Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

I thought I might go for a swim somewhere on the Sunshine Coast, but when I drove past the Maryborough pool and saw that it was open I thought it best to take the opportunity while it was there. The sign promised a heated pool. The 50-metre pool was deserted and had no lane ropes, and I dipped a leg in to determine that it wasn't heated (probably 17-18 degrees, which I could have coped with), then I saw that everyone was in the 25-metre pool around the corner. Quite a nice session once underway.

The next move was the road less travelled to the Sunshine Coast, taking in Rainbow Beach, the back road which misses Gympie (and features that great Australian tradition, the few kilometres of dirt straddling a council boundary) and, in a "thank you to our sponsors" moment, the Laminex factory (my grandfather was one of the principals of the original business), as well as the weather station at Tewantin. (My tally is now 80 out of 103 and will most likely end up at 82 or 83; compared with my original plans, I visited Camooweal which I hadn't originally planned to, but missed Victoria River Downs, Burketown, Palmerville and Weipa).

Noosa was very much a return to the tourist mainstream. This has its pluses (not being considered dangerously deviant if you want lunch after 1 - or dinner after 6.30, or coffee after 3, or hot chocolate at any time), but also its minuses (not being able to find a park easily). I was surprised how busy it was on a weekday in winter outside school holidays.

The plan was to run in Noosa National Park. The options were a bit limited because most of the park was closed due to burning off, but the coast track was still open. This had a bit too much pedestrian traffic for comfort at the Noosa end but took in some nice scenery. Got as far as Alexandria Beach on the east side before returning. Never really got going physically but a nice place to be.

Heading into Brisbane I saw my first traffic jam for a long time. Fortunately it was in the other direction.

Onto the lower sections of Mt. Archer from Scott and Gayle's place in the northern part of Rockhampton. It was 4.5k across the university and the suburbs to get to the base, then the rest was on a track, ultimately destined for the summit, up a valley. The track was a bit rougher than Scott had led me to believe (no bad thing), although it was apparent looking up that there was still a lot more climbing to be done between the turnaround point and the summit. The run itself was at its best in the middle, and turned into a bit of a slog later on, particularly the last 20 minutes through the suburbs.

Central Queensland University does not have anything that I saw named after Russ Hinze, but it does have a road named after one Glenister Shiel. Keen students of Australian political history may recall that former Senator Shiel has the dubious distinction of the shortest ministerial career in Australian political history - he was sacked before he was sworn in for pronouncing in his first interview "the world has missed a shining example of harmony and separate development by failing to recognise the virtues of South Africa's apartheid system". (This would be a questionable career move under any circumstances, but especially so when your leader is Malcolm Fraser, who took race issues very seriously even in the late 1970's).

With no real time pressure I didn't return from this run until mid-morning and didn't leave town until midday, heading south via Gladstone (industrial, but a more attractive town centre than I was expecting), Agnes Water/1770 and Bundaberg. Ended the day in Childers, mainly because it happened to be where I was when night fell.

A bit of a taster for Saturday at Binna Burra - a run on one of the walking tracks at Eungella National Park, from Broken River back towards Eungella. This is at the top of a high escarpment and was mostly single-track through rainforest, never too steep - a lovely place to run (especially on a crisp sunny morning). Unsurprisingly it was a very enjoyable session.

I don't think the Garmin coped too well with a winding track in mountainous rainforest - there's no way I was doing 6.5 minutes/km. I've assumed 5.4, the same as on a track of similar roughness last Saturday.

With less time pressure now I then did some more exploring around the area and the Finch Hatton Gorge. Heading down to Rockhampton this afternoon.

C • Rockhampton 3

Those who follow my training closely will know that I would normally do a second session on this day. I was a little later leaving the Finch Hatton area than I'd planned on and therefore found myself presented with the following options:

(a) do something en route and drive the last hour to Rockhampton in the dark (I didn't expect to miss any interesting scenery, but suspected, correctly, that it was roo country).
(b) do something in the dark once I got to Rockhampton.
(c) shift the session to Friday and do it in Noosa.

I chose option (c), and I suspect most of you would have too. I was particularly pleased to have done so because had I chosen option (a) I would have done it in St. Lawrence, which turned out to be a landscape of decrepit desolation the likes of which I haven't seen this side of the Lower Ninth in New Orleans. The town is clearly several decades past its best and only about one block in five seems to be occupied.

Also got to hear some familiar voices on the ABC during the day - one of my work colleagues (talking about climate change) and my 1984 school captain (now a Griffith Uni law professor, talking about the adequacy, or lack thereof, of whistleblowing protection laws).

Intervals session on the Bingil Bay beach, the fairly standard 10x1 minute session (although more like 65 seconds downwind, 68 upwind). This setting could have come straight out of a Queensland tourism brochure - beach backed by rainforest, sunny morning, young couple embracing in the shallows. Hard to have a bad one in a place like this.

Something I was again reminded of last night is that at YHAs in the remoter parts of Australia it is very much 'spot the Aussie' - apparently 90%+ of their business is from overseas.

This ended up as another long day, but should be the last of them as I am now more or less back on my original schedule. Visited the impressive Wallaman Falls west of Ingham (one of the highest single-drop falls in Australia), then most of the afternoon was on the road (largely covering ground from 2007) down to the Mackay area.

I stayed in the pub at Finch Hatton, west of Mackay. This location has the distinction of Australia's second-highest daily rainfall (something not disputed by me). It turned out Olly's parents (who have a property in the area) were also staying there so I had some dinner company. In an interesting coincidence, their vehicle is identical to mine (model and colour), and was purchased for essentially the same reason - their last vehicle entering water that was too deep for it (although in their case the Ipswich flash flood last November was responsible).

