The parkrun nomad: Bunbury Big Swamp

 



Saturday morning at Big Swamp. A beautiful place to run



Yes, they have been running for a while

Love was in the air at this parkrun as a couple got engaged the day before. In the pre-race chat the happily engaged pair received a large cheer from the crowd. Did I mention it was the day after Valentine’s day?



Yeah mate!! and I went on my knees and all

I was very surprised to find a large South African community at this parkrun who seemed to have a lot of fun picnicking and taking photos of each other. Even the children were speaking Afrikaans.



Evidence of love

Running along Big Swamp is a thing of beauty. All sorts of birds and other critters shot away during our run. The trail features a lot of trees, bits of forest and the occasional small bridge thrown in.

A volunteer told me that there were many plans to run the course at the Bunbury Back Beach but there were too many safety concerns with such a course.



The barefoot Mathematician

What has parkrun got to do with mathematics and science? Well!! We met a teacher of this subject who told us that he calculated that wearing shoes would slow him down. Now he runs every parkrun barefoot.



Smart business move

We saw proof that the business community have woken up to the parkrun phenomena when a coffee van rocked up for some hefty early morning trade. A nice way to spend your Saturday morning anyway.



Anything for a caffeine hit

The Big Swamp course has a two and a bit loop and I was warned by the locals of a large looming hill in the course. Half way through the first loop I was wondering where it was? Having passed the finish line and immediately into the second loop I found it. Yep, a pesky little rise taking the rhythm out of the run. The third time I went up the slight incline it had become a serious oxygen killing mountain and just about blew me off the track. Watch out for that hill I say.

 



I am waiting for the boss to finish his walk 



Parkrun is and remains a family activity. This also counts in Bunbury where I found people of all ages participating in the event. Many prams with or without children in them frequented the course. Many well-behaved dogs waiting for their owners at the finish line or are dragging their owners around the track. Everyone it seems was busy chatting to someone and that included us two parkrun nomads.



A runner at the finish as the race director watches on

 

Grey Bits

 
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The feet of marginally increased velocity


Thanks to parkrun community Bunbury for making us feel welcome



Take stock of another fiftieth run

Parkrun 120 had 64 participating runners and 5 dogs.




The all important tail, in this case, walker. Well done!

The first day flash back

 

 

Finally…. all is done. House sold, garage saled, friends goodbuyed …  again, family hugged and tears flowed? Marcel and Julie, in the end, after a lot of planning became semi grey nomads.




Finally... the road is ours

You bet we were excited leaving Perth to find adventures and new places for us to explore. We had a vague plan to catch the rear end of the wild flower season in the wheat belt, North of Perth. All was going great. I got over my nerves towing such a big monster van out of a busy place like Perth, music  was playing loud and a last minute balancing bar straightened the caravan beautifully for a smooth ride.

We stopped at the town of Bindoon, which proudly displays the large sausage that we thought looked more like a giant colon or a “turd on a truck” Never the less 15 metres down the road, our first coffee of the life style change, was still tasting great.

Driving towards New Norcia we came across our first set of hills and we noticed our wonderful  newly purchased used Ford Ranger was struggling to get up the hills carting a large load. In fact, she was slowing down to a disappointing 60kms on the upward slopes. In a zone, clearly meant for driving one hundred, we were blocking a string of 10 tail-gating cars. It seemed like they were trying to commit hara-kiri on the back end of our van or wiping themselves and everyone else out with perilous overtaking moves. This contributed to the uncomfortable paranoid, self-conscious state slow-going caravanners feel. I will never, ever complain again (or worse) when sitting behind a wobbly van on the road.

Our wobbly van

 

Chuffing up one of these hills, all of a sudden the engine kicked out of whatever it was I was telling it to do. Several lights started flashing on the dashboard like a glow-worm party on a dark night. One second we are surging forward, the next we dropped lamely to wet rag status. Our car had developed a severe case of turrets syndrome.



Our car close to the edge

This is when the need arises to have that discussion about staying calm and enjoying every moment of the trip. Even if our car has turned into ‘Kevin Bloody Wilson’.

We check the manual and adding all glow-worms together we come to the conclusion that we have to stop. At a convulsing 30 kilometres per hour we cuss into New Norcia and pull up at the roadhouse. We realised we have to stay overnight and find ourselves lucky that the roadhouse provides camp spots on the other side of the highway only three hundred metres away. Timidly, and as not to offend our car any further, we gently encourage her to stumble onto the oval and temporarily laid her to rest.

 

The New Norcia monastery



The roadside assistance came only two hours later and the jovial mechanic fixed the apparently common problem for this make of car within 15 minutes, by chucking a bit of tape around some melted wires underneath the driver’s seat. “Good to go around Australia mate” he pronounced, to our disbelieving ears.

We stayed four more days in New Norcia which turned out to be a great place to visit. We shared a fire with two sets of hilarious grey nomads that owned the same vehicle as us. Sometime later we spotted them laying underneath their own cars checking for melted wires.
 



