Training Log Archive: jennycas

Who wants to go orienteering when it's 35 degrees? I told myself that this was basically like the Warrumbungles rogaine only without fighting through thick scrub. Certainly it was very open easy running, not that I ran anything which wasn't downhill for fear of overheating, and even a 500m leg seemed like a very long way on my legs. After the halfway control, where we'd been able to leave our own drinks (because it was near to the start/finish) and so I could pour some water on my head, I could see that I was gaining on a couple of people so tried a bit harder, but couldn't manage above a jog. Back at camp, we did go in the swimming pool to cool off, but it was so frigid that the Darwinites were out of there in less than 5 minutes!

Went east this time into the flatter country - up to the northern crossroads, across the highway to the Riesling Trail (bike path along old railway line, surprisingly boring), south along it for 3km, across the highway past the bakery (The Little Red Grape, from whence we subsequently procured breakfast) and then back to the cottage from the southern crossroad. Already seeming warm in the sun, and as we drove further north it became more so. Took back roads from Wilmington across the WIllochra Plain because I wanted to check out the rogaine-potential of the Horseshoe Range west of Carrieton - a perfect pound, with currently-green hills and flourishing wildflowers after the rains a fortnight ago - but we didn't go all the way to the homestead which promotes camping and 4WDing, as we were headed to the crowded campground @Rawnsley where SLEH had already set up their tent next to FTPM and LMSH.

Woke up a bit headachy (possibly from the wood smoke which permeates the cottage and which the air freshener may be attempting to camouflage) and when two coffees hadn't made much difference, decided to run across the Skilly Hills over to Spring Gully Conservation Park and get G to meet me there so that we could walk to the cascades - which didn't have any water falling despite an inch of rain earlier in the week, but the wildflowers were lovely, especially the purple sun orchids. SGCP is quite near to Skillogalee but for once we didn't lunch there as I'd made a booking at Pikes Slate Restaurant, where the food was truly excellent (and priced accordingly) and we lingered until 3pm, giving us enough time to then go through Mintaro Maze (fun, but not worth $15 each) and come back to explore/photograph the garden where we're staying, in the last of the afternoon's springtime sunlight.

http://theheritagegarden.com.au/ has over 2000 rose bushes all lovingly labelled and only about 1% of them are in bloom currently but I'd think that if we were here in 3 weeks' time the rosiness would be overwhelming. As it is, current timing is perfect for their avenue of crab-apple tree snow-blossom and the wisteria purply overhanging everything is pretty good too :) Plus they have a quince orchard; the produce therefrom is sold to Maggie Beer! I am very envious because our quince tree at home has brought one whole quince to fruition, two years in a row. But its current crop of flowers do seem promising...

C • :-))) 9

After facilitating the girls spending the morning with one set of grandparents, and farewelling them off to stay with the other grandparents, G & I headed for the Clare Valley where I'd booked a B&B near Sevenhill for a couple of nights. The olde-English garden smells beautiful even though the roses aren't out yet, but the 'rustic' cottage smells a little too strongly of air freshener (I am very fussy about smells) so I went out for some fresh air and followed the laneway to the west up & over the range. Google Maps shows that you can get through to the road in the next valley, and the gardener when I asked him, didn't tell me that I couldn't, so when the gravelled lane ended but the fenced surveyed road continued as grass & trees, I continued through them, and when I crossed a fence through to the end of another gravelled lane on the west side, was a bit surprised to find that it was somebody's driveway - oops. Probably won't take that route again tomorrow, then! But it was a good way to work up an appetite for dinner at the pub :)

12 hour day of gardening-until-the-rain-set-in-and-then-house-cleaning, after which E&H (and their dad) came for a sleepover. The girls seemed to think that Adelaide is a lot colder than Darwin, so we put the gas fire on for them...

From the north end of 'town' the Walk The Yorke signs pointed beyond the jetty and I had thought there might be a trail, but in fact the route just followed the shoreline, so I headed northeast along the beach for about 15 min then turned around. Which was much pleasanter, say, than going along the highway, which the WTY seems to also do in places, although mostly it follows either coastal back roads or the actual coastline.

Headed home today with parents, stopping to admire the 1882 lighthouse at Corny Point (so named, apparently, by Matthew Flinders because the headland looks like a corn on the toe of the 'foot' of Yorke Peninsula...) and passing through various miniscule seaside communities where invariably, Geoff pointed out the location of a house or few for which he had previously delivered the framework!

Marion Bay is very much the gateway to Innes National Park, so it made perfect sense to go for a run in the national park this morning - to Stenhouse Bay, which is about 5km via the main road and more like 7km by the Walk The Yorke trail which basically takes a fire trail/parks service road so was fairly easy going, with amazing coastal views and plenty of emu sightings (one family had 9 chicks). At beautiful Stenhouse Bay I headed down to the jetty (originally built for the gypsum works at nearby Inneston/Marion Lake) then did a lap of the campground in a futile search for water (long drop toilets only) before heading back, but the roadway was glittering in the sunlight and I kept stopping to pick up and marvel at gypsum crystals used as road base, so came back to the cabin with a handful of 'geological specimens'.

When we headed back to Stenhouse Bay with parents later in the morning, the water was even bluer and in fact it was a perfect day for exploring the national park: lighthouses and shipwrecks and beaches, oh my! I haven't been down this way since the 1996 SA Champs rogaine, and had managed to bring the original map from that event with me so this added interest to the day's explorations - but I think it would be just too physically tough and scrubby an area to traverse these days, even if national parks would give us permission to traipse across the sand dunes. As it was, my main memory of the 1996 event is of a bunch of us fighting our way through ti-tree going in circles trying to find a salt pan, and in the end someone from another team climbed a tree in the hope of catching a glimpse of the lake!