Yes, it's time for night walking practice and because we had nothing better to do on a Saturday night than to train for the Trailwalker, we donned our Petzl headtorches and met at the top of Lyrebird Gully in Mount Ku-ring-gai for a night session. The aim was to tackle half of CP6-7 in the dark and loop back to where we started and seeing as we've done this section a few times lately, we were hoping that this practice would stand us in good stead as we adjusted to walking in night conditions. It also gave us more hill climbing practice as we got to traverse our favourite Berowra Hill yet again. Just when we thought we'd only have to do it once more on the day itself.. *sigh*
With Ian on a plane headed for Atlanta, the team was David, Ruth and Kerrie. To this auspicious line-up, we added Steve (our dynamo team trainer) and Ross (of Team K.R.A.K. fame). A little about Team K.R.A.K. - the team consists of 3 crotchety old guys, Ross, Ash and Ken, and 1 sprightly chicky babe, Kerri. They've undertaken and completed the Trailwalker for the past four years and from an initial effort in the first year of 26 hours, they came in last year at a smashing 19 hours and 15 minutes to become the winners of the fastest team in the over-40's category. Inspiring stuff!! We've previously had a guest appearance from Kerri, another Team K.R.A.K. member, on the 51km walk and she gave us lots of useful info to help us prepare for the day. This week, we featured Ross and given some of his past achievements include running a 90km marathon in South Africa 3 times, we were a little scared of what he might expect from us or push us to do. As it turned out, we just worked hard to impress him with our trail walking prowress developed through weeks' of diligent training. *LOL*
So as the sunset faded into nblackness, our training session started and we took off at speed down Lyrebird Gully onto the Benowie Walking Track. We quickly overtook another team and soon after, we settled into a good pace for this relatively flat section. It didn't take long to adjust to the light from the Petzl's and realised the key to walking in the dark is concentration - which is going to be such a challenge in this and the next two sections as we'll be pretty tired at this point having completed 65kms already.. but surely this is nothing that No Doz, Coke and Expresso Love GUs won't be able to solve? Just kidding!
On through the trail we went and on crossing the boardwalk, we came across the first of several frozen possums for the evening. Each possum was set in it's own 'vogue' position and their stillness while we tramped past was to be marvelled at. Not sure if they were brushtail or ringtail possums but they were pretty cute given they weren't like those possums who run relays across the roof at 3.30am and set off the dogs next door to wake everyone in the neighbourhood up. Hmmmmm... Ruth's still waiting to see a wombat though but we think we might have to take her down south for that one!
Across Sams' Creek we went and with some huffing and puffing, all the team made it up the climb to Berowra in one piece! Past the checkpoint at Berowra Community Centre and back on to the Pacific Highway to loop back to Mount Ku-ring-gai where we started. All was going well and we were able to maintain the rage.. ahhh, maintain the pace that is, until the footpath disappeared into a side street and we ended up powerwalking through some suburb trying to find our way back to the highway. When we did manage to get back, the footpath didn't return with us so the final leg into Mount Ku-ring-gai saw us running along the roadside trying to stay as far away from oncoming traffic as possible so as not to wipe ourselves out!! Thankfully we made it back to the cars with all the team intact and happy in the knowledge that the climb to Berowra will only happen once more - on the day!
Donations
We're getting closer to our $5 000 target! Many thanks to our wonderful donors this week - we appreciate everything you are doing to support us through this. Not long now until Trailwalker so if you haven't already done so - please donate to the Bush Bashers!!!
Next Week...
Planning, planning, planning. This week, we continue our regular training, finalise our expected time goals for the day and complete our planners for our Support Crew - Steve and Amir. Next weekend is an official 'time off' from bashing the trail with each of us undertaking our own training session instead. Look out for our weather watch updates as we start to wonder what it's going to be like on the day itself!
P.S. No real photos this week as it was in the dark. Photos of us in our natural environment (work!) will be posted next week.
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