The view from the old bakery

The bakery sold us with some beautiful fruit bread and more discussion took place on how not to blow the budget next time. New Norcia was also the place when this stingy Dutchman asked the lady behind the tourist counter for a semi grey nomad discount. Bewildered, but surprisingly she gave us $5 off the price of entree for the town tour. The monasteries and church were interesting places to visit. Breaking down in New Norcia must have been divine intervention.



The church at New Norcia

Grey Bits

It may pay to check if the hand break of the caravan you are towing is in the off position. I will deny profusely that  I may have possibly caused those cables to melt over the exhaust by leaving the break lever locked in.

Learn to drive your car properly before your journey. We found out five months into our trip that we had something called a “sports” mode. This appears to be the automatic setting for when you are towing. Our brilliant car also has something called a “six speed” shift. This great, little, important feature allows you to gear down before a hill manually but without a clutch. A nifty invention that prevents your car from overheating when towing a caravan that may or may not have the breaks on.

 I was told by a reliable source that ladies like to drive clutch-less not clueless or crotch less.

Get yourselves a membership with some cool roadside assistance, especially when travelling beyond the black stump. We were lucky that New Norcia is near civilization.

 

A Camino shell. Maybe we should have walked

Be prepared to spend a long time waiting for assistance. We could have become grey nomads by the time help arrived.

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The parkrun nomad: Geograph bay

 

 

The parkrun banner flapping in the ocean breeze

 

 

‘People in the country are so friendly’! How often have you heard that? This was my first experience of participating in a country parkrun and was the smallest I ever had the pleasure to sweat with.

 



Busselton jetty in beautiful Geographe Bay

 

 

From the moment I arrived to the moment I left, people chatted with me about all sorts. I was told straight up how easy the 5km course was. Just a ‘there and backer’ traversing along the beautiful Geographe Bay in Busselton on a flat, bitumised, shared track. I was told by the locals how beautiful it would be running along the ocean and I did manage to have a quick squizz at the gorgeous beach. Sight-seeing is very difficult to do when you’re pumping out 5ks flat-tack.

 

 

 

 I believe she made it to the end

  

 

The striking Norfolk pines that I saw at the start of the track were also planted in many other locations throughout Western Australia, a long time ago to replace broken masts of ships frequenting the waters of that time.

 

A closer look at a Norfolk pine

 

One young man, who was obviously heavily involved in the organising of the parkrun, offered us free showers and internet access at his place whenever we wanted. His property was close to Canebrake Pool ,which is part of the Rapids Conservation Park where we were volunteering as campground hosts at the time.

This young man is looking to scan his barcode too

 

 

While chatting to a lady behind the scanning desk, I was told that one of the volunteer jobs of parkrun least likely filled was that of the photographer. I was glad to be able to take some photos for this friendly bunch.

 

The run director on the job

At the end of the race we stood around chatting to Ian – he told us that he suffered from a brain hemoarage a few years ago. The road back to running was a long and hard one and almost impossible for this 73 year old. He told the story about the nurses during his physiotherapy, kicking his legs forward to assist him to walk again. During the run when I was on my way back I yelled out at him ‘pretend the nurses are kicking you again’. He grimaced and kept going – what an inspiration!

 

Ian churning out another parkrun

 

A good coffee after a solid workout is very necessary and we met some of the parkrunners in the luxurious café along the foreshore overlooking the Jetty. 

 

The view from table 92 at the restaurant

 

 

Thanks to all the runners and volunteers of Geographe Bay parkrun for making us both feel welcome.

 

 



 Grey Bits

This great parkrun was number 63 for Geographe Bay - 76 runners attended and James ran his 50^th.

The website with its usual information about where and how to get there is as followed.    http://www.parkrun.com.au/geographebay/

The current trail starting from the sea rescue building will be moved back to closer to the Busselton jetty once construction of the new car park and skate park is completed.

 

Nearly there

 

 

 

 

The turtle transcript. Part 3, letting go.

A Loggerhead turtle can weigh anywhere between 150 to 450 kilos. If it is your job to stop the turtle you can expect bulldozer type force pushing against your hands. The stopper, wrestler, anchor or whatever you call the person, has the job to prevent the turtle from going back into the water before it is tagged. We were shown a technique to stop the turtle, which is pretty much the same as catching a footy with soft hands. Hold your hands up in the shape of a W and place them over the eyes of the turtle. Her neck will snap back, retracting in its shell with enormous force. If you happen to get your fingers caught between the head and the carapace (shell) you can easily break them. If you have your fingers anywhere near its mouth, expect a crocodile like chomp on your pointers. At the end of our time on Turtle Beach we became very quick at tagging so that this ‘stopper’ technique was rarely needed or perhaps for a few seconds only. If we were caught out by an alert turtle, we would move with her sideways on our knees through the sand until she faced back to the dunes - we could then uncover her eyes. We were always looking to lessen the impact we had on the turtles.

