Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Morning run in Katherine. Lachlan had given me a map showing some interesting rock around the reservoir - although I'd been warned (correctly) that the vegetation at this time of year wasn't good for cross-country, I thought a track run would at least give me a look at the rock. However, it was apparent that some areas which weren't specifically marked out of bounds were clearly private property and I couldn't work out a way around the reservoir which I was confident was legal (and this isn't really a part of the world you want to get this wrong), so headed back into town and along the river for a while as long as the main bridge. Feeling reasonable but not special for most of it, but picked up a bit later and stretched it out a bit further than I was originally going to.

Headed up to the gorge to do a walk (nice country, although I suspect you need to go further in for the most stunning views), then set out westwards (with some impressive rock/cliff country around the Victoria River crossing, not the last of this I'll see this week) before turning south off the highway for a campsite in Gregory NP near the Buchanan "Highway" (of which more later) to set me up for tomorrow's plans.

C • Victoria River crossing 7

Morning session around the Nightcliff shoreline before cutting back through the suburb. A nice setting but the run itself wasn't great, improving somewhat in the last 15 minutes which I guess is a good sign. Saw a crowd next to the path at one point and wondered if I'd stumbled across the local parkrun, but they were actually queueing for plants for sale. Probably the most humid I'll deal with running on this trip (25/15) - it looks like heating up a bit again next weekend but by then I'll be starting to head south - but managed it OK.

Left Darwin after lunch, but not before experiencing a couple of local icons - laksa at the Parap markets, and seeing a croc-related headline in the NT News (with a pointer to a UFO story for good measure). I'd been reminded of another local icon last night at drinks after the talk - I asked if the box was to collect cans for recycling and the answer was no, it was to collect cans for the Beer Can Regatta (I guess that's another form of recycling). Ended up in Katherine tonight, after going the slightly longer and more scenic way from Adelaide River to Hayes Creek and making a side trip to Edith Falls (impressive as always).

Heading west tomorrow. Suspect I won't be online a lot between now and Tuesday.

Another new venue for me (at least in the winter, I've run around the clifftops before) - the Nightcliff pool, perched on the shoreline. Thought it might be busy when the car park was quite full but most of them were there for the cafe next door - it was too cool for locals to be in the water (it dropped to 19.2 last night). Most unusual feature of this pool (apart from its location) is that it has two shallow ends and a deep middle, which I was going back and forth in. Not a bad session.

Today was the work day of the trip, going through site history files and then doing a talk later in the day. The former included the slightly disturbing discovery that Aboriginal people were being referred to as "natives" in Bureau documents as recently as 1975.

Also successfully negotiated the Casuarina shopping centre (to get a watch battery replaced), something which I'd been led to believe from some of what I've read or heard here was only marginally less perilous than a traverse of Bakhmut.

C • Two shallow ends 1

When I planned to stay at Mataranka Homestead, part of the plan was for today's run to be along the riverside path. This plan disappeared last night when I saw a sign saying that it was closed under the 'Elsey Crocodile Risk Management Plan' (in fact, having seen the Little Roper River further up at the road crossing, I suspect that bits of it were still inundated).

The only obvious alternative seemed to be to go out the access road. I'd slept sort of OK despite the room (if not the neighbours) being even worse than the previous night - I don't think it had received any maintenance this century - but my back wasn't great walking around and I didn't expect much. I was wrong - this settled well after the first few minutes and turned into one of my better runs for a while, on a very pleasant morning for it (sunglare was the only issue). Not really much traffic until the last few minutes when caravans started coming out.

Today was the final run into Darwin, easy enough with the highlight (or perhaps lowlight) being the cafe in Katherine who, not long after I entered, decided they had more customers than they could cope with and closed up for the day at 10.30 (can't imagine a place in Melbourne which did this would last very long). Headed to Mindil Beach in the evening with Susanne, Lachlan and family; there were rather more people watching sunset over the ocean than there had been in Karumba.

And today's run route isn't the only plan that's changed: my original plan to get to the Bungle Bungles was a 4WD day tour from the caravan park at the track entrance, but both caravan park and associated tours are closed until 1 July (apparently because the new owners didn't get their paperwork sorted out with the traditional owners soon enough), so I've bitten the bullet and forked out a suitably vast amount of money for a fly-in/fly-out tour (I guess you only live once). This might also advance the rest of the schedule, although that could be influenced by weekend fuel availability on the Tanami, which I have seen conflicting reports about.

Morning session in Tennant Creek, essentially a circuit of the town. Hard work in the first 10 minutes but started to settle OK after that, until I made the mistake of going into the southeast quarter of town. Tennant Creek has a sketchy reputation, but it wasn't the people which were the problem, it was the dogs - had to stop and walk a couple of times and generally try and stay out of their way, which rather made a mess of whatever rhythm I had.

Hadn't slept that well - I was staying in what appeared to be second-hand mine site accommodation, which was reasonably spartan (expected) but seemed to stop absolutely no noise coming from next door (not expected) - all I can say is that if this is typical of mine sites I'm glad I don't work in mining. Didn't seem to affect me either on the run or on the road, although in the latter case today was a somewhat more relaxed day, finishing up with some time in the Mataranka thermal springs. Declined to stop at 'Famous Fran's' purveyor of baked goods in Larrimah - Fran is famous for more than her food, having been alleged to have organised a hitman to make another local who was annoying her disappear (naturally she denies it).

