Swimming 27:00 [2] 0.75 km (36:00 / km)
Headed up to Mildura today to deliver a series of talks to the Council and the community. In doing the preparation, it was clear that in this part of the world, as in much of southeastern Australia, 1997 is a major breakpoint (after then, maximum temperatures take off and rainfall drops away in the cooler months). I've long thought there was a certain symbolism in my first trip on the Melbourne-Mildura route, on 27 March 1997, on the way to Easter at Broken Hill - with the company of a massive duststorm for most of the last 300km into Mildura, which I sometimes think of as the symbolic start of the long drought (much as I think of the floods of 1996 Tasmanian Championships weekend as the symbolic end of the previous wet epoch). I'm sure many other Victorians who did the trip will remember the dust, too. I had a picture of it as my opening slide.
(In another nod to personal history in this part of the world, the shirt I wore for the talks today was the one I bought in the local menswear shop in St. Arnaud on the way to Warren and Tash's wedding, after realising on the way out of Melbourne that I'd forgotten to pack one).
The flight up was early enough in the day that trying to squeeze in something beforehand would definitely have tested my early-morning capabilities, and I knew I had some time to spare before my first engagement at 12.30, so my plans were to do something once I arrived. That part did go more or less to plan despite the shortcomings of airport transport - there is no public transport to Mildura Airport, and apparently the town only has 14 taxis which isn't really enough to cope when three flights arrive near-simultaneously (I eventually shared a ride in and hope that Australia's taxpayers appreciate the $25 I've saved them) - and I also remembered my swimming gear this time, unlike the last time I was here.
The mid-morning pool crowd is a bit different to the early-morning one - in between swimming lessons and aqua aerobics, I suspect I was the only person in the water (other than instructors) between the ages of 8 and 60. Started slowly but gradually built into it. Noticed three-quarters of the way through that my towel had been moved, and thought I'd better get out to check that the locker key wrapped in it was still there before resuming - in the process of which I got a massive cramp in my right thigh, something I've never had happen to me before while swimming (foot cramps are quite regular, but not there), and bad enough to make me grateful that it happened at the shallow end and not in the middle of a large body of water. Quickly decided not to go back in once I got out (which I eventually did via the ramp); the affected area didn't feel right even several hours later. Presumably this all has something to do with my lingering something-like-a-cold; it certainly isn't because of excessive exercise or excessive heat this week (and I don't think there's been anything particularly unusual about my diet lately either).
On the positive side, the talks went well (and the Council itself was a less challenging audience than I'd expected, given what I'd heard of the mayor's climate scepticism), my throat more or less held out through three one-hour presentations, my hip seems to have improved enough today that I'm willing to try it out on a bit of a run tomorrow, and I indulged in a sporting feast this evening, taking in the soccer, the AFL and the NRL on side-by-side screens at the Mildura Working Man's Club (yes, it's still called that). This establishment used to be in the Guinness Book of Records for possessing the world's longest bar, but sadly said bar, like (probably) some of its patrons, fell victim to the pokies.