The 12 Foot Track

Having now run the 6 Foot Track, a friend had suggested trying the 12 Foot Track and I was intrigued to this "new route" that I'd not heard of before. Little did I know that it was not actually a new route, but the name for running the 6FT and then turning round at Jenolan Caves and running back to the start in Katoomba!! 

When I finished the 6FT I did say "Never Again" but the idea of the 12FT did kinda niggle away in the back of my head, and when my friend Julian and I both had a day off, we discussed a cheeky trip up to the Blue Mountains. Julian is a keen walker and had some new routes to check out (or old routes that he hadn't done for ages) and I looked at the 6FT. I didn't have the option of just running to Jenolan and getting a lift back as the final section of road to the Caves has been closed due to landslip/storm damage, so the only way in and out for me was on foot. 

The "12 Foot Track"

The weekend's weather forecast hadn't been good, but as Saturday had been nice and sunny, we decided to risk it and headed up early on Sunday morning. As a reward, we were treated to a lovely pink sunrise over the hills, which seemed to bode well for the day, and so I set off down the track expecting an enjoyable (well semi-enjoyable anyway) day out!! The first section of the run is always a rude reminder to me that I am neither a downhill nor a technical runner, as the first few kms are a constant descent.....initially down a rough forestry road, then steep uneven steps which disintegrate into little more than a stream bed, and then finally on a runnable single trip (well, runnable when you manage to get past all the slippery tree roots!). 

Amazing how fresh you can look BEFORE you run!!

Despite it being well past dawn, it was still quite dark under the thick canopy cover as I descended Nellie's Glen, but it was so much more enjoyable than the last time I was there. This time, I had the place to myself and could go as slowly as I liked, with no-one to see my flailing "girlie arms" and multiple slips and stops, whereas last time it was a "race situation" and although I'd started at the back of my starting pen, I had the constant fear of slowing down the fast starters of the next pen. 

On reaching the forestry road at the bottom of the valley, I reminded myself to look for the turnoff onto single track, as I'd missed it in the past. Despite this, I missed it yet again and so added an extra km or so of detour onto my route. My excuse is that the sign pointing towards the track is parallel to the way you are running, and so is almost impossible to spot, and I was taking notice of the depth markings warning about a ford crossing just at that precise location. Grrrrr......I could have kicked myself when I found myself having to run down and then up a steep incline just to get back to where I should have been!! 

I remembered the next section as being quite enjoyable, undulating up and down across some open countryside and then alongside the river....but unfortunately this time the weather decided to take a turn for the worse. It started spitting with rain before I'd even run 10K and so I debated turning tail and returning to Katoomba but I didn't want to interrupt Julian's walk as he was going to go to a cafe to fuel up before setting off, so I told myself to "zip up my mansuit" and get on with it. 

The mansuit zip got a bit of a workout to stay done up as thunder rolled in, and then the sky lit up with lightening on several occasions. I did feel very exposed as the only moving thing for miles around (even the wallabies that had kept me compony earlier had run away), and my biggest fear was that the lightening would strike as I climbed over one of the metal stiles......but luckily I made it out of the open and onto the riverside trail. Unfortunately the rain moved a lot quicker than I did and so I got rather wetter than I'd hoped!! 

I could hear the Coxes river alongside me and although I thought it sounded rather loud and strong, I figured that I'd just not really noticed it in the race due to the fact that I'd been in a little train of people trying to keep moving forwards whilst not being knocked over by fast guys trying to race past on the narrow trail. I passed the turning to the "alternative route" of the bridge over the river, but didn't think that a high exposed metal bridge was really what I wanted to be on during a huge storm.....and as it hadn't been raining for that long (and Saturday had been lovely and sunny) the river wouldn't be that high would it? 

The river in drier times....

I hop, skip and jumped over the first part of the river and was smugly congratulating myself on it not being that bad after all.....but soon came to regret that as I waded into the main river itself. Not only was the current rather strong but I was soon up to my neck and losing contact with the bottom. My panic swim would have shown a bit of a semicircle as I got swept slightly further downstream than expected before hitting the far side......but luckily there was no-one there to watch (I guess that would have been "unluckily" had I gotten into distress). 

The water hadn't seemed that cold and the air still seemed muggy (obviously the rain didn't bother me now as I was soaked through anyway) as I ran-walked up the first of the big inclines away from the river but at least there was no more thunder and lightening. Unsurprisingly, considering the weather, I still hadn't seen another soul but it made me feel like more of an intrepid explorer as I trudged on munching on my cereal bars, wading a few more creeks and trying to avoid slipping base over apex in muddy patches. 

