6000 km later: The first long story about our recent epic, Australian road trip

It started with an invitation to a four-day workshop in Sydney, and before I knew it, we were planning a seven-week, multi-state road trip.

We left our home in Brisbane on the first Thursday in February. We travelled down the coast of New South Wales, staying in Newcastle on the Friday night, so it was a short drive to a new parkrun on Saturday.

Blackbutt parkrun was one of the hilliest parkruns we’ve done to date. Well attended, difficult and beautiful. I loved how the woman doing the first timer’s brief casually said, “run past the emus and watch your footing as the path has some cracks in it”... like it was the most normal sentence to say on a Saturday morning.

After leaving Newcastle, we visited my Mum on the Central Coast, and my sister and her little family, who live not too far away. Then we continued to Sydney to get me set up for the training I was attending.

Since it ran all day from Wednesday to Saturday, Brad (@new.things) got to visit one of the Sydney parkruns I’d already done. He chose GreenWay and enjoyed the fast, flat course as much as I did when I got my parkrun PB back there several years ago.

Once we were done in Sydney, we headed to Wollongong to see one of Brad’s cousins and soak up some sun in the great outdoors. I’d been predominantly inside for four long days and loved being back in the bush with the occasional dunk in the ocean.

Our next destination was the small country town of Yackandandah in northern Victoria, but on route, we opted to sleep at a farm stay. I collected chook eggs with the woman running the farm, followed her instructions on how to feed her alpacas, and said ‘yes’ to giving her female emu as many cuddles as she wanted. It was wonderful.

But we still had much to do and far to go, so onto Yackandandah we went to meet the people whose pets and home we were going to care for while they went on their own parkrun adventure =)

House and pet sitting can be its own adventure, even if one doesn’t know the people or have much in common with them, but to have so many mutual friends and a strong mutual love of parkrun tourism meant we could have talked for many more hours than we already did.

In between caring for their three cats and two older dogs, we managed the short walk to their local parkrun: Yackandandah Rail Trail parkrun.

While Brad ran, I walked Alfie, the more energetic and physically able of their two dogs, who was recognised by several of the locals. It was a lovely event that is well worth a visit, even if you’re not a crazy parkrun tourist chasing letters for the Alphabet Challenge.

When it was time to say goodbye to these five gorgeous creatures, we started the next leg of our journey across to SA. We managed a night in the lovely coastal town of Victor Harbor and even found their parkrun course on our morning run without actively looking for it. Definitely worth returning there on a "parkrunday".

But we were headed for somewhere we’d always wanted to go: Kangaroo Island.

We didn’t have a long time to spend in any one place on this trip, so we had to make do with one very full day of exploring the island. Despite it being windy as hell and, especially on the south coast, very cold, it was desperately beautiful. I had high expectations based on previous stories and footage I’d seen of the island, and I tell you what, if you get a sunny day, it’s truly magical… even if we had to hold onto things so they didn’t blow away.

The famous Remarkable Rocks =)

Admiral's Arch was pretty awesome!

Stokes Bay Beach was named the best beach in Australia a few years ago. But you have to take this hidden path through the rocks to find out why!

While Australia is famous for its sleepy koalas, we rarely see them. So I was delighted when we managed to see two on KI.

But the highlight was having this sea lion pup approach our guided group while down on the beach. We were told to stay completely still so as to not encourage it but I did managed to sneak a very close up photo so as to not forget this magical moment.

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As much as I wanted to stay and explore every inch of the island, the weekend was approaching and our next parkrun was calling.

We stayed in Adelaide CBD, which allowed us to walk to the local monthly cryptocurrency meetup we’d planned to attend. There we got to put faces to usernames for @holoz0r, @mattclarke, @fletcherclarke, @ctrpch and @minismallholding. It was great to meet such an awesome group of humans where we felt comfortable talking about a wide range of topics, including, of course, Hive!

Photo by @ctrpch, who, like Fletch, preferred not to be in the photo.

And since the pub was so good, I met up with a dear friend of mine at the same place. Both experiences were wonderful, and I’m glad we made the effort.

I went to bed pretty content on the Friday night and was not at all prepared for what was coming on Saturday morning.

After debating which letter we wanted more for our (ahem) second parkrun alphabet - the “O” or the “D” - we’d settled on Drage Reserve parkrun, a 20-minute drive from our accommodation. Then, sometime around 4 am the thunderstorms started to roll in!

In my sleepy state, I hadn’t clicked that it could create an issue for our parkrun plan, but thankfully, Brad did. Letting me catch up on much-needed sleep, he quietly got on his phone and started searching parkrun Facebook pages and groups to see if anyone was talking about cancelling.

By the time my alarm went off, several had already been cancelled and on the spot, we developed a fast system for splitting the load and checking every parkrun in the Adelaide region.

As 7 am, our planned departure time arrived, we had worked out that Stenbonheath parkrun, about twice as far away as Drage Reserve, was going ahead. While we’d had thunder and lightning rage over the top of us for hours, by the time we drove north to Stebonheath, all traces of scary storms were gone, with only the lingering dark clouds and scattered, light rain showers, we felt relieved.

We drove sensibly and still made it with 10 minutes to spare, and were greeted by welcoming locals to a lovely course that I would happily repeat if we were ever in that part of the world again. However, there was no time for post parkrun coffee, as we had to skedaddle if we were going to make it back in time for our pre-paid hotel breakfast before check out.

It was one of the most stressful and yet rewarding parkruns we’ve done to date, one we’re unlikely to forget anytime soon.

