Several weeks last year were spent discussing the pros and cons of a trip to the Washpool and Gibraltar Parks by some of the members of Caboolture Road Runners. A long walk in one of the largest wilderness in New South Wales was proposed but floundered due to other commitments. When Greg Waite of the Trail Running Association of Queensland moved the date of the Washpool Gibraltar World Heritage Trail race to the weekend before our proposed trip, the planets seemed to align favourably for an adventure worthy of a race report not entirely unlike this one.
"Of course you'll make it mate. I'm very confident of a finish." It was this utter lie that hardened up the resolve of the balder half of team CRR Gold to join the shorter half of team CRR Black for a weekend away and a 50 km race at Washpool and Gibraltar National Parks.
Some days were spent discussing the relative merits of being in a large tent and wasting precious body heat versus sleeping alongside Parso and Hazy and undergoing involuntary hypoxic training. In the end it was decided that the ten-dollar Taj Mahal was too good to pass up and we plumped for the bigger, roomier and much more airy tent your correspondent had picked up at Anaconda for a song.
We were going to catch up with Cookie and President Macca down there - they'd left at an ungodly hour in order to catch Saturday's first rays at Washpool and Saturday's first race also.
The four of us planned to meet at the less ungodly (more godly? godlier?) hour of 6:00 AM to throw our stuff into Parso's car for the trip to Washpool. Being pretty soft, we packed a hundred little UHT milk cartons for our coffee and breakfast cereal. Peter confirmed that the boot was indeed big enough to retrieve his body to Brisbane should he succumb to the cumulative effects of Thai food, Parso's gut, distance run and your correspondent's driving. After stowing everything but the kitchen sink, we were underway.
On the way down, between naps, team Haze regaled us with tales about an unusual route he'd taken recently while running in the hills. He doesn't appear to be flexible enough to do half of the things he claims, but still waters run deep they say. Parso told us of a boo-boo he had on his ankle, but resolved to harden up and try not to let it affect him. We were going to ask him to mark which ankle it was, in case he succumbed to his injury and we had to amputate, but thought that it was a bit early to make that call, besides which a fifty-fifty chance at guessing the correct ankle to cut off is not bad odds. Parso certainly hoped to avoid the cut-off.
Haze repaired to the driver's seat after a brief breakfast sojourn at Warwick. On the way down we discovered that apparently the first settlers in the Stanthorpe area were either Dinotopians or Egyptians, as that was where we saw a triceratops and a pyramid. I can offer absolutely no photographic evidence of these claims, but they are as clear to me as if I saw them only the day before the day before the day before yesterday. The Doormouse-like period of wakefulness from Haze saw him bring us to the metropolis of Glen Innes. After pausing briefly outside the only eating establishment in the town with absolutely no patrons, we decided to head in and enjoyed some excellent Thai tucker. A warning of a windy evening was sounded when Haze and Parso both opted for the vegetarian dishes.
In the meantime, Macca and Cookie were being surprised by a young mother from Armidale in the form of Rachael Waugh. She bolted from the gun in Saturday's nine km event and it required a big effort, putting bodies and faces on the line, for our dynamic duo to lift for first and second place. Talk about dynamic lifters, the boys had a tale or two to tell of almost losing it and near misses and nearly losing to Dave Waugh's missus. Despite being spoilt for good scenery up where they live, our lads were still impressed with the splendour of the trails on the Saturday race. After pausing a respectable period for breath, they headed out to walk the course for Sunday's eight kilometre race, leaving the window flaps on their tent wide open to help dissipate the smell uncovered by Cookie remembering where he had left Sam's nappy fourteen years ago.
For us, the seventy kilometre drive from Glen Innes to the Mulligan's Hut camping area at Washpool passed unremarkably, save for driving in to the very gates of the campground, deciding that the signs saying "Mulligan's Hut" and "RUN" meant nothing to a bunch of people heading to Mulligan's Hut for a run, and a downpour of biblical proportions that accompanied us out of the camping area and ten kilometres down the road to where we finally looked at a map.
Our return to Mulligan's Hut camping area coincided with a brilliant break in the clouds. In double quick time I had the Three Stooges bickering and impaling each other with poles as I tried to organise the construction of our tent. Honestly, these boys couldn't manage an erection with a bunch of contractors. Peter and I bagged the room on the first landing, leaving Parso and Haze the third door from the top of the stairs. Did I mention it was a big tent?