Getting to/from the beach. Nice uphill pinch in the last 200 metres back to the hostel.

Morning session in Georgetown, down the Forsayth road from 'town' (such as it is). Slept better than I was expecting to; still felt a little out of sorts on the run but legs started to move pretty well in the second half, particularly in the last 10 minutes.

There's some nice granite around Georgetown (and scattered through the region), although without much definition to the contours a map would just be random scattered black dots. Didn't see any cattle on the run, although they were grazing almost to the town boundary on the way in last night.

This was a shorter day for distance (although I still used virtually all the daylight), mainly because quite a bit of it was spent visiting the Undara lava tubes - definitely an interesting place. After that it was onwards to hit the east coast via the Atherton Tableland, ending up at Mission Beach. It was definitely a bit of a shock to the system to see:

(a) green grass other than on sprinklers
(b) signposts to the next town with two-digit numbers on them
(c) traffic

Mount Surprise was just about the last outback settlement of the trip. They are celebrating 100 years of law and order in the district this year. I'm now sure exactly how one celebrates this - perhaps with a drunken brawl, or a historical re-enactment, although the latter may lack authenticity as shooting Aborigines is frowned on these days.

It also occurred to me, as the iPod shuffle came up with '(What's The Story) Morning Glory' in Innisfail instead of Normanton, that if the iPhone is intelligent enough to tell that you've crossed a time zone boundary and change the clock, it should be intelligent enough to have a mode where it picks out geographically appropriate songs. (The reason why that particular song is geographically appropriate to Normanton may be lost on non-meteorologists). One would, however, need to have some sort of override on it, otherwise on a visit to the Top End one might be continually subjected to Bill and Boyd's 'Santa Never Made It Into Darwin', which I assume was well-intentioned (a Cyclone Tracy appeal fundraiser?) but got a well-earned place on a JJJ all-time Coldest 100 some years back.

And, in the light of yesterday's log, guess who the admin building at the Innisfail showgrounds is named after?

Mount Isa didn't feature in my plans A, B or C for this trip, but I ended up here following the execution of plan D. An aside from this was that I was expecting that, following this trip, Mount Isa would be the largest Australian town I'd never been to. Assuming that I pass through Rockhampton and Gladstone as planned later this week (and further counting the Central Coast as a single metropolitan area), this honour will, I think, fall to either Karratha or one of the Hunter towns (I've been to Newcastle and Singleton, but not in between).

Got some advice from Anthea about tracks on either side of the river on the way down to Lake Moondarra but had trouble picking them up with a few dead ends (plus in a place you're unfamiliar with it's hard to be sure what land is public property and what land isn't), so spent a fair bit of time on the Moondarra road, not too bad on a Sunday morning. Nice to have non-humid conditions for the run, although it's apparent that the airport is a real frost hollow - it was certainly nowhere near 3.4 anywhere that I was. The run was a bit of a struggle as the last few have been; I feel like I'm in the process of fighting off a cold. The last 20 minutes was reasonable though.

I didn't find the Hinze Bog. For those who are too young to remember him, the late, not-especially-lamented (and spectacularly obese) Russ Hinze was a Queensland minister with a penchant for naming things after himself; the Mount Isa council, which was definitely not run by the Nationals, decided to get into the act and named their new public conveniences in his honour. (One wonders what would have happened to all the things named after him had he not died before facing trial; the person who paid the bribe got five years so I think it reasonable to assume he would have been convicted of receiving it).

That set the scene for another long day on the road, with the first stop being Cloncurry. I didn't actually have to venture in there (the Normanton road turnoff is a couple of kilometres before town), but decided to anyway, reasoning that the NT plates on my car made it pretty unlikely I would be recognised. There is a big temperature display outside the Council chambers; it was somewhat ironic that it was reading about as far below the actual temperature as the 1889 reading was above (it was showing 18 and it was actually 24).

I've been reacquainted with one of the drawbacks of a dark-coloured car - birds have trouble seeing it. (Robw will probably recall a previous episode on a trip which was almost as ill-fortuned as this one has been). One managed to get itself very neatly wedged into the front of the car, providing some amusement for the assembled multitude at the next roadhouse as I had to work reasonably hard to pull it out.

Now in Georgetown. This was another long day but should be the last of them, and is my last night in the Outback proper. It will also probably be my last night camping, which is as well because I left my air mattress behind in Darwin - will have to improvise (probably not very well) with a beach towel and whatever else I can find.

C • Air mattress 6

Plan B was a morning side trip to Borroloola, making an already long day even longer. This was a 230km return side trip (although I was going to do 130 of it anyway to get to Caranbirini). Being in an unfamiliar car, I was a bit nervous about what its fuel gauge might actually mean and hoped the bit in the manual about the warning light coming on with 9 litres left was correct (it came on with about 40km to go). The trip meant leaving at the first hint of light.

Caranbirini Conservation Reserve is the smallest of the three 'Lost City' sandstone pillar formations in the general region, and also the most accessible (the other two can be reached by air or rough 4WD track only). My run this morning took in all of the walking tracks in the reserve plus a couple of other out-and-backs to get the distance up close to an hour, with plenty of photo stops. Very impressive country in the middle of the rocks. Felt fairly reasonable on the run, on rougher ground than I've been on for a while; a slight hamstring twinge but better than Thursday.

