Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Mount Isa didn't feature in my plans A, B or C for this trip, but I ended up here following the execution of plan D. An aside from this was that I was expecting that, following this trip, Mount Isa would be the largest Australian town I'd never been to. Assuming that I pass through Rockhampton and Gladstone as planned later this week (and further counting the Central Coast as a single metropolitan area), this honour will, I think, fall to either Karratha or one of the Hunter towns (I've been to Newcastle and Singleton, but not in between).

Got some advice from Anthea about tracks on either side of the river on the way down to Lake Moondarra but had trouble picking them up with a few dead ends (plus in a place you're unfamiliar with it's hard to be sure what land is public property and what land isn't), so spent a fair bit of time on the Moondarra road, not too bad on a Sunday morning. Nice to have non-humid conditions for the run, although it's apparent that the airport is a real frost hollow - it was certainly nowhere near 3.4 anywhere that I was. The run was a bit of a struggle as the last few have been; I feel like I'm in the process of fighting off a cold. The last 20 minutes was reasonable though.

I didn't find the Hinze Bog. For those who are too young to remember him, the late, not-especially-lamented (and spectacularly obese) Russ Hinze was a Queensland minister with a penchant for naming things after himself; the Mount Isa council, which was definitely not run by the Nationals, decided to get into the act and named their new public conveniences in his honour. (One wonders what would have happened to all the things named after him had he not died before facing trial; the person who paid the bribe got five years so I think it reasonable to assume he would have been convicted of receiving it).

That set the scene for another long day on the road, with the first stop being Cloncurry. I didn't actually have to venture in there (the Normanton road turnoff is a couple of kilometres before town), but decided to anyway, reasoning that the NT plates on my car made it pretty unlikely I would be recognised. There is a big temperature display outside the Council chambers; it was somewhat ironic that it was reading about as far below the actual temperature as the 1889 reading was above (it was showing 18 and it was actually 24).

I've been reacquainted with one of the drawbacks of a dark-coloured car - birds have trouble seeing it. (Robw will probably recall a previous episode on a trip which was almost as ill-fortuned as this one has been). One managed to get itself very neatly wedged into the front of the car, providing some amusement for the assembled multitude at the next roadhouse as I had to work reasonably hard to pull it out.

Now in Georgetown. This was another long day but should be the last of them, and is my last night in the Outback proper. It will also probably be my last night camping, which is as well because I left my air mattress behind in Darwin - will have to improvise (probably not very well) with a beach towel and whatever else I can find.

C • Air mattress 6

Plan B was a morning side trip to Borroloola, making an already long day even longer. This was a 230km return side trip (although I was going to do 130 of it anyway to get to Caranbirini). Being in an unfamiliar car, I was a bit nervous about what its fuel gauge might actually mean and hoped the bit in the manual about the warning light coming on with 9 litres left was correct (it came on with about 40km to go). The trip meant leaving at the first hint of light.

Caranbirini Conservation Reserve is the smallest of the three 'Lost City' sandstone pillar formations in the general region, and also the most accessible (the other two can be reached by air or rough 4WD track only). My run this morning took in all of the walking tracks in the reserve plus a couple of other out-and-backs to get the distance up close to an hour, with plenty of photo stops. Very impressive country in the middle of the rocks. Felt fairly reasonable on the run, on rougher ground than I've been on for a while; a slight hamstring twinge but better than Thursday.

The rest of the day was spent accumulating distance - lots of distance. In the previous car I might have had to change my plans more; with no fuel at Cape Crawford, Borroloola-Cape Crawford-Barkly Homestead is 495km and I'm not confident I would have had the range to handle that, requiring either jerry cans or a 400km detour back to the Stuart Highway. The new car has a bit more range (on the evidence of yesterday, over 600km even at Territory speeds).

The eventual tally for the day was 1,064km (not including running), which I think is the first time I've driven 1,000km in a day solo. A lot of it was on the Tablelands 'Highway', just about the loneliest road I've been on anywhere - 375km of nothing. I saw 12 vehicles the whole way (only three of them without caravans). Most of it is a single lane of bitumen, in places the most uneven I've seen this side of Kazakhstan.

Now in Mount Isa. A cool evening is a bit of a shock to the system.

C • Lost City 3

Finally on the move again. Quite a bit of this trip (although not much of the last four weeks) has involved finding new and interesting places to run. Today was a variation on the theme - finding interesting places to swim. In this case, it was the natural pool at the bottom of Edith Falls, north of Katherine - about 150 metres across.

I was a little apprehensive before getting in because (a) no-one else was and (b) a young girl uttered the cr-word. (There are freshwater crocodiles here but there's supposed to be a trap for the dangerous saltwater ones). It turned out the reason no-one was in was that it was cold (by Top End standards - fine for ours). It was a nice place to swim, but there was one problem which one doesn't have chasing the black stripe down a pool - navigation. On one of the crossings I aimed for what I thought was a distinctive tree but was actually heading for its twin 30 metres away.

This was a break from a longish day on the road. Had an interesting moment on the way across from Daly Waters to Cape Crawford when someone decided to buzz me at very low elevation (like somewhere between 3 and 5 metres) in a helicopter - not sure if they were skylarking or trying to give me a scare. (Either way, I imagine there's a rule somewhere which says you're not allowed to do this).

Just when I thought things might have gone to plan for a complete day, I arrived at Cape Crawford, my planned overnight stop, to discover that they had stuffed up their ordering and wouldn't have any fuel until Tuesday. Not for the first time this trip, this required some thought about a plan B.

