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Published: October 6th 2008
We last updated you about New Zealand, but, we’ve moved on and have been in Australia for over 3 weeks. We first arrived in Sydney and spent nearly 2 weeks with Nick’s Auntie Jeanne and family. Being so far away we’d only met a couple of times before and it was great to get to know them better. They really looked after us and we thoroughly enjoyed our time with them. Thanks very much guys!
We did the usual sights around Sydney, the Blue Mountains, the Harbor Bridge, opera house, botanical gardens, Cook’s landing at Botany Bay, Bondi Beach and the list goes on….
The Sydney Marathon was on while we were there so Jen ran in the half marathon and Nick did the full marathon. Neither of us had ever run so far before and we were apprehensive about the heat, hills and the distance. Both races started early, really early in the morning and we were up at 4am to get to the start line. Jen’s race began first, the course starting at the harbor bridge and, 13.1 miles later, finishing at the opera house. Jen did it in 1hour 48 mins and she was delighted to
have completed her first half marathon! Nick wanted to do a good time in his first marathon and he ran alongside the 3 hour pacemaker for over 2 hours. The course was very hilly and around the 20 mile point Nick hit ‘the wall’, sudden, high and painful. People were collapsed or puking up at the side of the road and Nick was just grateful all he had were leg cramps. He finished the race in 3 hours 13 minutes and was also delighted with his time.
Nick ran the race in a Liverpool top hoping spectators would shout words of encouragement about the reds or scousers or something. However, the only comment he got was “come on Carlsberg, go the Danish!” Nick was disappointed!
A few days after the race we hired a car and drove north to Brisbane. We stayed a night at Newcastle, then North Beach, where we went for a moonlight stroll along the surf, and another night at Byron Bay. (Ah, Byron Bay.) We took it easy, relaxed on the beaches, soaked up some rays and unwound with coastal walks.
From Brisbane, we decided to do some voluntary work on a fruit
farm and took a 3 hour coach journey in land to Kingaroy, a small one horse town close to nowhere. Robert, the farm owner, collected us from the bus station and drove for another hour along a red, dusty trail more like a BMX track than a road. The 60 acre farm was remote, really remote, and in exchange for us helping out Robert put us up and fed us. We worked about 5 hours a day feeding the horses, watering the green house and olive trees, weeding the substantial veg patch and pruning trees around the property to maintain a fire break. He taught us about organic gardening and permaculture and in our spare time we sheltered from the scorching sun, read, picnicked and watched DVDs.
That's the good stuff. Robert was plain weird and if you've ever seen the film Wolfe Creek he was a lot like that mad man. He had strange views like how the Chinese are direct descendants of aliens who came to earth when Mars exploded thousands of years ago and he sighted the similarity to the Roswell figure as real proof! He lived an isolated life, mostly because he seemed to dislike
society and loathed corporations. Living with him was a real experience!!!
We stayed a week on the farm and are now glad to be back on the coast where it’s a little cooler. We’re currently at Hervey Bay and we’re off the Fraser Island tomorrow.
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Leo
non-member comment
marathons
Hi you two, Love the eccentric farmer fella. Dont be too hard on him! He he I'm so impressed with your respective running feats. Especially if you haven't done those distances before. And respect to Nick for doing it in a Liverpool top (not ideal long distance running clobber). Come on Carlsberg....Give it some Danish!