Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Early session in Coober Pedy, out along the Oodnadatta road - didn't seem to get very far but distance can be deceptive in this country. This takes you past some of the old-school bits of Coober Pedy (i.e. people living in randomly dug holes in the ground); when I last visited in 2013, I had the sense of a place some decades past its glory days, but it doesn't seem to have declined any further since. The run itself was reasonable by my recent standards, and handled something which was a familiar experience in my Heidelberg days - an uphill finish (of sorts).

The first 250km of today demonstrated that we missed absolutely nothing in 2013 by doing Glendambo to Coober Pedy in the dark (the only interesting sight was four caravans in a circle at a rest area; perhaps they had read too many accounts by early explorers and were anticipating an attack by hostile natives?). From there it was getting distance behind us, and gradually getting into more settled areas (towns less than 100km apart? ABC radio reception?). Finally saw something we hadn't seen in nearly 5000km since the Swan - a running river, even if it's one which is running less than it should be. Staying at Renmark tonight - fittingly, on a boat.

C • Nothing 3

A nice one on a chilly morning - perhaps the best I've felt on a run this year, although still fairly slow. Up the river to the Telegraph Station and back, with a bit added on at the end to take it up to an hour. The Telegraph Station was a site of interest to me for two reasons: it was the site of the Alice Springs observations until 1932 when the premises were required to provide a home for what became known later as the stolen generations (I have been occasionally known to refer to our correction for this site move as the "watch Andrew Bolt's head explode adjustment"), and on my only previous visit to Alice Springs in 1990, I ran a local cross-country race there and had an excellent duel with an Aboriginal kid (of maybe 14-15? a few years younger than me at any rate) who surged and floated in the style normally associated with Kenyans. I thought at the time that he seemed a serious talent and sometimes wonder what became of him.

One thing that was different to 1990 was that the bed of the Todd River was almost unoccupied, although I'm not sure if this is a permanent thing or just a response to the cold night. (Previously on a trip to Katherine, I noticed that on the second night there when the humidity dropped, a precursor to a cooler night, the Aboriginal camp that was on the riverbed moved up to the top of the bank, indicating a knowledge of small-scale meteorology which probably didn't come from reading Trewin (2005)).

Indulged post-run in that very Melbourne thing, a cafe breakfast with the Bureau's representative in Alice Springs, before spending the rest of the day on the road - less scenic than the last few days, although the hills last longer than I thought they did, essentially to the border. (One thinks of Alice Springs as being almost on the border, but in fact it's almost as far from Alice Springs to the border as it is from Melbourne to Wodonga). Ended up in Coober Pedy.

First time I've put together six days of running in a week for a while.

C • Todd River bed 2

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).