The rest of the day was spent accumulating distance - lots of distance. In the previous car I might have had to change my plans more; with no fuel at Cape Crawford, Borroloola-Cape Crawford-Barkly Homestead is 495km and I'm not confident I would have had the range to handle that, requiring either jerry cans or a 400km detour back to the Stuart Highway. The new car has a bit more range (on the evidence of yesterday, over 600km even at Territory speeds).

The eventual tally for the day was 1,064km (not including running), which I think is the first time I've driven 1,000km in a day solo. A lot of it was on the Tablelands 'Highway', just about the loneliest road I've been on anywhere - 375km of nothing. I saw 12 vehicles the whole way (only three of them without caravans). Most of it is a single lane of bitumen, in places the most uneven I've seen this side of Kazakhstan.

Now in Mount Isa. A cool evening is a bit of a shock to the system.

C • Lost City 3

Finally on the move again. Quite a bit of this trip (although not much of the last four weeks) has involved finding new and interesting places to run. Today was a variation on the theme - finding interesting places to swim. In this case, it was the natural pool at the bottom of Edith Falls, north of Katherine - about 150 metres across.

I was a little apprehensive before getting in because (a) no-one else was and (b) a young girl uttered the cr-word. (There are freshwater crocodiles here but there's supposed to be a trap for the dangerous saltwater ones). It turned out the reason no-one was in was that it was cold (by Top End standards - fine for ours). It was a nice place to swim, but there was one problem which one doesn't have chasing the black stripe down a pool - navigation. On one of the crossings I aimed for what I thought was a distinctive tree but was actually heading for its twin 30 metres away.

This was a break from a longish day on the road. Had an interesting moment on the way across from Daly Waters to Cape Crawford when someone decided to buzz me at very low elevation (like somewhere between 3 and 5 metres) in a helicopter - not sure if they were skylarking or trying to give me a scare. (Either way, I imagine there's a rule somewhere which says you're not allowed to do this).

Just when I thought things might have gone to plan for a complete day, I arrived at Cape Crawford, my planned overnight stop, to discover that they had stuffed up their ordering and wouldn't have any fuel until Tuesday. Not for the first time this trip, this required some thought about a plan B.

C • Swim across to the falls? 2

A long tough slog on another humid morning - something I won't miss when I leave town (something I'm still expecting to do tomorrow, unless there is a last-minute hitch with the registration paperwork). This run had two parts - the first section with Lachlan and Susanne, which took in Charles Darwin National Park (and sundry industrial suburbs which one has to pass through to get there), the second on my own up through Parap to Lake Alexander and back along the shoreline. Didn't feel brilliant at any stage. I've also gone from having a hamstring that hurts at rest but not while running to the other way around, although not very much - it was a little tight on the steeper downhills, of which there are not many in Darwin. (Hitting steeper country in eastern Queensland will be a bit of a shock to the system).

Part of the reason why I didn't feel great was apparent afterwards when I weighed in at 3 kilos less than post-run yesterday. As I would have lost some fluid on the run yesterday too, that suggests that I've lost somewhere around 4-5 litres of fluid in the two hours, more than I would have expected in such conditions. It probably wasn't helpful to be woken up on the stroke of 5 by what I thought was a building site next door, but actually turns out to be the depot of one of the tour bus companies (so lots of idling vehicles and reversing beepers).

I'm still expecting to pick up a new vehicle this afternoon unless there is a last-minute hitch (and none were apparent on speaking with the dealer this morning). If that happens the new plan is to head reasonably quickly across to the north Queensland coast via Mount Isa, Normanton and the Undara lava tubes, probably reaching the coast on Monday night, then down the coast (not lingering as much as I would have liked). The two major destinations that I'd hoped to get to but won't are Lawn Hill and the Daintree.

C • Undara 2

Picked the car up this afternoon. The last one had 2000km on the clock after the first weekend and so will this one (but this time Bruce won't be driving half of it). Posting may be a bit sparse the next few days.

C • woohoo! 1

Morning run, with SusC for most of it. A fairly smooth run, exploring some new territory on the south side of the urban area including the unimaginatively-named waterfront suburb of Bayview (not a place I'd like to be in a storm surge). The most humid run yet here but seem to be coping with the conditions, on a run of this length at any rate. Hamstring soreness has now vanished outside of runs as well as during them.

I've finally decided that I've had enough of waiting - even if the old car is deemed repairable (unlikely) I'm going to leave it here and sell it anyway. I bought a new one this morning; hopefully the registration paperwork will be done in time for me to pick it up tomorrow evening before the start of the long weekend, and leave first thing Friday. Keep your eyes open for a dark grey Forester with (at least for the first few weeks) NT plates.

(The contents of my wallet were just enough to satisfy registration ID requirements. Unfortunately there is no points value for articles in the NT News with your picture on them).

Speaking of the NT News, I was a bit surprised to see a law-and-order story not of the going-to-hell-in-a-handbasket variety - featuring a senior Darwin policeman expressing his satisfaction with how few crimes Darwin's youngsters had committed during the recent school holidays.

Evening run from the office after work, heading out to the Rapid Creek shoreline (where half of Casuarina seemed to be out fishing, it being high tide). Felt a bit tight but otherwise not too bad, and coped with the conditions well. A sea breeze helped.

Still some soreness in the hamstring area when standing/walking but none when running. I think I've worked out what I did - the couch has a protruding piece of metal on it and I think I rolled onto it while sleeping on Sunday night causing some bruising. One of the more bizarre injuries of my career if so. Decided to give intervals a miss today just in case there is something wrong with the muscle (although there is no sign of tightness) and do something slower.

