Down Under Down Under
⬅ previous ⬆introDay 21 ~ 11 Jan - Melbourne to Home
It's Saturday, and did I mention, by the purest coincidence (hah!), we are just a few minutes' walk from Melbourne's Albert parkrun? Are we going to do it? Am I going to ask any more rhetorical questions?!
Parkrun traditionally starts at 9am, but here in Melbourne they move it an hour earlier because of the heat. It's a clear blue sky and already far from cold, so this seems like a good idea.
Hebe and Harriet (left) are going to join us running. Dinah and Tilly are going to give us moral support from a nice shady spot. Huh!
Ok, obviously neither Amanda nor I will be taking any pictures while running, and it seems that our supporters have better things to do, so I'll have to go search the parkrun Facebook page to see if I can find any actions shots of the three of us...
These rather blurry crops are the best I can find. The originals aren't great, to be honest, but they are all we have.
Finished my third Australian parkrun in two weeks! Most intense parkrun activity I've ever engaged in!
Hebe, unsurprisingly, has left the rest of us standing (well, me standing, Amanda and Harriet sort of shuffling) by comparison.
Hebe: 24:18
Amanda: 28:24
Harriet: 29:34
Steve: 32:41
We will later learn that with 1114 finishers, this is the biggest parkrun in Australian history. The event report also says, "95 finishers were 60 years or over, including 5 completing their first-ever parkrun and 4 recording PBs.", Hey, I'm one of those four. A PB for Melbourne, that is. Yes, it did get bloody hot. It's very reminiscent of Poland a few months back, in that it is potentially a very fast course, but the heat is murderous.
The black swan is the parkrun mascot here.
After parkrun, we have some coffee and a spot of breakfast, then we walk back to the hotel to shower and change before checking out. Our flight isn't until much later, though, so we leave our bags at reception and Uber it back to the seaside to meet the others at a cafe for lunch.
We arrive a little early, so take a walk along the promenade, bumping into Jo doing the same.
How it was then...
And how it is now. The former picture may be slightly idealised, of course.
I'm not quite sure why Jo isn't in this picture, and I don't have a final farewell shot of all the sisters at all.
And so with some slightly tearful hugs, we depart for the airport.
Melbourne Airport has some very curious products.
YOU WHAT???
Words do fail me at this point.
Goodbye.
A spot of dinner and we'll raise a glass to Australia.
Aha, a plane. That's always a good sign. Next stop Singapore, then London, then home.
We do have a bit of a delay, though, and our turnaround at Singapore is a bit tight. We should be ok, but there's not a lot we can do now.
But what's this? I thought millions of children would die instantly if nuts were served on a plane nowadays! Fortunately it seems no medical crisis transpires requiring an emergency diversion to some place we've never heard of.
We do have to leg it a bit at Singapore, but we make our connection with fifteen minutes to spare, and the flight to Heathrow is uneventful. It's fourteen hours and we sleep a fair bit of it. We don't really think the silly price of business class is worth it, but we do rate premium economy over the cheap seats. It's noticeable that almost everyone in cattle class is awake and watching a movie or something because they are too cramped to sleep, while almost nobody is in premium.
We arrive on time and are pleased to find our luggage has also made it successfully. We collect our car, and as it's early Sunday morning, the M25 is quiet and the drive home is quick.
Gosh, it's not so warm back home! I think we'll have a fire this evening.
THE END
⬅ previous ⬆intro