Places I remembered from the race came and went, and although I was going somewhat slower than on race day, I did wonder how on earth I would make it back, when I was doubting whether I would actually even get as far as the Caves. When I reached the road crossing and saw the sign marking that the road was closed up ahead, I decided to ring Julian and see if he fancied coming and picking me up if he'd finished his walk. I figured that even if he said it would take him a while, I could probably go down to Jenolan and then back up to that point whilst he was en route. Unfortunately, my phone appeared to be slightly worse for wear after its little swim (despite being in a plastic bag) and didn't want to play ball - gah!! Never mind, there'd probably be a public phone I could use at Caves House so I continued on..... 

I guess that few people go all the way down to the caves along the track now that the road there is shut, so the final descent was very overgrown but I eventually made it.....only to realise as I ran down the last few steep zigzags, that there was no point in looking for a phone as I didn't know Julian's number without using my phone. There was nothing for it but to fill up my waterbottles from a tap with a sign that expressly told me that water should be bought at the shop and not drunk out of taps, and to return back the way I'd come!!! 

About turn (well, except I went further down to
 the toilets and a tap and back) and back again!!

The climb out of Jenolan is a killer (I don't like "running" down it, but my tired legs complained equally about trudging back up it....and even the soggy wraps (rather worse for wear for their river dunking) I ate didn't make it much better. Finally I crested the steepest bit of the climb and summoned up a run/walk back to the road crossing. From there I decided to make the best of it and run the flats and downhills and not be bothered if I had to walk the climbs. To be honest, I hadn't realised how much of the middle portion of the run had been uphill on the way out - yes the long steep climbs were unmissable, but trail I'd berated myself for run-walking along as it was "flat" now showed itself as being downhill on the return leg, so I managed to get into quite a good running rhythm for several kilometres. 

No wonder there seems to be little "flat" running!!

The big long downhills weren't the fun I'd expected them to be as it was now raining again and so they were very rough, slippery and muddy......and did seem to go on forever! A few 4WDs passed me on those climbs and descents, and I guess they wondered if I'd actually escaped from a local psych hospital (actually, if there had been one nearby I'd probably have checked myself in!!). It was a relief when it flattened out on the approach to the river again, but as the thunder and lightening was back, I decided that a swim was a lesser evil than the chance of being electrocuted if I took the alternative high bridge option. 

What made the swim back funnier (or scarier depending on how you look at it) was the fact that my right leg cramped up as soon as I hit the deep water and so I had to do a wonky one-legged swim to avoid getting taken away downstream. On climbing back up away from the river on the other side I knew I was just counting down the kms now and would surely make it. I tried to take it easy and made sure that I ate all my remaining food as I moved along the valley floor as "what goes up must come down".....or in my case, "what you have come down, you must go back up" and so I knew that the final few kms would be a killer. 

Those steps were never-ending!!

The climb back up through Nellie's Glen to the plateau didn't disappoint me in its toughness....how my legs hated me but using my hands to work my quads certainly helped, as did just looking a few steps ahead of me so that I didn't get despondent about how far I still had to go. It was such a relief to get to the top of the steps, but I proved to myself how easy it is to forget that what seems a very short run down a steep forestry road, is actually a fairly long climb back out. Instead of "false summits" on a mountain, this road had "false corners" when you could almost swear that you were there. Still, the corners meant that I actually came across the final gate all of a sudden and lay down on the picnic bench at the top to gather myself. 

I'd actually made it back way quicker than Julian and I had thought so he was still in the pub down the road, but luckily my phone came back to life just enough for me to message him for a pickup and very welcome coffee and ice cream - what a day!!! I also managed to message my friend to say that I would not be doing any more crazy runs that she suggests, and she surprised me by saying that I didn't need to, as unbeknown to me, I had just set the FKT (Fastest Known Time) for that route - phew........never again!!!

Central Coast Century

My friend Monika had suggested a big run/adventure for us to do together when I was back in the land of the living, and it piqued my interest. It was a 100km loop (with over 2500m of elevation) called the Central Coast Century, starting and finishing at the SS Maitland Bell in Bouddi National Park and taking in some of the Coast's best trails through Brisbane Water National Park, Strickland State Forest, Rumbalara and Katandra Reserve and Kincumber Mountain before finishing along the Bouddi Coastal Track. 

The Central Coast Century Route

On the day that we'd originally planned to run it, the forecast was shocking with early humidity giving way to pouring rain and thunderstorms so we pushed it back to the next weekend, which meant that Mon had an extra week to recover from her September Step Challenge and I had an extra week to "get fit" after 2 weeks of just sitting on a bed in Hotel Quarantine! We'd decided to do the run "unsupported" which meant that we had to carry all our nutrition with us, and could only fill up with water at public taps/drinking fountains or in streams. 

