Training Log Archive: jennycas

Parked at the junction of Tilleys Hill and Brownhill Creek roads with the intention of a longer run but thought I may not have quite enough daylight for the Crafers loop if I also wanted to inspect the waterfalls in the national park. So I headed up Pony Ridge singletrack - there are twice as many switchbacks as before because of a new set near the top - then up Sheoak Rd to find the official Belair rain gauge on the hill top (looks like the graffitiists had found it long ago) and came down through the park past the only-just-falls then from the top of Pony Ridge stayed on Sheoak Rd all the way to Belair Triangle, MTB singletracks down alongside Old Belair Rd, shortcut through the cemetery and back upstream alongside the creek, which was slow going because muddy/slippery and also getting dark.

I would have gone out a bit earlier but had ended up spending a few hours going through old Hundred maps of the Terowie area with my parents, in conjunction with the Deceptive Lands history and the Sargent family tree books, in order to work out that my grandfather's great-uncles took up some sections just south of Franklyn (surveyed, but the only building ever erected there was the church/school) township on the plains between the ranges in the northern end of our ARC map; an area which the rogaine-setters had nicknamed the Dead Marshes - and I've now realised that the ruins on Holder Rd which we passed by each time on the way to the northernmost water drop were in fact James Sargent's homestead from the 1880s.

C • History 7

The junior boys came back from their run burbling about having found the film set (and been told to go away by someone who thought that the guys were about 12 years old) up Queen's Jubilee Drive so then I convinced Z & F that we too should go up QJD to see what there was to see, only when we got there the girls weren't keen to go along the singletrack where the action was - so all we got to see was some floodlit portaloos, the makeup tent, and a bain-marie setup of which a rogaine hash house would be envious.

Yay, I have my car back :) And in enough time for a jog along the foreshore from Somerton to Brighton & return, before it got dark. So nice to be driving my own car, which doesn't BING every single time I accelerate over 50km/h!

2x 2kmish tempo loops of Plane Tree Drive with a couple min recovery in the middle. I'm even further behind the group than I was last year :(

Definitely a bit weary in mind & body but it's nice to escape from mask-wearing at work.

Not in a good mood today with all the news of restrictions but needed to work off the giant cinnamon scroll which had ended up being both lunch and afternoon tea.

C • Sorry... 2

Had planned to ride my bike to orienteering but it wouldn't stop raining at home this morning, even though not that heavily. So I drove the bile-mobile of embarrassment (horrible yellowy-green loan/rental car while mine is finally being repaired after the Emu Incident) after all and this meant my legs weren't too tired to run reasonably hard although not at a pace that would mean stacking it on wet pavement/grass.

Fun little map and courses from Dante, who'd put a lot of work into mapping the school (unfortunately a small path through the garden bed to our first control didn't make it from his fieldwork on to the final map and that caused a bit of confusion, but no big deal). Certainly there were many good micro-route-choice legs and after the map flip I still had to focus on going around the correct building even if it was now somewhat-familiar territory. Have to admit to being guilty of stepping across a garden bed myself because I was so confused by the presence of a tiny bit of fence blocking the path I'd intended to approach it by - can now see that fence on the map but it wasn't at all readable at running pace. Oh well...

After spending a few hours on field-checking/map updates for Mitchell Park, decided to go see how well the waterfall on the side creek in Sheps was falling; quite well, and then I followed a slippery footpad downstream to another vigorous cascade but the path deadended thereafter and I had to scramble up the hill through the olive trees. The main creek's flowing emphatically too, because of how much rain's fallen at the top of the escarpment e.g. Belair Triangle, the past couple of days - more than higher uphill in the national park (plus the waterfalls up there actually have quite a short catchment).

C • Olive tree scramble 2