After installing ourselves in the newly built palace, we retired to the shelter of, well, the shelter for a coffee and a chance to get out of the showers of rain now occurring with some regularity. After the third or fourth shower had passed, somebody mentioned that Cookie and Macca's tent flap was open. Somebody else ambled over and dropped the flap, sealing in Sam's reconstituted baby smell and unfortunately the best bits of several decent rain squalls. On their return to the camp ground Macca and Cookie demonstrated their resourcefulness, ingenuity and masculinity by building a blazing fire to dry out and stink up Charmie's new sleeping bag that Macca had purloined for the weekend.
They also demonstrated a remarkable lack of attention to detail by leaving Cookie's mattress in the tent holding enough water to refloat the Shen Neng. This fact was only discovered after dinner and several convivial beverages. I have it on good authority that both of the boys eventually got their bedding sorted and even had a couple of hours kip.
Warning to readers: Graphic content.
Strong Winds and heavy showers were recorded throughout the night. The constant slamming of a tent door was also reported, but not evidenced by any damage to the tent. More is to follow in a later bulletin.
Sunday Morning saw us stumble out of bed literally onto the registration table for the day's races. Much faffing about and being soft with milk in coffee, Weetbix, and other assorted comestibles nearly left us with insufficient time to make the race start. At the starting gun yours truly jogged up to a nearby spectator and thrust a large drop bag in his hand, asking that it be put "wherever drop bags go" as he had neglected to attend to this minor task before the race.
From the outset, your correspondent's race plan was to "start slowly and then go slower". This was generally well adhered to throughout the race, except for the "start slowly" bit and the bit about "and then go slower". We charged off like a bull at a gate and were soon strung out across a very picturesque course. The local Parks and Wildlife Service staff had gone out of their way to spoil us, mowing and grading sections of the track so that it resembled a hilly (very hilly) fairway rather than a rutted goat track. Unusually for such an isolated and pristine environment, there was very little wildlife in evidence, the tally being maybe a half dozen parrots and a couple of lizards spotted during the entire event.
Anyway, Peter and I were soon entrenched somewhere near the rear of the field, with Parso and Haze somewhere up ahead. I kept my eye open for decent sticks in case a suffering Parso's boo-boo flared up and he needed swift humane assistance, and also in case Peter came to his senses and realised that I was only winging it and had no idea what I was leading him into. The sun stayed mostly behind clouds and the air remained cool and humid as the morning wore on.
All though the event we were swapping positions with a couple of other runners as we enjoyed the changing scenery, which varied from mountain heath to eucalypt forest, and from ti-tree scrub to temperate rainforest. Our hill training was helping out immensely, but eventually we were found out a little by our lack of running up to this distance.
Jane Thompson, wife of race sweeper Bill, assisted runners greatly by staffing both the first and third checkpoint. It was at the third checkpoint where Peter found manhood in the form of bottled Coca Cola.
We resumed running after this point with renewed vigour, catching several of the runners we had let slip past and opening up a lead on some others. By 40 km Peter thought he had become invincible: He'd hardened up so much that he'd set like concrete. We had a second wind here up to about the marathon distance and gradually faded on one of the long rocky slopes about six km from the finish. From there it was a bit of a struggle, with the final insult being a sign saying "2.2 km to Mulligan's Hut" strategically placed four kilometres from Mulligan's Hut. Peter and I eventually crossed the finish line bowed but not broken in around 7:15, quite a way astern of Parso and Haze, and almost on another calendar page from race winner David Waugh in 4:30. Total race distance was reported to be 53.5 km.
Macca and Cookie had once again done Caboolture proud in the interim, taking first and third in the half marathon event.
At the conclusion of the race Peter and I jumped in the creek. It was cold enough to feature as a survival challenge on "Man versus Wild" and helped to numb the pain in our legs from the long run. We then jumped in the shower and discovered that no matter how cold we thought the creek was, the shower was much, much worse. Washing went very quickly, as it was impossible to breathe under the icy spray.
The return trip was pretty uneventful. Where we previously sprang out of the car at Glen Innes we now levered ourselves out very gingerly, with the cautious attention of frail old men. Peter brought us back to Warwick and I took over from there. Parso and Haze must have been unconscious to let that happen. I got on my hobby horse about expensive electronic road signs that tell you to log on to the internet to find out about traffic conditions. Nothing more needs to be said about the subject. Nothing more. Build a bridge buddy, and get over it.
Shaddup about signs already!