This was a pretty standard central Darwin run - north up the coast to Lake Alexander and return. Lake Alexander was apparently created to give the locals a croc- and stinger-free body of water to swim in; not sure how much use it gets. Felt pretty good despite the humidity (dewpoint 21).

Woke up with a sore right hamstring, which was puzzling - it wasn't the same area as that which was troubling me on the weekend runs, and in any case I'd had no sign of post-run soreness on either day (including during quite a bit of walking yesterday). I almost didn't go out at all, but thought I'd at least start, if only to get some more intelligence on what the injury actually was.

Bizarrely, it stopped hurting as soon as I started running (and started again as soon as I stopped), and this actually flowed pretty well. A straightforward circuit of the central city followed by a loop up to Mindil Beach, where there was still quite a bit of evidence of yesterday's festivities.

Swim at Casuarina. Hamstring no problem in the water but didn't try to push off too hard. Swim was pleasant enough (and the time passed because I was mentally wrestling with a quirky statistical problem that lobbed into my inbox just before lunch).

Noticed that the pool will be closed for maintenance next week, which hopefully won't affect me (but I wouldn't bet on it). At least I know what the hold-up is now - the assessor wanted the workshop to strip the engine to confirm the extent of the damage and this is a pretty time-consuming job. This doesn't make the hold-up any more frustrating (and I'm getting increasingly concerned that a further spanner might be thrown in the works by the local public holiday for Darwin Show Day on Friday).

My piece ended up in the NT News today. The headline was on the strong side but the text itself was a reasonable representation of what I said, which is all you can really ask for. It wasn't a terribly visible piece as it was next to a big splash on the day's Territory Driving Atrocity (a woman who blew 0.28 after crashing her car with a baby on her lap - fortunately without serious harm to anyone concerned). I'm waiting to see a report of an incident with the full bingo score of five - unlicensed driver with no seatbelt speeding while drunk in an unregistered car. Quite a few with three out of five so far. Strangely no-one seems too perturbed that the NT's per-capita road toll is four times the national average and double that of any country in the developed world.

The price of a Saturday long run is that whatever you do on Sunday feels like a bit more of a struggle. Often if I've run long on Saturday it's because there's a not-very-important-but-should-put-in-an-appearance local orienteering event on the Sunday, but this was a bit different. Definitely struggled to get moving in the first 10 minutes, but functioning reasonably well in the second half. Buttock soreness still there.

One negative of being based in central Darwin is that there aren't really that many options for running routes - most of them involve heading north in some form or other. Hopefully I won't be around for long enough to get too bored.

There are a few things around here named after Cyclone Tracy (there's a subdivision called Tracy Village), but a variation on the theme was provided by a landscaping firm called Category 4, possibly named in honour of the "landscaping" (perhaps better described as de-landscaping) that occurred the last time that Darwin experienced Category 4 conditions.

Spent some of the rest of the day undertaking a genuine Territory Cultural Experience - the Beer Can Regatta at Mindil Beach. I wasn't hugely surprised to discover that racing beer-can boats is a contact sport (especially at turns). No vessels sank this year but some of them lost a few of their cans judging by the number seen floating afterwards.

Original plan was for a long run on Sunday but Susanne and Lachlan were going out on Saturday so I was happy enough to join them. Getting a long run out of the way on Saturday morning is a bit like having your football team win on Friday night (not something I was able to experience this week) - it's nice to know that something has been accomplished on the weekend while there's still a lot of it to go.

A pretty nice morning for it (by Darwin standards). Started out through Parap, then up towards Fannie Bay to the East Point reserve, which we did some pretty thorough exploration of. Returned closer to the water with a section down to Cullen Bay. The others decided 1.55 was enough but I thought I'd do an extra loop around town to take it out beyond 2 hours.

Took to the terrain a bit in the East Point sector, including a section across bare rock shelves on the coast that I don't think I would have coped with last week. (The foot still isn't 100% but is gradually improving). One of the bits of bush is apparently normally marked with tapes by the local Hash House Harriers, one of whom was in the news during the week after the naughty DVDs he brought back from an Asian trip were naughtier than he thought - or at least that's what he told the judge (and the judge must have believed him because otherwise a $2500 fine seems remarkably lenient for importation of child pornography).

Didn't feel that brilliant on most of the run, with Achilles tightness early and some soreness in my right buttock for much of the way.

I thought I might have been in the NT News today but they actually had an international news story on their front page today (although Jakarta almost qualifies as local news in these parts).

I woke to much discussion on the radio of the freezing conditions outside. The locals were scrambling for their beanies, doonas and anything else they could find to keep warm.

It was 18 degrees outside (although it did drop to 6 at Humpty Doo, about 40km inland).

In the circumstances I wasn't particularly surprised to see that there weren't a lot of morning swimmers around at Casuarina - in fact there were precisely none. I found it quite pleasant but then I'm used to Fitzroy in mid-winter.

Also found the reason why the carpark outside our office always seems to have a few disreputable-looking characters around; the premises of Casuarina Community Corrections is next door.

No news on the car. Of course. It does mean I'll get to witness an iconic Darwin event - the beer can regatta on Sunday.

C • 18 degrees!!!? 1

Taking the long midweek run back up to a more normal distance. Spent the first 30 minutes meandering around the suburbs waiting for it to get light, then headed for the bush tracks to Lee Point and back before a final loop around Rapid Creek. There's been another surge of (relatively) dry air and the conditions were quite comfortable.

