Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Short one this morning (something longer is planned tomorrow), mostly on the walking track around the Kings Canyon resort - pretty rough underfoot in places and fairly slow going. Back iffy early but loosened up after the first 15 minutes. Did an out-and-back on the road to finish it off. Saw a dingo en route which definitely looked large enough to be capable of baby-snatching; it completely ignored me. (As Australians will know but foreign readers may not, dingoes are generally not dangerous to adults but have been known to take babies and small children (and sometimes not-so-small - the oldest victim I know of was nine)).

(Speaking of wildlife, I haven't seen a roo, dead or alive, since Cue - not sure if this is a consequence of a very dry season?).

The day's mission was to do the loop (the last significant bit of dirt road on this trip, in worse shape than the Great Central Road but still no great drama) which takes you to the far end of the West Macdonnells, then do as many side trips as we had time to do and still get to Alice in time for my 5.30pm Foot O Commission hookup. Final score here was Redbank Gorge, Glen Helen, Ormiston Gorge and Simpsons Gap. Lots of starkly impressive ranges (there's been an extensive fire through the area which makes the rock formations stand out more), gorges and waterholes, which persist even in a dry year (although my companion tells me they were a lot bigger in 2011).

Read somewhere today that there are supposedly 17 million flies on earth for every human. We were certainly absorbing a reasonable share of our quota today and yesterday. (Didn't seem as bad at Uluru, but I'm not sure if that was because it was cool, early in the morning, or there were more humans to spread the available flies between).

C • dingoes 3

Original plan was a swim at Yulara before leaving but the campground pool showed no sign of opening anywhere near its scheduled time of 8, so instead I decided to take my chances on the end of the day at our overnight destination, Kings Canyon. For the first 30 seconds I thought the main thing I'd be contending with was coolish water and the difficulty of seeing anything going into the sun - then I had some company, in the form of a busload of Lilydale High Year 11s (or thereabouts). We managed to stay out of each other's way and in the end I settled down reasonably well, although in the end it was a bit short, I think.

(Indicating that the demographics of the outer eastern suburbs of Melbourne are somewhat different to those of the parts of Melbourne I frequent, I had a look at the list of names on the back of the camp sweatshirt - only four non-Anglo names (and only one non-European one) out of 80 or so).

In between the planned swim and the actual swim was more spectacle, in the form of Kings Canyon and its rim walk - at first glance from below an impressive gorge but one which doesn't necessarily stand out from the many other gorges in the region, but once you're on top and in amongst the maze of sandstone domes (which I know others before me have fantasised about mapping) it's another world. The only sour note is that my main camera went off a (smallish) cliff, but (a) it ended up in a spot where I could retrieve it (and most importantly, its memory card) and (b) it was about due for replacement anyway.

Kings Canyon is in the George Gill Range. I speculated on the way there that maybe Mr. Gill was one of the financial backers of the Stuart expedition. I was almost right - he was one of the financial backers of the Giles expedition instead. (It seems that selling off naming rights to geographic features was a reasonably common way to get your exploring expedition funded back in the day).

One for the iconic runs department - a circuit of the base of Uluru after a sunrise viewing (in the company of several hundred others, although we got away from the heaviest of the crowds). Plenty of photo stops. Plenty of interesting micrometeorology as well - some strong winds around the ends of the rock as the southeast flow split around it, even though there was a light breeze at most once you were more than a few hundred metres away. A bit patchy as a run, although at its best later on. The advertised distance of 10.6k must include the side trips up the gorges as it was only 9.2 on my GPS (did a bit extra to get it up to the hour).

Walking Kata Tjuta in the early afternoon wasn't bad, either.

C • Envious... 4

From Warburton. Was originally thinking of something longer this morning (as well that I didn't as it turned out), but back wasn't great and quickly settled on "minimum viable session". Normally with these runs I like to do some exploration, but this being Aboriginal land, I wasn't sure where I could and couldn't go (the fact that the turnoff to the community is unsignposted gives you an indication that casual visitors aren't appreciated), so just went down the road to the creek and back, only swallowing one dust cloud in the process.

