Cradocktoberfest

Two dogs and a pub. Looks Oztraya!

Day 27.  Hawker to Cradock

Lily's blog post has been divided into two sections. 1. Things that suck and 2. Things that are awesome.

Section 1: Things that suck

i) Not being able to run because of a poxy sprained something or other.

ii) Having my period.

That's enough of that, then.

Section 2: Things that are awesome!

i) We left the Hawker Caravan Park!

Nuff said.

ii) Tim's back on the Trail.

He ran from Hawker to a spot just outside Cradock this morning. I was support crew, having chopped up oranges and powerade ready to feed his hungry mouth when needed. We arranged to meet roughly 13kms into his 23km run.  But the Mawson Trail stopped displaying the usual Mawson Trail markers, so we were both a bit confused. Luckily we had just enough information to go on to meet up. Hoorah! I'd had to leave the van at a gate and walk about 2 kms in before we found each other but it was lovely to see the big fella appearing over a crest in the road. Particularly as I was being circled by a rather hungry looking wedge-tailed eagle at the time (or maybe it was the cow carcass he was after...).  Oranges eaten, powerade slurped, Spanish lesson exchanged and Mawson Trail located (or so we hoped), we went our separate ways. We met up again at a gate another 10kms on, as the Tim runs.

iii) The Cradock pub. Like an oasis in the desert. It's pretty much the only thing in Cradock, other than an old sandstone house, some sheds and an old sandstone church. We'd been looking for somewhere to camp for the night and thought we might be able to tuck in next to a creek or something. We saw the pub and thought...mmm coffee (or was that just me?). As soon as we walked in we were welcomed by a woman eating her lunch at the bar: "Not from round here are ya? Hee hee, I can tell cos there are only 7 of us living in town" (I thought: are you allowed to call it a town if there's only 7 of you? What does a population have to be to be considered a town in this country? What happened to 'village'?). We had a natter. She was nice. The owner served us (although he asked another woman to make the coffee "I can't work this thing...") and we had a natter, too. His wife came in. Their son. All lovely. All up for a natter. It turned out they'd only had the place 8 months. We told them we thought it was lovely. I guess they already knew that, but it was true so worth saying! We told them we were looking for somewhere to camp for the night. They said we could camp in their paddock. Awesome!!!

If you look closely you can see the van parked out the back. That was us for the night.

iv) Being entertained by a couple of ladies over dinner. They'd only met each other a year before but do a bit of travelling together every now and then. Quite different characters, Janet: louder, chattier; the other: quieter, cynical and a bit grumpy (but a bit fake-grumpy. Like she's been taking notes from the TV show Grumpy Old Women). They shared their travel stories, we shared ours. We talked about TV shows (Janet likes her murders), teaching Indonesian (that was just Janet). We had a few glasses of wine and Baileys, ate a massive amount of food and went to bed. Very happy with our decision to pull up in Cradock.

Tim's bit:

It was great to be out running again. To have a support crew and to just be moving forward made the morning lovely. Hard for Lily. The frustration and disappointment are obvious. Being support crew isn't the role she wanted or dreamed about. She's smiling and doing a great job with the oranges and gatorade!

On the run, it was nice to not have markers so often. It turned out that the Mawson Trail has moved, bypassing part of the track we had planned to meet up on. As we only had one map, I ran without it and had to follow my memory of roughly where the trail went: a bit more east here, more south there, past a ruin, then another track towards a ruin I don't want to go to, onwards... up hill. It was nice. In a way it made me look more closely at what was around me. It also made it feel like it wasn't all given to me on a platter and I had to be able to read a map, which was satisfying. (Of course, a few kilometres into the next day, when I saw the sign at the other end of the detour describing the new route, I felt a little less clever. Still it was nice to do while I was doing it!)

Beautiful church in the distance or junkyard in the foreground.
This is one of those "cup half full" tests.

And first day back is always fun - fresh legs and a chance to cover ground without feeling it too much. I ran the whole thing in two sections, only stopping to eat, drink, walk and chat with Lily (at first going back where we'd come because she thought I must have missed the turn, then back the way she'd come because the turn wasn't sign-posted).

Weird highlight of the run: seeing a cow carcass that still had the skin on but was old enough to have dried. It looked like a cow skull wearing a cape made of leather as dry as paper. It seemed weird and unreal, like a prop from a theatre production, but lying in the middle of nowhere. And that being in the middle of nowhere - running through this big space without another person in sight (no cars, no roads, no houses...) - is something I really enjoy.

Seeing Lil at the end and moving on to the Cradock hotel, hanging out, losing pool, chatting with one bitter teacher and another excited and passionate one (kind of like being in a staffroom): a good day.

My what big eyes you have!
(Lily does red riding hood.)

Run

Time (hr:min:sec): 2:32:34

Speed (kph):

Distance (km): 23.63