C • Swim across to the falls? 2

A long tough slog on another humid morning - something I won't miss when I leave town (something I'm still expecting to do tomorrow, unless there is a last-minute hitch with the registration paperwork). This run had two parts - the first section with Lachlan and Susanne, which took in Charles Darwin National Park (and sundry industrial suburbs which one has to pass through to get there), the second on my own up through Parap to Lake Alexander and back along the shoreline. Didn't feel brilliant at any stage. I've also gone from having a hamstring that hurts at rest but not while running to the other way around, although not very much - it was a little tight on the steeper downhills, of which there are not many in Darwin. (Hitting steeper country in eastern Queensland will be a bit of a shock to the system).

Part of the reason why I didn't feel great was apparent afterwards when I weighed in at 3 kilos less than post-run yesterday. As I would have lost some fluid on the run yesterday too, that suggests that I've lost somewhere around 4-5 litres of fluid in the two hours, more than I would have expected in such conditions. It probably wasn't helpful to be woken up on the stroke of 5 by what I thought was a building site next door, but actually turns out to be the depot of one of the tour bus companies (so lots of idling vehicles and reversing beepers).

I'm still expecting to pick up a new vehicle this afternoon unless there is a last-minute hitch (and none were apparent on speaking with the dealer this morning). If that happens the new plan is to head reasonably quickly across to the north Queensland coast via Mount Isa, Normanton and the Undara lava tubes, probably reaching the coast on Monday night, then down the coast (not lingering as much as I would have liked). The two major destinations that I'd hoped to get to but won't are Lawn Hill and the Daintree.

C • Undara 2

Picked the car up this afternoon. The last one had 2000km on the clock after the first weekend and so will this one (but this time Bruce won't be driving half of it). Posting may be a bit sparse the next few days.

C • woohoo! 1

Morning run, with SusC for most of it. A fairly smooth run, exploring some new territory on the south side of the urban area including the unimaginatively-named waterfront suburb of Bayview (not a place I'd like to be in a storm surge). The most humid run yet here but seem to be coping with the conditions, on a run of this length at any rate. Hamstring soreness has now vanished outside of runs as well as during them.

I've finally decided that I've had enough of waiting - even if the old car is deemed repairable (unlikely) I'm going to leave it here and sell it anyway. I bought a new one this morning; hopefully the registration paperwork will be done in time for me to pick it up tomorrow evening before the start of the long weekend, and leave first thing Friday. Keep your eyes open for a dark grey Forester with (at least for the first few weeks) NT plates.

(The contents of my wallet were just enough to satisfy registration ID requirements. Unfortunately there is no points value for articles in the NT News with your picture on them).

Speaking of the NT News, I was a bit surprised to see a law-and-order story not of the going-to-hell-in-a-handbasket variety - featuring a senior Darwin policeman expressing his satisfaction with how few crimes Darwin's youngsters had committed during the recent school holidays.

Evening run from the office after work, heading out to the Rapid Creek shoreline (where half of Casuarina seemed to be out fishing, it being high tide). Felt a bit tight but otherwise not too bad, and coped with the conditions well. A sea breeze helped.

Still some soreness in the hamstring area when standing/walking but none when running. I think I've worked out what I did - the couch has a protruding piece of metal on it and I think I rolled onto it while sleeping on Sunday night causing some bruising. One of the more bizarre injuries of my career if so. Decided to give intervals a miss today just in case there is something wrong with the muscle (although there is no sign of tightness) and do something slower.

This was a pretty standard central Darwin run - north up the coast to Lake Alexander and return. Lake Alexander was apparently created to give the locals a croc- and stinger-free body of water to swim in; not sure how much use it gets. Felt pretty good despite the humidity (dewpoint 21).

Woke up with a sore right hamstring, which was puzzling - it wasn't the same area as that which was troubling me on the weekend runs, and in any case I'd had no sign of post-run soreness on either day (including during quite a bit of walking yesterday). I almost didn't go out at all, but thought I'd at least start, if only to get some more intelligence on what the injury actually was.

Bizarrely, it stopped hurting as soon as I started running (and started again as soon as I stopped), and this actually flowed pretty well. A straightforward circuit of the central city followed by a loop up to Mindil Beach, where there was still quite a bit of evidence of yesterday's festivities.

Swim at Casuarina. Hamstring no problem in the water but didn't try to push off too hard. Swim was pleasant enough (and the time passed because I was mentally wrestling with a quirky statistical problem that lobbed into my inbox just before lunch).

Noticed that the pool will be closed for maintenance next week, which hopefully won't affect me (but I wouldn't bet on it). At least I know what the hold-up is now - the assessor wanted the workshop to strip the engine to confirm the extent of the damage and this is a pretty time-consuming job. This doesn't make the hold-up any more frustrating (and I'm getting increasingly concerned that a further spanner might be thrown in the works by the local public holiday for Darwin Show Day on Friday).

My piece ended up in the NT News today. The headline was on the strong side but the text itself was a reasonable representation of what I said, which is all you can really ask for. It wasn't a terribly visible piece as it was next to a big splash on the day's Territory Driving Atrocity (a woman who blew 0.28 after crashing her car with a baby on her lap - fortunately without serious harm to anyone concerned). I'm waiting to see a report of an incident with the full bingo score of five - unlicensed driver with no seatbelt speeding while drunk in an unregistered car. Quite a few with three out of five so far. Strangely no-one seems too perturbed that the NT's per-capita road toll is four times the national average and double that of any country in the developed world.