This wasn't one of my more enjoyable runs, feeling rather below par throughout. Hopefully this is just because I didn't sleep very well last night or was just having a bad day, and is not a sign that I'm getting sick. Pleased to be able to grind out the distance though.

Last night's tsunami warning generated a bit of excitement. The timing wasn't bad - if you wanted to minimise the number of people who were in or on the water on the east coast, it would be hard to match 9.30 on a mid-winter's night with State of Origin on. I did raise a smile at the following quote from a 'NZ Herald' article (http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id...):

"Tash from Invercargill said it was the most exciting thing to happen in the city in quite a while".

From my experience of Invercargill, this is not necessarily saying very much. (Given that the earthquake was at 9.20 p.m. local time, I'm surprised anyone was on the streets to witness it; we didn't see too many signs of life after 7.30).

This is likely to be my last run in this part of Darwin. (I had hoped that it would be my last run in Darwin full stop, but that is looking less likely). I'm following SusC and Lachlan to their next temporary abode near the centre of town. They've bought a house but won't be moving in until later in the year; this has meant a lot of form-filling to obtain the not-easily-pronouncable FHOG. It would be a lot easier to pronounce if they'd called it the First Residence Owner's Grant; the NT Government is obviously much more on the ball in this respect as they have recently established a Sexual Health Advisory Group.

C • Darwin residency requirements? 5

Around Nightcliff and the Dripstone cliffs with SusC. The tide was lower than it was last Friday, so beach running was not quite the same level of hard work (and it was possible to get around the base of the cliffs, which wasn't the case last week). Felt like I was working pretty hard in the first half but more relaxed later.

The southeasterly came in while we were out and the difference in humidity was noticeable; 22 degrees with a dewpoint of 19 feels quite different to 22/14.

Automatic sprinklers in public spaces were much in evidence today, something which feels alien to those of us from more drought-stricken lands. They're probably alien to Canberrans now too, but such was not the case when I was living there, when they made regular appearances, including at times when they weren't supposed to. One of these times was during a cricket match I was playing in, but as we were seven wickets down with 25 overs still remaining we weren't exactly making a great effort to work out how to turn them off.

C • darwin exile 2

Lunchtime run from the Darwin office - I must be getting more used to the tropics if I can consider lunchtime runs without being too daunted. Headed out towards Casuarina Beach (the nude section was well-populated, the non-nude section somewhat emptier) before coming back past the hospital. Reasonably comfortable; the lower humidity helped.

The very edge of suburbia doesn't seem the most obvious place for the hospital, although it is reasonably close to the airport (the locals also note that it provides the opportunity for the relatives of patients from remote indigenous communities to camp unobtrusively in the bush nearby).

It's taken a week and a half, but I've finally seen my first front-page croc story in the Northern Territory News. It involved someone who managed to mistake the boat ramp into the East Alligator River (which got its name for a reason) for the causeway across it, and drove their vehicle a long way down it before being forced to make a swim for it through "crocodile-infested waters". The headline - "Meals On Wheels".

Had planned to go to the CDU rugby field again, but that was being used by soccer players so went next door to the Australian Rules ground. I was initially a bit puzzled by the fact that the boundary was a metre inside the goalposts, and then remembered that in this part of the world it's cricket season. (In one sense this is a pity; I would have like to have seen some local football, particularly if the Tiwi Islands team were playing).

A fairly standard 10x1 minute session around the boundary. Never had a lot of motivation; this was really just about keeping the legs ticking over, but did speed up a bit towards the end.

I've got as far as a quote for a new car ($34K driveaway for a new Forester, which seems a pretty good deal). Still waiting for confirmation from the insurers (although I've got to the stage where I'm thinking that if they consider it repairable I might trade it in anyway).

Warm up/down. Still pretty sticky. There seemed to be a lot of big dogs on the streets I was going along; just as well for the high front fences (although I guess in Canberra they would be in back yards).

We'll find out tonight whether the Territory Day crackers have dragged out until Bastille Day. My suggestion is that anyone found letting off fireworks today should be required to sing the Marseillaise (the French version, not the one that starts "We are the boys from old Fitzroy") or face a fine.

Also noticed today that there is exactly one US state in which less than 20% of the population are classified as obese. Anyone care to guess which one?

C • I've seen this map recently... 9

C • bad luck with the car 1

Definitely a recovery run this morning; I don't think I've felt as stiff as I did in the first kilometre of this run for a very long time. Not obvious why as yesterday was by no means extreme, although the last three days have been reasonably heavy.

Went out with SusC again, who showed me some of the more obscure sights of Charles Darwin University (the best being the "quotable", a table covered with quotes), on the way out to the coast at Dripstone before coming back through the suburbs. Quite a humid morning (dewpoint 21, about as high as Melbourne gets on the most humid day of summer) and some cloud around - there are even a few showers on the radar as I write.

Heard from the insurers this morning: they want to confirm some details on the repair quote with the repairers but think it will most probably be a write-off. Would still like confirmation as soon as I can; if I get it by Wednesday I should be able to leave before the weekend, which should still see me able to get to most of the places I'd hoped to (Cooktown and Cape York being the exception). If I'm still here this weekend a few more things will have to go.

One place I won't be going is Borroloola (although I do plan to go to the 'Lost City' rock formations about 50km short of it before turning south). This was already part of my plans after hearing that the Borroloola-Burketown road was in a dodgy state, but has been further reinforced by the news of 30 new swine flu cases in the town yesterday - about 5% of the population. (I guess it would be in keeping with this trip if I ended up stuck in Borroloola for a week with swine flu).