A friend of ours had run it "unsupported" a couple of months earlier, so I presumed that her time (15hrs 12 mins) was our target, but Mon had written us a schedule which had us equalling the fastest "supported" female time (13hrs 32 mins) set a month prior to that. She'd also worked out where we would be able to resupply with water so we knew that the longest stretch between refills was about 42kms, hence we needed to carry a decent amount with us.

We knew we couldn't fit the whole run into daylight hours so decided to start at 5am which meant running in the dark when we were fresh rather than at the back end when we would be exhausted. Our first challenge was finding the SS Maitland Bell in the dark, as although we'd both been to Maitland Bay carpark on several occasions before, neither of us could remember having seen a bell, but as it turned out, it's rather obvious when you're looking for it!!

At the Bell in the early hours....

The first kilometre was along a sealed road which slopes gently downhill and Mon was so excited to be off that it was all I could do to slow her down......and I think the local wildlife had the same idea as some scary rustling in the dark bushes revealed itself as wallabies seemingly intent on taking us out as they bounded across the road in front of us. 

It was still dark as we headed onto the first trail section but luckily I knew those trails well, having lived near there for 6 months, so we didn't move as slowly as we'd feared we would......making good time on the flat and gently undulating sections, remembering it was OK to walk the uphills and taking our time on the steep descents. When we came back out onto another road section, we were glad of the early hour as it meant that there was no traffic and we could just enjoy the early morning quiet and predawn light  (though we did have a laugh about the fact we were eating marsbars and snickers and it wasn't even 6:30am!!).

What a sunrise!

A quick toilet break at Ettalong Beach and on so that we caught an amazing sunrise over the water as we headed round a rough rocky trail from Umina to Pearl Beach. Pearl Beach toilets was the last place we knew we could get "safe" water until Somersby (a mere marathon distance away!!!) so we filled up all of our bottles and flasks.

Enjoying the trail round to Pearl Beach

We headed up the firetrail and soon joined the Great North Walk route and jogged along chatting, eating and drinking nicely. We both commented on the fact that we'd opted to wear old shoes rather than risk new ones and were rather regretting it as we felt that we could feel every stone underfoot so made a pact to bins our shoes when we got home. 

Lots of open slabs of rock to run over

Some of the sections of the GNW can seem endless but the run was broken up by the fact that we met lots of runners we recognised going the other way in training for the GNW races in November so it was nice to say hello but we didn't really stop for a chat as we were on a mission (well kind of!!).

Following the trusty GNW marker posts

We ticked off the halfway mark and seemed to be constantly gaining on our schedule, but the last few kilometres to Somersby were a bit of a struggle as we ran out of water slightly too soon. I was setting the pace with Mon just following my feet, so she could switch off and just get into the rhythm, running when I ran and walking when I did, and I would keep checking to make sure the gap between us didn't get too big.

GNW signage

It was such a relief to get to Somersby (I'd commented a few kms earlier that it was a good thing we'd left our credit cards at home, or I'd have been very tempted to go to the shop there and buy ice creams as we were so hot and thirsty.....though that would have made the run "selfsupported" rather than unsupported!) and we had a break at the public toilets there for a decent feed and proper drink. We must have looked a sight to anyone driving past at that point but we didn't really care, as we took it in turns to use the tap - filling up a flask, swilling it all down, and then refilling it. The next definite water supply was another 32km away so we wanted to ensure we left fully hydrated.

On leaving Somersby we had another downhill road section, and Mon had a new lease of life so we found ourselves flying down the road at sub-5 minute kms....not bad for 57km into the adventure. We managed to steady ourselves as we still had a long way to go and were already well up on our target time, but it was nice to get back off road and head into Strickland Forest. 

In Strickland Forest

I've run there once before so knew the gravel road in and the turn off onto the beautiful cool shaded single track. It was now later in the day so people were out and about walking the trails, looking at the amazing local flora, but they all seemed very polite and let us past (or maybe we just looked like escapees from a lunatic asylum).

Mon whooping it up like a loonie!

We weren't sure of the route as we left the forest through an "eco village" (where I could easily have been distracted by a "fresh coffee" sign if only I'd had my credit card) and out through some suburbs of Gosford, but thank heavens for the gpx file on Mon's phone showing up which roads to run up!

Mon was starting to hit the wall where her stomach just didn't want any more food in it, so it was fruit pouches to the rescue and again she tucked in behind me just following my feet (next time I'm going to write motivational comments on my heels) and sticking with the pace. We climbed up away from the houses into the trees of Rumbalara and Katandra Reserve and then down some incredibly steep roads (well, they felt steep to our tired quads anyway) to the area we know best, as it is where most of our Saturday Trotters runs go.

