Day 12. 21/9/11: Dedman's Hut and Bore to Trezona camp ground
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| Lily on her bike |
A beautiful dawn greeted us after a cold night. Slept in my hoody it was that cold, but I could feel the heat on my back 5 minutes after the sun was up: desert weather. Late-ish start: 8am. But starting that bit later meant Lily had cut up the protein bars, and they're great. And digging a poo hole takes time. And admiring the emu that came to say hello while we brushed our teeth.
The ride was awesome. Undulating, rocky 4WD track the whole 16-ish kilometres, dipping down into dry creek-beds and climbing up to amazing views over the Flinders Ranges. With her bike in order - tyres inflated, seat up and tilted to not squish her girlie-bits - Lily enjoyed the ride much more. At one moment, after swooping down through a meadow of purple wildflowers, Lily spontaneously called out: "I am so happy we're doing this." One of the great things about riding and running with Lily is her ability to be genuinely excited by things: emus in particular, the beauty of the landscape in general.
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| Tim on his bike and some cracking views |
After some lovely swooping downhill sections, we got into Trezona campground. Lovely: big gum trees along a dry creekbed with some geological features that more astute rock-buffs would be very excited about. (This is the area where, in 2004, an entirely new period of history was declared. I forget what it was, but there are lots of different coloured, very cool rocks around.) Anyway, a quick change, toilet stop, reapply of sunscreen, half an orange and a protein bar later, it's 10am and we're just getting going on the run. Next time we'll be quicker, because the desert sun was climbing and, yes sir Boss, there weren't much shade out there.
We started out well, cruising up the first long and gradual uphill, then peeled off the Mawson to run along the Heysen for a while to get to a lookout over Brachina Gorge. The views were spectacular, but from there the run got steadily harder, especially on Lily's feet. Going up to the lookout was an uphill effort (who would have thought?!) and the whole day was spent on 4WD tracks which have been sprinkled with crushed stone. This plus heat plus uphill is probably the worst combination Lily running in Five-Fingers could ask for. My Merrell Trailgloves are still "minimalist running shoes" but they offer at least twice as much protection from that bruising and battering you get from rocks. So the pace slowed, but the track was still beautiful and even while we walked more than we had planned, we took some photos, chatted to some women out walking and made some videos of us running in such a beautiful place.
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| Us at the lookout |
It is weird, though: I still can't quite get my head around the beauty of pine glades and meadows of flowers set against the red dirt and rocks that seem so much more Australian, to my eyes anyway. And, as usual, we saw more emus and they, in their haphazard, bizarre and sometimes plain stupid way, dodged back and forth across the track while trying to work out how to get away from us. Anyway, we ran-walked through some of the hot part of the day and got back to Dedman's Hut at about 1:30.
After a quick packup and soaking of feet in some cool water, we drove around and set up camp at Trezona. We made shade, and Lily made an amazing lunch. One, she said, she had been dreaming about. The afternoon activity has generally involved lying around resting feet and legs, drinking water and Powerade, and reading. Tomorrow is more of the same: off-track beauty in warm weather, so hopefully we'll get away earlier to avoid the heat and some Mexican beans and rice for dinner will give us enough energy to fart our way through another day!
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| Amazing lunch |
Ride
Time (hr:min:sec): 1:21:14
Speed (kph): 10.44
Distance (km): 14.13
Run
Time (hr:min:sec): 3:14:03
Speed (kph): 5.76
Distance (km): 18.63
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| Tim's running shoes |
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