An interesting night on the sporting front too. We don't have a TV where I'm staying so there was no temptation to stay up in front of the box, but I did have a radio by the bed for use on waking up in the middle of the night and caught the last few overs. Good to see Queanbeyan's most famous export finally triumphing on the world stage. I assume a few burnouts were done in Crawford Street in celebration.

C • Write of 3

Swim at Casuarina. Not quite as deserted as other days despite cloud (and even a few raindrops, rare for Darwin in July); I'm obviously not the only person who thought going across from the office at lunchtime was a good idea. The locals obviously aren't used to the crowds either because I had a head-on collision on the first lap with someone who was a bit further to the right than they should have been. Not a bad swim after that, and got quite a few thoughts together for something I was writing.

Again constrained in where I could go this morning. On another day I'd have looked seriously at the 4WD track which was a continuation of yesterday's, but it looked pretty rocky so I settled for going "along" the Stuart Highway for 8km to a side road and then up it. It wasn't quite as bad as it sounds because I was only actually on the highway for about 3km in each direction - the rest was on the old (WW2 vintage) road which was mostly pretty nice to run.

This was a very solid effort, especially from 40 minutes onwards. Actually had a few hills (a Darwin rarity) in the middle and handled them well, and didn't find warmth a significant factor - gradually getting more used to the conditions. Tired a little bit in the last 10 minutes but compared with two Sundays ago that was nothing.

There weren't many small rocks on this run, but on the few occasions when I did tread on one I knew about it for the next couple of minutes. Felt a bit lame compared to those who'd been out for 12 or 24 hours (with blisters to match), although I suspect that the 38km I covered over the weekend was probably more than what half the 12/24 hours teams managed.

I wasn't expecting to still be in Darwin at this stage so hadn't considered the NT Rogaining Champs. When Sus and Lachlan decided to go down I considered giving it a go as well, but decided doing it without proper shoes (after the disintegration of my O shoes last Sunday I only have runners and work shoes left) was asking for trouble, and went down for the ride and a couple of training runs.

The rogaine was in an area of pretty rugged sandstone hills at Hayes Creek, about 170km south of Darwin (we got a taste of Territory driving going there - our lift there was at an average speed of 140-150 km/h). I went out in the late afternoon on a track heading for the top of one of the ridges overlooking the finish area. It was quickly apparent that I'd made the right decision not competing; my foot, which is OK on even ground, was still a disaster area on any sort of small rock and I probably wouldn't have lasted 15 minutes in the terrain. Still made it to the top of the ridge OK and was happy with my strength on the climb there (unfortunately smoke haze, a regular companion in the Top End at this time of year, spoiled the view). Took my camera with me and did get a good setting-sun-on-cliff picture.

A longish early morning run, starting on the Nightcliff route and then going up the coast to Lee Point. This is a nice route with a mixture of coastal path, beach (although the beach options were limited by a very high tide) and then bush tracks (with lots of shade which would be a boon on a hotter day).

I was with Sus for most of this; her original plan was 12k but she ended up doing 20, not peeling off until relatively close to Lee Point. She seemed to think her pace would be a bit slow but it was actually pretty much my standard long run pace (factoring in a couple of stretches of soft sand). Probably the best I've felt on a run since I've been in the tropics (not that it was really a tropical morning). I hadn't planned to go quite this long but underestimated the distance back from Lee Point, and ended up coming back down the main drag (not quite so attractive). Had plenty left at the end, a marked contrast with Kalumburu where I was almost invariably counting the minutes from the 9-minutes-to-go sighting of the water tower.

Still waiting to hear from the insurers. I've gone back to work out of our Darwin office as of today, so at least I'm not wasting leave whilst sitting around waiting for things to happen.

C • Darwin 9

Couldn't go a full week without an equipment failure: mishap of the day is that the magnetic stripe on my credit/ATM card has failed (possibly an overuse injury :-). Hopefully a replacement will turn up soon.

Also had preliminary discussions with a car dealer today and they say they can get something organised within 2-3 days once I commit, so providing I get word from the insurers soon I'm reasonably optimistic about being out of here by this time next week.

C • Odysseus 1

I rearranged the week's program a bit, partly because of the Tiwi trip (which required me to leave home at 6.20) and partly to make space for a Friday morning long run at Katherine Gorge that isn't going to be happening, but decided to stick to the rearrangement, partly because I didn't want to be doing intervals off a long run.

An intervals session consisting of laps of the CDU rugby field (approx 340m from my GPS) on a 2-minute cycle. I'm not used to running fast because it was dismally slow early on, picking up a bit later, but 71 for 340m is still pretty sluggish (even allowing for right-angle corners). Did feel as if I was starting to get into a bit of rhythm by the last couple of reps.

News of the day is that Darwin stores are apparently running out of blankets and doonas because of the cold snap (it plunged to 15 on Monday and 18 for the last three nights). I haven't considered either of the above necessary yet, although I did leave the fan off last night.

Warm up/down from intervals. Found another similarity to Canberra - small shopping centres (most of which have seen better days) in the middle of suburbs.

Afternoon swim at Casuarina. Just as deserted as it was on Monday. Felt a bit stronger than Monday but no faster.

For the record, the list of places where I've spent birthdays since 1988 is as follows (where two places are given it was a travel day from one place to another).