This was a prelude to a longer day on the road than planned. Original plan for the day was to camp at Docker River, just on the NT side of the border, tonight (before then doing the Olgas tomorrow on the way to Uluru), but we got numerous negative reports about the condition, and possibly the safety, of the campground, as well as positive reports about the state of the road beyond (previous online searching had led me to believe that the NT side was pretty ordinary, but in fact it was probably in better condition than the WA side: lesson - don't pay much attention to old social media posts about road conditions in the outback). This made us think that reaching Yulara tonight was feasible, and we did so, with the bonus of seeing the Olgas near sunset from the west (setting up camp at Yulara in the dark was a minor negative).

This was the day which provided the reward for the effort of the last three: the site visit at Giles, of course, but also some terrific scenery, particularly in the hour either side of the WA/NT border, in amongst ranges whose existence I had been unaware of until doing some background reading for this trip a few weeks ago. Have also made it to the other end of 1100km of (mostly) dirt road without incident; apart from one section on the way out of Kings Canyon, that's the dirt mostly done with for this trip.

Another morning session before hitting the road, this time in Laverton, a small town with quite a bit of mining around (and quite a few other deposits which proved to be less lucrative than their promoters hoped - this was the scene of the infamous Poseidon bubble). Not too much sign of the mining activity apart from an area of housing, but a few bits of evidence of the last outposts of farming - cattle were grazing right into town. This prompted a change to my initial route, which was occupied by a somewhat intimidating bull, but I eventually settled on a route west from town which worked out OK. A cool and windy morning; sluggish for the first 15 minutes but settled into a reasonable rhythm after that.

The rest of the day was spent on the Great Central Road; 560 kilometres of mostly dirt (although there were two bitumen sections, adding up to 70km or so, that we weren't expecting). As might be expected in the outback, the scenery changes were subtle but real, and evidence of fires was abundant (including a couple of new ones). The road was in pretty good condition which meant a faster trip than planned (could do 80 on most of it), which meant we got to our overnight stop in Warburton in time to visit the art centre before it closed. (I haven't made any new acquisitions, but I imagine my mother would have done had she been here).

Early-morning session in Cue, to the top of the hill which hosted the lookout and back. A very sluggish session where I was grateful for the opportunity of various photo stops, although improved a bit once going downhill. Also grateful I wasn't attempting to orienteer on the hill where the lookout was - the ground surface was almost 100% small loose rocks. A nice backdrop later with the green local oval and the red hills in the background (although I'm not sure who actually uses the oval since Cue's population, which if you take out FIFO miners would barely reach triple figures, is surely not capable of supporting a football team).

The day was to some extent a warm-up before the interesting stuff starts tomorrow: Cue-Meekatharra-Wiluna-Leinster-Leonora-Laverton. Meekatharra in daylight was nowhere near as dire as we'd been led to believe (although I suspect it's one of those places that turn into a werewolf after sunset), and I ticked off another site visit too. Wiluna, once home of WA's most productive police (it emerged at the time of the early 1990s Royal Commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody that the average annual number of arrests in the town was four times its population), was eerily quiet, as was Leinster, probably because the miners were on shift (or off shift and asleep) in the latter case. Saw lots of big mines (or at least the tailings piles thereof), not as many trucks as I expected, and managed the first section of dirt road on this trip, the Meekatharra-Wiluna section which was mostly comfortable at 80; I'll be pleased if tomorrow is similar.

Early session in the hotel pool before starting the trip northeast. The pool was of the sort that could be described as refreshing or even invigorating, and it took me a while to get used to it (I'd guess the water temperature was probably around 20), but settled down OK eventually. Longer than most hotel pools (20 metres) and even had a lane stripe, so not as disorienting as it sometimes can be. A bit slow but reasonable for a recovery session.

That was the prelude to the start of the next phase. My aunt's joined me for this (she flew in last night). Today was mostly covering ground I've been on before (in 2005), up as far as Cue, a destination chosen mainly because it has a good place to stay - an old gold-rush pub restored as a guesthouse - and other places in the vicinity don't. (Meekatharra, in particular, has got less than rave reviews). A fairly smooth drive with the main break being wandering around New Norcia, and only encountered one convoy of monstrous mining equipment, which isn't too bad by Great Northern Highway standards.