a sort of holiday

There's a 24 hour rogaine down at Grimwade, near Donnybrook. Our first rogaine since corona-lockdown. Time to pack for a night in the bush... not.

Friday, we drive to Donnybrook, to the Donnybrook Motel. Why do we choose that motel? It's the only one in town.

It's a very nice motel: clean, comfortable, warm. It's Winter, warm is important.

We eat dinner in Donnybrook. There's an Indian restaurant across the road, we avoid it. Neither of us can stand Indian food. The Riverside sounds good: steak or fish with salad or veggies. We walk.

It's a cold walk! Deb likes to walk after dinner so, too bad, we walk.

To the Riverside. Where we are greeted by an Indian(*) waiter, the chef is Indian, the background music is Indian. Deb has fish and salad. I try the special, butter chicken. Which is spicy, not too spicy, and delicious.

(*) Maybe Indian. Maybe Pakistani. Probably Australian.

We walk back to the motel, where we sleep in comfort.
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The event site is a half hour's drive, we don't need to rush. I fill in some time letting the butter chicken rush through. Twice. Yes, I tell Deb, it's still spicy.

We drive to the event. It's a beautiful drive, through rolling forest and farmland. The car gps tracks our route, to be followed (yes, in reverse) when we leave.

It's a perfect day for walking, cool but fine. There are plenty of tracks and rumours of blackberries. I spend a quarter hour planning a route to follow (mostly) tracks and to get back before sunset. Before sunset but after the Hash House has started serving food.

The rogaine starts at noon. We follow a horde of people to the first few controls, then we move to a less popular route.

And the butter chicken strikes again. Yes, that was me, squatting in the bushes in a quiet spot... though not as quiet as I hoped. The passing team carefully avoided making eye contact.
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The rest of the day is less... exciting. Of the butter chicken, only gas remains. Deb keeps clear.

We follow tracks and have no problems. In fact we make good time and go to a high-point control which we had marked as "optional". It's off the tracks, well into the bush. But no worries!

We are doing so well that we add two extra controls and still get back to the HH before dark.
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At this stage we should be eating dinner and settling in for a night in the tent. We do eat dinner... then drive back to the Donnybrook Motel. Buying food for breakfast at the 24-hour bakery. (Bakers are baking, it makes sense to be open to customers.)

Aahh! the comfort of a motel. Aaahhhh, the warmth :-)

After a very comfortable night -- including hot showers -- we drive back to tbe rogaine. To start walking just after sunrise.
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Three emus wander across the road!

Another fine day for walking. Temperature (in daytime) is 10 to 15 C. Chilly till we get moving. There's a patch of light rain, late in the morning. Again, we mostly follow tracks. Yesterday we walked past some blackberries, today we see none. We see maybe a dozen other competitors in the four hours we are walking.

The final leg is three controls in an almost direct line back to HH, through bush. No trouble with the first two. I set the compass to the third...

This third control -- our last for the day -- is on a creek. We reach the creek. Is it to the left or the right? Left, I say. Right, says Deb. I'm the navigator so we turn left.

Turns out, we should have turned right.

We miss the control by 50m. We find a track, identify the bend we are on, turn back. And miss the control by 50m. We give up and head back to HH...

It's a sure sign that I'm getting tired... Walking to that control I always aimed off a bit -- then forgot which way I had aimed off. So didn't know which way to turn at the creek.

Not to worry! It's a low-point control. The only control which gave us a problem. We continue on, back to HH with ten minutes to spare. A very enjoyable rogaine :-)
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We're tired, wet and cold. Deb is damp, mostly from rain, before she put on a raincoat. I've been dripping sweat for hours, as I always do. (I walk in shorts, thermal and shirt and accept that I will be hot and wet. Then cold and wet when we stop walking.)

We have no tent to pack up. We don't wait for the presentations. We leave just a few minutes before the event closes at noon. I've changed into dry clothes... but we drive with the heater on full. Aaahhh, bliss!

We stop... somewhere... for lunch. I'm sure we stopped somewhere, I just have no memory of where(**). No memory of stopping, either. Which is why this journal should be written as soon as possible, before the memory fades...
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So we arrive home, satisfied but tired. After much walking -- and several hours sitting still while driving -- legs are stiff and tired and aching. "Recovery" the next day involves an hour and a half splashing in the pool with our grandson. My legs no longer ache but... no surprise... are still tired. So the day after... we're back to running. Forty minutes... Not recovered but feeling better :-)
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On the two days of the rogaine we walked 22km and 15km. If we have a secret, it's to keep... on... walking. I find it hard to believe -- the country seemed to be flat or gently rolling -- we ascended 2000m. (And went down the same...)

Results are not yet on the web but we have heard that we won our category. At worst we came second, with only two teams in our category: male/female and all team members over 65. It's a great sport for getting old.

I overlaid our gps trace over the competition map. It all looks good -- except for the ridiculous effort round that last control.

And good news for Deb: I hardly swore at all.

A good weekend all round.

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(**) I'm doing the obvious check: looking at credit card payments. We stopped at Boyanup, the Old Boyanup Bakery. We drove via Dardanup & Boyanup, quieter and more interesting than the main highway. A light lunch at Boyanup followed by a quick dash back to the truck as heavy rain came pelting down. It was a *mostly* fine weekend :-)

Nick Lethbridge    /    Consulting Dexitroboper
Agamedes Consulting    /   Problems? Solved.
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When all else fails, have someone else read the instructions" … per Ginger Meggs