alison Fraser (King): We do. We've actually got one that's been on the map for three weeks, because parkrun, they can put events on the map I think three weeks before the launch. These two that launched on Saturday didn't show up until the night before. I know there's the launch coming, not this weekend coming, but the following week. That's not on the map. However, the one that's launching the week after that, Our Labour Weekend, they announced their start date publicly on Facebook months ago, months ago, and they're just going to get, there's going to be loads of people going. I'm not going to be going. I'm going to be staying home that weekend but they are an experienced team.

01:22:18Alison Fraser (King): That's all I'm going to say.

Sign-off

01:22:19Tony O'Connell: Looking ahead, let's look ahead and you're obviously looking, you've got a few launches coming up your way so you've got a few events you can get to. But my biggest plans for the moment are planning the traditional O'Connell road trip for the week after Christmas, New Year's Day. We try to get a couple of new parkruns. It's looking this time like it's going to be a 3,000 kilometre road trip to get Forster and Fingal Bay in northern New South Wales and then we'll probably come back down towards Reddall Reserve down in Shellharbour on our way home. How about you, Alison? What have you got coming up in the big plans?

01:22:55Alison Fraser (King): Well, I've got a couple of flights on my radar for November. I will be seeing you, TOC, at Kirra parkrun for our Ambassadors Conference. And the weekend after, I'm going to be knocking off one of the newer South Island parkruns at Ōamaru Public Gardens parkrun. That's a road trip with my parkrun Bestie, Maria. And I know you were talking about your New Year's Day trip. It does seem like a long way away, but I know it just rolls around so, so quickly. So I'm thinking about a similar kind of trip. Haven't worked out what the family Christmas plans are yet with my son and his dad. So we'll suss something out. But hopefully my driving distances will be more like a 1,000 kilometre round trip. There's a parkrun that I've yet to visit in Fielding. It's Ōroua River Walkway parkrun. It's one of those which has got the Macron over the O. We've got quite a few of those. And that launched last year. I just haven't felt like driving all the way down the desert road to get to it just for a one night. But if I can combine that with Q or another one that's coming online soon in that region, then I'm all for maximising a trip.

01:24:07Alison Fraser (King): Yeah.

01:24:08Alison Fraser (King): If you get to a far away area and do more than one parkrun, that makes it all the worthwhile.

01:24:14Tony O'Connell: It does make it worthwhile when you can get a couple of parkruns in and spend the time in between exploring the local area and enjoying the local area as well. So, Alison, we're getting to that point of the show. What is your plans for next parkrun day?

01:24:29Alison Fraser (King): Well, this coming parkrun day, I'm going to Auckland to visit Sunnynook, which is on Auckland's North Shore. I had actually planned to be at the launch. Going to launches in New Zealand isn't such a big deal as it is in the UK and Australia. Some of them are very well publicised, and I'm actually really good friends with the event ambassador for this one, and I had got myself on the roster to be the Report Writer for last week. Because I'd been burning the candles at both ends all week, the three hour early morning drive was not going to be my best idea. So I decided on the Friday to knock the idea on the head and said, I'm going to go to event number two. And I know there's going to be lots of tourists there who were at Queen Elizabeth's launch last weekend. So I'll get to see them. Plus my friends in Auckland and yeah on my way home there's, um my other interest is bagpiping, and there's a concert in Hamilton so I'm going to drop in there and go to see the New Zealand National Youth Pipe Band do a concert and then drive home.

01:25:32Tony O'Connell: Cool. Sounds like a busy weekend. I'm going to be standing on the stump at Inverloch. I'm back as RD this week and catching up with Chris and Karen Gore from Western Australia who are over on a road trip and visiting for the I.

01:25:47Alison Fraser (King): Oh, I'm sure they're visiting for the I, but they're also visiting you, TOC. Who doesn't want to visit you and the stump?

01:25:55Tony O'Connell: It's the place to be, except last Saturday when it was a very damp stuff. There wasn't a lot of sun at Inverloch last week.

01:26:01Alison Fraser (King): Oh, the sun was behind the cloud.

01:26:03Tony O'Connell: That's it, officially.

01:26:05Alison Fraser (King): Yeah. So thanks to everyone on the team behind the podcast, the Office Lady, our editor, Reginald, and big thanks to you, TOC, for having me on.

01:26:16Tony O'Connell: No, it's been good. It's always fun. Remember, as always, you can contact the team via parkrun adventurers on Facebook or you can send an email to parkrunadventurers at gmail.com. Send us in your roving reports.

01:26:30Alison Fraser (King): And that's it for another episode. Next time you'll be hearing from Sarah and Simon. So we'll see you next time for more adventurers.

01:26:38Alison Fraser (King): Bye!