The large head of a Loggerhead turtle

The scribe, administrator, manager or whatever you would call this team member, has the job to write all the data that is thrown at her/him from all angles. You have to be aware which beach you are on at all times (1-5), take notes on the size of the beast and jot down old or new tag numbers. This job required extreme precision and care because this is the valuable data the researchers are looking for; the purpose of us being on Dirk Hartog in the first place. This turtle tagging data has been collected for the last 15 years on DHI – they are looking for the size and health of the turtle population nesting on Turtle Beach. Writing data down on a sheet in pitch black by the muted light of a red head-torch is not easy. 




Julie scribing in the dark with head torch

The tagger is just  known as the tagger. It is the taggers job to reload the pliers with the tags, get on hands and knees in the sand, find the spot between the first and the second scale of the front flipper and aim the tag at the soft, squishy batwing. Hand crunching strength is needed to make sure the tag clasps properly. A misfire happened on the odd occasion and once or twice a tag had to be removed. This wasn’t a pleasant feeling for the team or the turtle. Nobody wanted to hurt these beautiful ladies at all or as little as possible. It spurred us on to work faster, better and more precisely.



Can you spot a tag?

I must say, that night four had a special feel to it. Walking around in star-lit serenity was magic. A thin slither of the moon made our torches unnecessary. The weather was beautiful and temperate. Our three man ‘Dong’ team (short for Dugong and given to us by Officer Locke as this team were all seegrass eating vegetarians). Steve, Marigula and myself left the troopy to tag on beach 1, 2 and 3 in a great mood. Our arrival on beach two was met with several fresh tracks up the beach and several turtles already returning. We swung into action and for an hour and a half it was just turtle mayhem, tagging one after the other. Sand was flicked by flippers, pits were fallen into, turtles were spun away from the beach, pliers flew through the air, sweaty bodies smacked into each other and numbers were dictated sharply into the night. We all knew what needed to be done and we were on the go. After a short breather, we walked onto beach 1 where I could not believe how many turtles were coming and going. Frantically we tried to keep up with the traffic jam. At one stage it became confusing which turtle we had already tagged and we had to refer back to the long list of recorded tag numbers. I forget how long that burst of turtle action was, but it was tremendous being near these prehistoric, grand ol’ ladies. When the loggerhead jam eased, we sat down on the beach having conversations ranging from the deep and meaningfull to the utter ridiculous. I am still trying to work out how Marigula could see the shape of an elephant in the stars. Sometimes the short spaces of quiet were broken by a yawn and a “sorry”.

Marigula admiring the grand ol' lady from a respectable distance

Steve went to count the tracks on all five beaches and we caught up with the carnivorous Cuvier team at beach 1 and waited for the sun to come up. When it finally became light, tranquility was personified in all shades and colours of the spectrum. What does that mean?  It was a ripper of a sunrise!!

In the first daylight on beach 1 it became clear what kind of a night we had as the beach was completely covered in turtle tracks.




Evidence of the night we had with the ladies

On the end of one of these tracks was one last lady turtle laying her eggs on the beach. “aren’t you going to tag this one?” I was asked. It just didn’t feel right. We all sat down in the sand at a respectable distance from the laying turtle and watched her every misting move. A feeling of calm and awe came over me and I hope to have shared that with my teammates. After a hectic night of hunting down turtles like terriers, this turtle was not going to be tagged. She was going to elegantly finish her natural calling. The old girl was going to be let go in peace. Discretely we took photos of her long misting session and her return to the water took a wonderfully long time, while her skin colours and reflections in the water, slowly became visible in the brightening sky.





She was truly beautiful

 

Grey Bits





Sometimes a rock got in the way

... she had to be patient


 

... waiting for the wash of a bigger wave
 

 

... and then finally disappearing into the ocean
 

Some nights the tagging was a bit slow due to the turtles numbers being low. If the decision was made to wait for  a turtle to finish laying her eggs we got comfortable by shoving our back-sides forward and backwards in the sand. This process became known as “scoot’n”.

Turtle tagging is a physical game. I estimate that we walked over ten kilometers mainly through soft sand every night. We climbed over several  rocky outcrops and handling a large turtle can be very physically demanding.

On quite a few occasions a turtle raked its carapace edge over my foot. With several hundred kilos of weight behind it, this could have hurt easily were it not for the steel capped boots I was very pleased to be wearing.

If you don’t like to wear sand in your boots or up your undies, I recommend you wear long pants during the nightshift.




You can wear more casual gear during the day

In the day time we were sleeping until 12 noon. Earplugs and those airplane eye-patches could come in handy. Or you could bring two pirate eye patches.




Thanks Steve for all your hard work

Turtle tagging on Dirk Hartog Island is done in January. I hear it is difficult to get in if you are not invited or know someone. You can try to contact DPaW if you are keen to give turtle tagging a shot. Contact Phone (08) 9948 2226 or click on the following links www.sharkbay.org, www.dpaw.wa.gov.au for more information.



Thanks to all the volunteers for this unforgettable adventure

 

 
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