After check out, we headed south to see another of Brad’s cousins that he hadn’t seen in decades, and then it was time to head back towards southern Victoria for our next house sit.

Over several days, we drove along the coast of South Australia to Mount Gambier and then onward to Warrnambool, Apollo Bay and Anglesea. Every town had something to offer, and the immense amount of bush inland begged to be explored. But we were there to see the Great Ocean Road and all its cliff faces, rock islands and white sandy beaches.

With more stunning photos than we’d ever know what to do with, we shifted gears to meet up with another friend from the Hive blockchain, @riverflows. While we'd known her for years online, it was the first time we got to meet her in person, and we did so by having a swim in the ocean at sunrise. It was freezing and wonderful.

After a long breakfast at her place that confirmed why we were such good friends online, we sadly pressed pause on a conversation we could have had for days and headed to the Bellarine Peninsula to meet a dog named Doug.

While that housesit turned out to be harder than it was worth, the closest parkrun was Ocean Grove and it was beautiful! This was a classic example of how one might chase letters for the alphabet, but sometimes they’re SO gorgeous that even if the people weren’t nice (and they were) and there weren’t endless puppy dogs to pat (and there were), the parkrun is worth going to regardless.

I’d go back to Ocean Grove parkrun in a heartbeat.

While Doug the dog was gorgeous, he struggled to sleep through the night and barked in an ear-piercing way.

So we were relieved to say goodbye and move into the next housesit, only 30 minutes away. There we had the company of two calmer dogs, who silently slept through the night and one cockatiel who alternated between looking at us suspiciously and singing to us =)

Given that this housesit was halfway between Geelong and Torquay, we had options come parkrunday. Since Brad adores the beach, we opted for Torquay parkrun, along with hundreds and hundreds of others!

The swim afterwards was cold and beautiful, though we did have to wade in and out through more seaweed than I think I’ve ever seen in my life. But my head loved being drenched in saltwater again, so it was worth it.

This house had every gadget a person could ever possibly need and I thought we’d enjoy being based in ONE place for an entire WEEK, but between walking the dogs and Brad’s daily runs and my work calls, the week flew by and we were driving again.

This time, we were required on the other side of Port Phillip Bay, not to be house sitters but to hug my friends! Some of my dearest friends are spread out around the world and so it was such a treat to be able to see not just one but two of them in one day.

After wonderful but all-too-short catchups with women who have never run a parkrun in their life but who love me even though I’m obsessed in a way they’ll never understand, it was time to see how far we could drive before one of us had had enough.

We made it to Traralgon, which does have its own parkrun, but not on a normal Tuesday morning! We stayed in the best motel we found on the entire trip (The Black Bull Motel) and after eating their breakfast, we continued east, crossing the border back into NSW and eventually landing in Merimbula.

With seven weeks on the road, there are a million stories I could tell you about the places, the experiences, the things we loved, the things we despised and everything in between. Our experience in Merimbula had some high highs and low lows, probably exacerbated by having slept in more beds over the last month than we usually would in a single year. Still, it was beautiful and we’d happily return to that part of the world at some point to do the nearby Panboola Wetlands parkrun.

But on the Friday it was time to head north west, to go and meet a cat named Ollie.

We were staying in Queanbeyan East, in a small, well-functioning unit that turned out to be within walking distance of a golf course with more kangaroos than I’ve ever seen in my entire life!

As it turned out, the nearest parkrun we hadn’t done was also a letter we were chasing, so Jerrabomberra Mountain Reserve parkrun was an easy choice. And again, the theme of this trip held true: this course was worth a visit based on beauty alone, letter notwithstanding.

In fact, I loved it so much that I said to Brad: If we lived in Canberra, this would be my home parkrun. #trailrunneratheart

Despite loving the bush and the mountain and the people as much as I did, we didn’t stick around because the entire reason for pulling in from the coast was to see my brother, his wife and their two energetic little boys.

After spending a big chunk of each precious day with them, and each afternoon and evening with Ollie the cat, it was nearly time to head north again.

At this point, we’d been watching the fuel prices climb for a few weeks and we starting to get concerned about whether petrol stations might actually run out of fuel before we got back to Brissie.

So, instead of spending a few days chilling out at Mum’s and picking up another new parkrun in the northern half of NSW on the way home, we opted for our last stint of fast travel.

We squeezed in a visit to see a cousin of mine I hadn’t seen since the week before I met Brad, and got to spend time with her now-adult son before arriving with dinner at my Mum’s place, where we stayed for just one night. We headed up to Woolgoolga for our last night, which was a lovely way to round out the trip, given that our very first night had been in this same beach town we’ve come to love so much.

On Wednesday afternoon, we arrived home to a garden full of pumpkins, neighbours who were happy to see us, and our own big bed.

Over 48 nights, we slept in 21 different locations and visited four different states and territories. We cared for 5 dogs, 4 cats and 1 bird that sang so much it still makes me smile. We met up with new and old friends, and several members of our far-flung families with whom we shared meals and laughs, challenges and celebrations, and many hugs.

It was the most ambitious, challenging trip Brad and I have tackled together in our 7 year relationship and rather than kill each other, we’ve both grown individually and together as a couple. We’re clearer than ever before about what’s important to us and what we want to focus on moving forward.

Gosh, it's good to be home.

(All photos taken by me or @new.things unless otherwise stated.)

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Have you been to any of these places? If you have, I'd love to know! And if you live a reallly long way away, and know you're unlikely to visit Australia, which of these places would you most love to read more about? LMK 👇