2009: Nguiu, Bathurst Island
2008: Santander (Spain) to Bordeaux (France)
2007: Dubbo
2006: Wiener Neustadt (Austria) to Joensuu (Finland)
2005: Darwin
2004: Tokyo (Japan) to Melbourne
2003: Melbourne
2002: Canmore (Canada)
2001: Vilnius (Lithuania)
2000: Warwick
1999: Melbourne
1998: Kajaani (Finland)
1997: Melbourne
1996: Baile Govora (Romania)
1995: Bendigo
1994: Melbourne
1993: Wellington (NZ)
1992: Canberra
1991: Berlin (Germany)
1990: Newcastle
1989: Kufstein (Austria)
1988: Jindabyne

Most of the pre-1988 ones would have been in Canberra as it was during school term (the ACT changed from three terms to four in 1988). 1989, 1991, 1996 and 2007 were at Junior World Championships (or equivalent), the first two as a competitor and the last two as an official.

Spent the day on a trip to the Tiwi Islands. I'd organised this before I knew I was going to get a much better look at another indigenous community than I was anticipating, but it was still interesting (although not cheap).

Returned to some bad news on the car: it has sustained serious engine damage to the point where it may not be worth repairing. (At least I've confirmed that it is covered by insurance, something I wasn't sure about). Next move is to wait for a firm quote from the repairers, send it to the insurers and see what they think. If the answer is that it's a write-off, either my journey will be coming to a sudden halt or I'll be finishing the trip in a different car to the one I started in. Either way I'll probably be in Darwin for a while yet, although hopefully not long enough to start thinking of 30-degree days as 'cold'.

C • Sorry to hear about the car... 8

From Sus and Lachlan's place as far as the Nightcliff shoreline, a place I've previously run (and enjoyed) at the far end of a long run from the city. Nice setting again but after a promising first 10 minutes, the run itself didn't quite live up to the potential.

It is fairly obvious as one gets into the suburbs in this part of Darwin that the planners here were the same ones that planned areas of Canberra of a similar vintage (Belconnen, Woden, Weston Creek), although it has a rather different look because of the lush tropical vegetation and all the front fences (most of them rather ugly cyclone wire ones).

News on the car is that there is no news yet, and won't be until tomorrow. This means I may struggle to get out of town on Thursday as planned, but we'll worry about that if and when it happens.

An evening session after spending a lot of the day clearing out emails (and the rest trawling through old files, and reading some interesting things about various colourful outback characters). Didn't feel great beforehand; sometimes evening sessions come good on such occasions but not this time.

I had a letter to post and was finding mailboxes hard to come by (another thing that suburban Darwin has with suburban Canberra), but when I did find one it was being cleared and I was able to drop the letter straight into the bag.

Glad for the front fences that I was making disparaging comments about this morning; there were some pretty boisterous dogs behind them.

One thing you certainly won't find in suburban Canberra was the crime du jour: the alleged theft of 30 crocodile hatchlings from premises on Darwin's fringe. I haven't seen a croc story on the front page of the NT News since arriving here but I suspect that won't last.

C • Colurful characters 1

An easy Monday run taking in much of the sprint course at Charles Darwin University that I didn't get to run on Friday night. Right foot still a bit sore but nothing to worry me too much; would probably be more of a problem with more pressure on the balls of the feet but I don't plan to do anything hilly or fast before Thursday.

I must be acclimatising because 19 degrees with 80% humidity felt very pleasant to run in.

Much of the rest of the day was spent arranging vehicle logistics; it took three hours at the docks before the tow truck finally turned up (which at least meant I almost finished the book I took with me). The car is now in the repair shop and I await further developments.

Dumb criminals (an occasional series): someone held up two supermarkets in Darwin over the weekend and made their escape in a ute. If you were trying to remain inconspicuous to the police, wouldn't you choose a number plate a bit less provocative than 'DUI4ME'?

First swim for a while, at the Casuarina pool. Stunned how deserted it was at 4 pm on a 31-degree school holiday afternoon. Perhaps 31-degree air and 24-degree water is too cold for the locals to handle?

The swim itself felt like it was going on forever, and the time suggests that it did.

NT Long Championships. This was a more varied area than yesterday, with very rocky ridges, but also some flatter gully-spur terrain; again the burnt stuff was nice, the unburnt not so nice, although there was an attempt to map it using green stripe this time. Conditions were again kind with low humidity - in fact is was quite cool overnight (certainly cool enough to make for a somewhat uncomfortable night given that my sleeping bag and most of my warm clothes are on the docks with my car).

The first part of the course was rocky. My line into 1 wasn't great but I hit the control OK, and then plugged away through to the end of that section before stretching out in the next part. Around 30 minutes in the sole of my right foot started hurting quite a bit and I was wondering what was going on, thinking that perhaps my shoes didn't offer enough cushioning for the terrain. They certainly didn't - half the right sole had fallen off (although I didn't see the full damage until after I finished). That made the rest of the course a bit of a battle with pain an ever-present companion. I was a little wide on 9 and too high coming back into the rocks at 16, losing about 15 and 45 seconds respectively; didn't tire much but I think this might have been because the shoe problems constrained my running speed. I was quite happy to see the finish. Ended up about a minute clear of Lachlan.

I thought the sole of my right foot might have been a seriously ugly sight but it doesn't look too horrible, with no obvious signs of blisters, just bruising, and it feels better to walk on now than it did immediately afterwards, which is a good sign.

I now expect to be in Darwin until Thursday (which was the original plan anyway), unless the problems with the car are more serious than anticipated.

