away along the trails

Deb and I spend the weekend in and round Collie... for trail running.

Friday: We drive down. It's only a couple of hours so we start a bit before lunch. Before? Well, we want to (and do) stop at Stirling Cottage just before Harvey. The Cottage is now a cafe -- surrounded by beautiful gardens. We often stop there. Today we stop for lunch.

We eat on the verandah, looking over the gardens. They are beautiful. In a pleasant, peaceful, off-season-for-flowers kind of  way.

On to Collie, where we are booked into the Collie Ridge Motel. I usually try for isolated, self-catering accommodation. This year, all our favourites are fully booked. The motel is comfortable and quiet.

After some serious relaxation we head off to the first trail run. It starts at Harris River Dam, just twenty minutes out of town. The run starts at 6:30pm -- just after sunset.

I worry that Deb will fall over. She does. Deb worries that I will get lost. I do.

We do the run "rogaine-style": I run in front with my hand-held torch. Deb follows me, with her powerful head torch. Deb can see me -- and tell me when I (twice) turn the wrong way. Her torch shines past me, to light my way. the trail is marked by reflective markers. It all works well.

It's a beautiful night for a run (Though the pace I set is closer to a walk :-) The bush is peaceful (except at the start and finish, where there is a noisy generator and a couple of hundred people being happy. The run is just under seven km. We finish in one hour 22 minutes. A very enjoyable evening.

We drive home (ie back to the motel) and pick up Chicken Treat on the way. We were lucky that they were still open. They had run out of roast chook. No worries, I had "fried" -- very similar to KFC but much nicer.

Every few years I eat KFC, to keep my disgust fresh. This Collie fried chook is similar -- battered, fried -- but  fresher and tastes much nicer.

Now, tired, pleased and fed, we sleep... after removing the leftover chicken to an outside bin. A good taste -- but not a smell that we want to sleep with!

Overnight, there is heavy rain. Next day -- Saturday -- is drizzly. Forget the Saturday run -- we relax :-)

For lunch we each have a bread roll from the Collie "French bread" bakery. The bread is delicious. Mine is a "Continental roll", full of salad and antipasto. I don't like antipasto but the roll has a good mix. A hearty, tasty meal -- more than I can eat.

Saturday dinner, we eat in the motel restaurant. I have "spicy ribs" -- more barbeque sauce than spicy, nice though. We both enjoy dinner... with dessert :-)

Sunday: another trail run. 5.4km in 55 minutes... I'm pleased with my result -- just two minutes slower than Deb :-)

After the run -- there's a geocache near where we are parked! It's just a short way along the Bibb Track. With a magnificent view of a large lake (part of the dam?) with a huge cliff beyond it. So glad we saw it!

Sunday afternoon, we walk to the Coalfields Museum, just a few hundred m from our motel... luckily, because the museum is closed. We walk a bit farther to the Visitor Centre -- also closed. But we do admire the old steam engines parked outside. Amazing huge things, with some interesting histories.

We find a second cache. This one with with a ghost story (but no ghost). There's another cache -- somewhere on an old army tank. Too many possible hiding places... we quickly give up.

Walking back, we're tempted by some metal cut-out birds... I refuse to buy because the woman in the shop tries a too-hard sell on scented soaps. She insists on squirting hand-cream on our hands. It takes me several washes to get rid of the smell... I don't like scented stuff on me.

Deb decides on fish & chips for dinner. A search for "Collie fish and chips" shows on shop... so we go there  :-)

View Fish and chips, on View Street, surprisingly :-)

There's a l-o-o-ot of grease on the f&c -- yet it is all really delicious! Another lot of food wrapping that quickly goes to the *outside* bin.

Monday, we start with a full breakfast at the motel. I have some problems...

Deb picks a table, I just follow. I look in the dining room and can not, quickly) make sense of what's there. So it's easier to let Deb point me in a sensible direction.

We have poached eggs, bacon, toast, beans... I can cut it all up but can't get anything to balance on my fork. Forget it... I eat with a spoon. It's still tricky but, at least, possible.

It's a good meal but tricky :-)

We pay up, pack up, head towards home. It's been a very pleasant weekend :-)

We stop for morning tea at our other favourite café on SW Highway, Edenvale Homestead in Pinjarra. The weather is a bit cool and windy, so we sit on the sheltered verandah. Drinking coffee and sharing a lemon tart... yumm :-)

Finally... home again. And home is -- unsurprisingly ... much the same.

Dr Nick Lethbridge / Consulting Dexitroboper

...        Agamedes Consulting / Problems ? Solved

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"It is not certain that everything is uncertain." ... Blaise Pascal===

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