And I ticked Tennant Creek off the site list today - six to go. The site itself is an easy one to find (at the entrance to the airport), but the real discovery of the day was finding what appears to be the remnants of an instrument screen stand at the old telegraph station, the site prior to 1935.

Today's route went past a lot of bores, and looking at the map revealed that the naming of some of them followed a certain theme - there's the Ian Chappell Bore, the Rod Marsh Bore, the Hadlee Bore, the Doug Walters Bore and the Bruce Laird Bore (Bill Lawry gets a tank). Personally, if I was looking for cricketers of that vintage to associate with the word "bore", I'd probably have gone with Geoff Boycott or Chris Tavare.

This morning's plan was intervals in Mount Isa alongside the racecourse, but (perhaps because of the relatively early start) my back wasn't playing ball. Not having really come prepared with a plan B I then proceeded to pick my way through various fairly random blocks of urban Mount Isa (noting in the process that the more desirable real estate seems to be on the higher ground, although the least desirable of all is probably in the northwest strip of town which can be downwind of the mine). Run improved a bit later on, as these ones sometimes do.

This set the scene for a long day on the road - I knew when my plans for yesterday changed (I'd originally planned to be in Camooweal last night) that this meant an 800+ kilometre day either today or tomorrow. Once across the NT border one can facilitate this process by adding 10% to one's speed (at the price of 10% extra fuel consumption), though I was wondering if that was going to work early on after crossing the border because parts of the first 50km in the NT were severely potholed - was much better after that though. Not the most exciting drive in Australia but no issues.

Once at Tennant Creek, my options were to go to the Devils Marbles either late today or early tomorrow. I thought I had enough time to get there and back without returning in full darkness (and had heard that they were at their best in the late afternoon light anyway) so thought I might as well go for it. The rocks themselves are not so different (apart from the red colour) from what many of us are familiar with in orienteering granite areas, the unusual thing is (a) that it appears suddenly in the middle of otherwise featureless terrain and (b) there are a lot of rocks scattered across a flat plain in addition to the low hills. Biggest surprise of the day was that I got out of the car to be greeted by the Canberra family mentioned in Saturday's entry (I didn't think they would come this far this quickly, although I guess they didn't have the side trip to Burketown), although it did mean there was someone there to take my photo...

Early session in Burketown, as with yesterday sufficiently dry as to barely sweat (certainly didn't expect this on my visit to the Gulf Country), and again windy. Started through the back of the town, diverting a bit because of wandering dogs (an occasional issue in outback towns - it often gets associated with Aboriginal communities but from my experience applies as much in white-majority ones; Burketown's a fairly even split). An out and back on the road north of town to make up the distance. Fairly typical of Monday sessions after longish Sundays, taking a while to get going, improving a bit in the second half but never great.

A brief stop to look at an information sign revealed that Burketown, like Normanton, lays claim to being the setting of 'A Town Like Alice' - I haven't read it so can't provide further comment. (Alexis Wright's 'Carpentaria', which I have read, is definitely set in Burketown and surrounds).

After a coffee at the Morning Glory (a very unsurprising name for anyone who knows the local meteorological phenomena), I hit the road. The first 270km was spent retracing my steps from yesterday, which at least provided experimental evidence of how much higher my fuel consumption is with a 40 km/h headwind than a 40 km/h tailwind (about 20%, which is more than I would have expected).

Cloncurry (and Mount Isa) were not in my plans for the trip but became so because the Gregory Downs-Camooweal road is still closed (adding about 400km to the trip). Many of you will know that I have some history with Cloncurry (including a verbal stoush on national TV with the aggrieved mayor) after debunking their claim to Australia's record high temperature. This didn't deter me from entering town (if nothing else I needed fuel), although I did not enter any of the pubs to see if my picture is on any dartboards therein. (Maybe they don't care as much about it as they once did, because the sign at the town entrance laying claim to the record which was there in 2009 isn't there now).

Cloncurry to Mount Isa is a scenic 120km through the hills (a marked contrast with what came before), although I'm not sure it quite qualifies as "one of Australia's most stunning drives" as claimed by a sign at the halfway rest area. On Anna's recommendation I had a look at the abandoned mining town of Mary Kathleen although the creek crossings were too rugged to get into the former mine site itself.

Quirks that I noticed: both the Burke Development Road and the Wills Development Road go into the Gulf, but it's the Wills, not the Burke, that goes to Burketown (the Burke goes to Normanton). In fact Burke and Wills didn't go particularly close to present-day Burketown (their final camp before hitting the mangroves was about 40km southwest of Normanton), not that there's anything new about things being named after Burke and Wills in places they didn't go anywhere near.

The advantage of the diversion was being able to get a swim in at the end of the day at the Mount Isa pool, just outside the entrance to the mine (hopefully I didn't breathe in anything that was bad for me). A relatively mundane swim, except for the bit where two of my toenails got tangled with each other and I couldn't get them untangled without standing up - definitely a first.

Supposedly locals get charged less than non-locals but they only charged me the locals' price anyway. Getting out the staff member present was commenting on how cold it was but I reserved comment so as not to blow my cover (it was mid-20s in the air, and quite warm in the water, I'd guess 28-29).

Was thinking I'd do something different to a pub (or similar) for dinner. In food terms I did, but Mount Isa's town centre after business hours doesn't really have the sort of vibe which encourages you to linger, so I got takeaway from one of the Thai places.