NT Middle Championships at Manton Dam. The most notable feature of this map was the small rock underfoot - some of the heaviest I've come across (the closest match I can think of is a limestone area I ran a World Cup on - very badly - in France in 1996). Took a while to get my terrain-running legs, which isn't surprising given that I haven't been in the terrain for four weeks, and also seemed a bit down on sharpness, also not surprising after the last week. Started to stretch out a bit more in the second half but still wasn't surprised to be behind Lachlan, although was a bit disappointed with the gap of 2.5 minutes.

As usual with NT terrain, it was a bit of a lottery depending on which areas had been burnt and which areas hadn't. (Large areas of the Top End are routinely burnt early in the dry season; indeed, the event organisers have been known to do it themselves, with the landowners' blessing).

The humidity, which was very high last night, dropped around sunrise and running conditions were not unpleasant.

It was definitely good to make it to Darwin (and to know that my car is waiting on the Darwin docks, although the latest hurdle is that there is not a hire car to be had in Darwin which could make the Monday logistics challenging). Was also reminded we were in the Territory by the occasional leftover fireworks, which are supposed to be used only on Territory Day (1 July) but lingered on long enough to mark US Independence Day too (some of them probably make it as far as Bastille Day).

There was one interesting bit of local news from Kununurra: a pastoralist has been charged with arson and various other offences after reportedly running a group of men from an Aboriginal community off the road and then setting their vehicle on fire. (Interestingly, although the case hasn't made it anywhere near a court yet, the word 'allegedly' doesn't seem to have found its way this far north yet judging by the 'Kimberley Echo' report). I suspect we may hear more of this one, especially if the end result is an acquittal or a minimal sentence. I was also interested to read the matter-of-fact line "the men returned to Wyndham on foot" - if the incident happened where I think it did, this is a distance of somewhere between 50 and 80 kilometres.

The last of my Kalumburu runs (barring further mishaps), once again going out to the upper part of the King Edward River gorge. (Hidden Valley sounds attractive, but mid-30s afternoon temperatures less attractive, and I might still have my full pack so I think I'll stick to walking there). I must be acclimatising a bit because it felt less humid and uncomfortable than previous days, but the numbers are more or less the same. Still felt a bit sluggish on this run. It's also the first time that any of the town's numerous wandering dogs have taken an interest in me (although not for long).

I note with interest that there was a major government announcement yesterday on improving the supply of healthy food in remote Aboriginal communities. It's good to see my log postings having such an immediate impact on public policy. Now, for those greenhouse gas emission targets....

Spending a week living in a remote Aboriginal community is not something I'd planned to do on this trip, but it has been a revealing experience nonetheless - one that not a lot of southern Australians get. Part of the reason I came here was because I didn't want my only experience of Aboriginal Australia to be the crowds milling around outside the bottle shop in Derby on dole day. This community has its share of squalor (although not everywhere - the school grounds and football oval are spotless), but also its share of positives - but it is hard to see what its future is other than purely to exist, and similarly hard to see what sort of economic activity could take roots here. Tourism is a possibility, but it would need some serious investment in the access road and other infrastructure, and I think the physical environment would suit some types of irrigated horticulture, but all the other problems that bedevil the Ord scheme (especially distance from markets) would apply doubly here. Perhaps the ultimate question is what we want to achieve with the remote communities; my view is that those who want to enter mainstream society should have the opportunities to do so, and those who want to lead a more traditional existence should be able to with dignity and a reasonable standard of health.

C • Hidden Valley 1

Shorter than yesterday but back to the piercing sun of previous days, with an addition to the degree of difficulty because I didn't have water (the camelback went with the car in the interests of load-lightening). Felt reasonably strong at times, probably more so than on any other day this week, but also conscious that I was on the edge a bit. Wouldn't have wanted it to be much further.

The warmth has continued into the morning; it's running 1.5-2 degrees ahead of what it has at the same time on the last few days and it's not beyond the realms of possibility that I could witness the breaking of the Australian July record in the next few hours.

Today's run is the last I will see of the very impressive sandstone rock that abounds to the north of Kalumburu (tomorrow won't be long enough to get there). I do have some photos (how does one post them here?) but the morning light doesn't show it at its best. From a distance the stuff on the west side of the King Edward River looks even better, but it is totally inaccessible (except by sea).

I might have some company in Kununurra tomorrow - apparently the PM is going to be in town to announce something (believed to be an extension of the Ord River scheme).

An aside is that I'm juggling three factors while on the computer: a decent signal, shade and power. At this time of day nowhere has all three. I've decided power is the optional extra, at least for now.

C • Photos 3

C • A timely annoucement 1

Headed out a bit earlier this morning, remembering how much I'd struggled in the later stages on Sunday, although my distance was still rather unambitious - I've scaled back this week in recognition of (a) the conditions, (b) the fact I'm racing this weekend and (c) that I'm not eating terribly well at present. It ended up being the best I've felt since I've been here (with the possible exception of the first half of Saturday), due in no small measure to some high cloud that was around for most of the run. Actually had a bit of strength at the end.

I returned to some unexpected news: the barge was in a day early and the person I'd lined up to tow me out there in the early hours of tomorrow morning was looking for me. This made for a very hurried packing job but I'm not complaining. As one might expect barge arrival day is a big day in Kalumburu. Knowing that the car is on the way to Darwin (although not very fast - the barge has to wait for tonight's high tide to leave) is a relief - just have to get myself out now. If I'd known that the car would be gone today I might have been able to get out today myself, but I've already committed to flights on Friday. Still, the hard part's done.

C • Bad luck 6