by Brendan Condon
Our running group is continuing to work on building our fitness for the 6000 kilometer effort in November. Six of our group took the opportunity this Sunday 18 October to travel to Wilsons Promontory and run in to Sealers Cove, then back. The run was about 20 kilometers, and involved an ascent to Windy Saddle, then a descent to the coast, where we spent an hour having lunch and having a paddle in the beautiful pristine waters of the Prom, before taking the big climb out back to our start point.
Wilsons Prom hasn’t remained unscathed from the wildfires that have affected the rest of the state, with much of the park burning in the extreme heat of last summer. As we ran through the burnt sections of the park, the blackened trunks of trees were starting to reshoot and there were a lot of wildflowers in bloom. This shows the resilience of our ecosystems, and we hope we have some of the same resilience as we run across the country.
The group that are coming on this run are show signs of great team work. The team work ethos of the firefighters and police who are coming will be very necessary to assist our whole group stand up to the huge challenge of the run. We will be on the road, running big distances each day, in hot and uncomfortable conditions, and living in close confines to each other. I cant think of many groups of individuals who could actually stand up to a challenge like this, but having very fit police and firefighters who have strong affinity with each other and an ingrained team ethos gives me confidence we will get through. Running through beautiful areas like the Prom and other natural icons like the Daintree and Great Barrier Reef, and realising that these areas are all fundamentally at risk from global warming will be a huge motivation for our group.