Eating up the Turf

It's great to be running again. Sometimes you really don't appreciate how much you enjoy something until you stop, then start again. It's true what they say, if you run (exercise) alot, you really do have more energy and feel better - well at least when you don't have sore muscles from the workout. Of course, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure that one out , do you? I went for a 13.2 km run yesterday with a mate. It was the actual course we will be running in two weeks time against the train. Overall, we found it pretty good, not too steep but just enough to be testing. It is a very beautiful area of Melbourne, lots of gum trees, valleys and rolling hills.

I'm back in NZ on Wednesday evening for work. I'm giving a two day workshop in Wellington and then I'm travelling down to CHCH for the weekend to catch up with the folks. I will send some emails out over the next few days so that I can try and catch up with as many people as possible. Although I am travelling for work, so it might be a busy few days.

Running again

It's funny, I had this really great and interesting idea for a blog post the other day when I was riding to work but now I've completely forgotten what I was going to say - it can't have been as interesting as I thought... Anyway, I have decided to get back into running again. Mostly because since I did the Wellington half marathon in June last year I haven't really been doing much exercise, well I've been biking to work but that has been about it. What really spurred me on to start again is the Puffing Billy race the train race coming up at the start of May. It's 13.2 km through winding up and down bush and to beat the train you have to run around 53 mins. At 4 min/km I think this would have been a pretty tall order for me, even when I was really fit last year. Anyway, I'm going to train hard for the next three weeks and give it a good crack. It should be a fun race whatever the outcome. What I missed most about running was the races. I really enjoy the competitive aspect of them, especially when there is a good sized field, you can always push yourself just that little bit harder to overtake the person in front of you.

Well I got a puncture on my rear bike tyre on the way to work yesterday and I still haven't fixed it. I better go do it now...

Otways National Park

In my opinion, it wouldn't be a proper long Easter weekend without a decent trip away to some remote wilderness and luckily in Australia and New Zealand one is never far away. Our friend's Anna and Damian booked out their share car for Friday and Saturday - www.goget.com.au, and we packed our bags and headed off to a B&B in a little country town called Forrest in the Otways National Park in Southern Victoria. Our hosts for two days were Sheryll and Brad, a couple who had moved to Forrest from Apollo Bay a few years earlier and setup this great big house as a B&B. It turned out that Sheryll and Brad were animal lovers, particulary birds, a list of some of the animals they have includes - two yellow crested cockatoos, one cockatiel, four million goldfish (inside and out) and most curiously of all a fox - yes that's right I'm not kidding they actually have a real live wild fox as a pet. Apparently, they found him sick as a baby and decided to rear him in captivity. Not everyone's cup of tea but hey each to their own right. Well, we arrived reasonably late on Thursday evening and were pretty tired after working all day and then a two hour drive. So we made some small talk for a bit then hit the hay ready to wake up energised for a couple of days in the country.

Okay now for a little background - The Otways is a beautiful mostly gum forest national park and unlike most of Australia they actually get some decent annual rain, usually around 2 metres which is impressive even by New Zealand standards. All that water has to go somewhere, so there are plentiful rivers, streams and waterfalls throughout the 13,000 hectare park. On Thursday Brad had mentioned that every morning he feeds the local parrot population. This is quite a novelty for me because in NZ, apart from the odd pesky Kea you don't tend to see too many parrots on a daily basis. The locals in this region included Galahs, Cockatoos and my personal favourite the King parrot. There were heaps of parrots having a feed on the porch and Brad suggested that I feed them by hand which was pretty awesome. For wild birds they were exceptionally tame, although the males seemed somewhat more relaxed around people than the more jumpy females. Having a parrot feed from your hand is pretty cool, and I reckon it was worth the trip just for that (see the photos below).

Okay my typing hand grows weary, but there is so much more to say. On Saturday we went for a couple of bushwalks - including the novelty of the treetop fly walk through the rainforest. This is a system of suspended steel platforms that take you up into the forest canopy, including a dizzying 47 metre high tower. We also managed to take in lunch near Triplett falls which although were a little low on water, still seemed reasonably impressive. And to top off a truly awesome day, we headed over to the coast to take in the sights of the Twelve Apostles - some absolutely amazing rocky monoliths standing in the ocean next to huge weather beaten cliffs.

On Sunday before heading home, we took a guided Platypus tour on Lake Elizabeth. We managed to spot about three of the elusive mammals and the trip on the canoe in the lake was a truly great experience as some of the photos below show.

How great are long weekends? We have had a great time already and there are still two days to go.