I was really worried that I would be the dead weight when we hit Kincumber Mountain as those trails are Mon's second home and she can absolutely fly down steep rough trails, but luckily for me, she was rather feeling the 80K we'd already done, so I kept leading on onwards and closer to the finish. We had another brief stop soon after this when we got to Frost Reserve as we could fill up our flasks at the water fountain there, and also took on some caffeine and sugar (yummmm.....jelly snakes!!!).

Ahhhh....Bouddi....:-)

We were now on the final countdown.....14km to go and the record was ours as long as we just kept moving....we could almost smell the finish as we counted down each kilometre. Mon does a lot of guiding along the trails in Bouddi so she could describe exactly what our last few kms were going to be like, and it really helped to know exactly what we had to do, and how far we had to go.

Trotting down to Little Beach

As we came down into Little Beach, we messaged the girls to let them know that we only had 5km left, but the walkers we chatted to really didn't believe us when we said we'd already covered 95km, as some of them didn't want to stroll far from the picnic tables!

The sting in the tail was that in order to get back to Maitland Bay carpark, we had to run along 2km of soft sandy beach (it was like a game of chicken as the sand was firmer closer to the sea, but then you had to make little sprints up the beach to avoid the waves rolling in) followed by 1km of stairs up to the carpark. I threatened a sit down protest when the girls replied to our message by saying that we were taking so long that they'd eaten the ice creams they'd brought to the finish, but we pushed on. 

Not more steps!!!!

On arriving at the top of the steps "The Bell" was to our right but Mon's watch was only showing 99.95km so we did a lap of the carpark first (the girls were screaming at us that we were going the wrong way not realising that we were just rounding it up on her watch!). It was so nice to have them all waiting for us when we eventually touched the Bell - 12hrs and 24minutes after we'd left it - with party blowers, cheers, cold cokes......and the promised ice creams!! What an amazing day out!!!

Back at the Bell with all the girls :-) 

Hotel Quarantine

A lot of people have complained about Hotel Quarantine - the rooms, the lack of fresh air, the confinement, the food etc - but the thing is that they all knew that they were going to have to do it in order to be able to fly into Australia. It wasn't exactly how I'd choose to spend $3000 and 2 weeks of my time, but it was a condition of me having been able to go back to the UK and see my parents - and as I couldn't avoid it, I decided to just make the best of it!

My lovely door (with no key)....and lovely carpet!!

I know that I can be a bit of a loner and am quite happy with my own company, so maybe it was "easier" for me than for a gregarious extroverted "life and soul of the party" but I actually quite enjoyed the downtime, as I had the chance to do a lot of things that I never usually have time for, and I felt that I was away from a lot of the stresses and pressure of everyday life (though I was still acting as a sounding board for a lot of friends whilst an "inmate").

One of my deliveries of goodies - yeay!!

Some things were not exactly ideal.....not having a room key as you weren't allowed out of your room.....not having a window that would open (or even being able to see the sky so you had no clue as to the weather)......not being able to choose what or when you ate anything........not being able to see anyone (or even open your door for a minute after a knock told you that something had been delivered, though at least they delivered things quickly hence my emergency icecreams didn't melt)......the aircon causing daily nosebleeds from the dryness......the pattern of the carpet.......but on the other hand, your true friends really showed their colours with care packages being delivered most days, phone calls, zoom chats, online bridge matches, tasty food treats appearing and so on :-)

Jigsawtastic!

I kept people entertained (well I hope I did) in return with my daily posts of what I'd been up to - as I tried to have a different focus each day, be it a jigsaw puzzle, sudoku, painting by numbers, reading books, playing bridge (well I did that most days), recording a podcast, getting my Trotters Run done in the cramped space on both Saturdays, hotel trivia (bonus wine win), hotel bingo (that's an hour of my life I'll never get back!), online learning, needlefelting fairies (the added complication being that the instructions came from SE Asia and so were unreadable for me!) or doing crosswords.

I feel that I do not have a future career in needlefelting

I did have a few funny incidents, such as being asked if I'd like to speak to a doctor for advice on my nosebleeds (I did wonder what advice I was going to be given), being told to go back into my room to put my mask on to open my door just to be told to remove my mask for a Covid swab, dressing up in a little black dress for another Covid swab (if you have to actually get dressed and open your door then you might as well do it in style), and chatting to the head chef about his recipe for coconut-free Anzac biscuits, but generally I just got on with things and lost track of time.

"Dressing up" for my swabs

By the time it came for me to checkout and re-enter civilisation, I was actually quite nervous about the while process, but luckily one of my good friends came and picked me up and catching up on all the chat and gossip meant I was home almost before I realised it.....and a drama at work meant that my nose was back on the grindstone by the very next morning.....and I could almost have dreamt those 2 weeks....well, except for the lovely bill I received 2 days later entitled "government debt"!!

A nice souvenir of my HQ artistic attempts