Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Up Shit Creek and lost.

Okay, so there's lost, very lost and then there's up Shit Creek without a paddle lost.
And this just about sums up our monthly social trail run with SARRC. on Saturday.
The plan was to run the  27.6 km. track which joins the Lavendar Trail with the Kidman Trail and over Mt. Beevor. You know it's going to turn ugly when folk driving to the starting point get lost badly.



The Chubby Hubby and I did well and found the start very easily, this being our only moment of glory for the whole day.
My short lived confidence crashed and burned very quickly as we parked our car near the first gate to be passed through.

One lady arrived and managed to get her car bogged in the mud. After being pulled out by Chubby Hubby Mike with his 4WD., she decided that was enough for the day and went home. GOOD DECISION !!!
The weather was totally lame. Freezing cold, windy, continual rain with hail and storms predicted. Plus it had rained heavily overnight so all the trails were very muddy.
I know I bang on about the weather but here in South Australia we are known to be the driest state in the driest country in the world. We've just come out of 5 years of severe drought and so this rain business is a bit of a novelty for us.

A bright and sunny morning. NOT !!

Anywhose, about 30 trail runners set off with loosely  accurate maps and with absolutely no idea where we were or where we were going. Things turned  tricky quite early when all our maps disintegrated in the heavy rain.
Chubby Hubby, BIL. James and Moi started well and we covered the first 13.5 km. in just over an hour. Susi No Bum and her Chubby Hubby got lost finding the start so we began without them, assuming they would catch up with us.


BIL. James and the Chubby Hubby.

I provided some entertainment when climbing over a fence. I lost my footing, slipped and sat on an electric fence !!!  OUCH ! Now that's one way to get all fired up and run faster. But I think I prefer coffee.
All jokes aside, these electric fences are meant to deter cattle and not dumb blondes !
The electric  shock didn't hurt, just felt like a huge thump in the chest and I was thrown and dumped unceremoniously at the feet of Chubby Hubby and BIL.
Now I didn't expect red lights, sirens and all the bells and whistles, but some sympathy would have been nice. DH. was about as much use as dog balls on a canary and everyone else just laughed.

DH. and Moi climbing another fence. Carefully !

From 8 km. on we did not see another runner all day. Everyone went their own way and got totally lost. Susi No Bum and her Chubby Hubby  never caught up with us or found us. They became badly lost but were fortunate enough to find a road with a signpost. As they had no idea how or where to continue they phoned their daughter to come and rescue them. He He !!! Loosers.

Nice view but no idea where it is.

Meanwhile back in our group things were not good. We followed a few runners footprints in the mud, but when those prints disappeared into a dam we were stuffed. And if those runners are still in the dam well they're stuffed too.
These guys were of no help.

 ????




 At one stage we were thinking we might need to spend the night in these deserted homesteads. Again , no idea where they were.




When Mike and Sue finally got back to their car they phoned us to ask if we needed rescuing. Nice idea but at the time we were stuck in a paddock full of cows and not a track or road in sight. And we were totally clueless as to our whereabouts. 

I'm happy to tell that we finally limped back to home base having covered about 35 km. instead of the 27, and seemed to be part of only a few who actually made it back and covered the entire course.



Sue and Mike kindly waited until we got back safely.
Then the final hoot ; we got lost driving back home in the car.

Thanks for dropping by
Cheers Karen.



7 comments:

  1. Sounds less like a trail run than an episode of Survivor Outback. I'm glad that you made it home in one piece.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Lovely pictures Karen! OMG, you fell on an electric fence!?! That hurts me just reading about it:) I grew up on a farm and we had electric fences.....ouch!

    I need to find a race like the ones you do. I know that I would have fun:)

    ReplyDelete
  3. I think you should have taken Black snake gate as some sort of omen and stayed in the car.

    ReplyDelete
  4. What do you do for fun you mad fools. OMG I shivered just looking at the pictures.The creature with the flag has got more sense than you lot.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thanks to this post I will never enter a trail run without 3 or 4 personal guides! Don't worry about the Black Snake, he is a brave member of the Black Knight Army.
    Thank you for the wonderful t-shirt, I put the picture on my blog.

    ReplyDelete
  6. great post. whats an extra few kms on a long run anyway. very cool pictures

    ReplyDelete
  7. I'm a Twisted Sister , geographically challenged but proud of it !!!

    ReplyDelete