Urban Crag

Finally, a training session that didn’t start stupidly early in the morning.  There was a lot of debate this week about what time we should start, how far we should walk, and which sections we should be doing.  The only things that weren’t in doubt was that it was going to be a night session and it would include section 9.  Walking through the 3am barrier was shouted down early on, along with starting in the early arvo to get a lot of distance in the legs before night fell.  Another short lived suggestion was to do the waterfall loop … we did that as our night practice last year in the rain and it was hours of muddy, slippery, slushy fun. 

In the end we settled on walking over Polly’s hill and then along section 9, driving to Syd Duncan Park, then walking to Nerang State Forest.  This meant taking 3 cars down the coast, what we didn’t count on was how long it would take to position all the cars.  While the forestry trails go over the big hills and through deep valleys, the roads tend to go around them … so a hill that takes a little over an hour to walk over, takes almost half an hour to drive around.  In the end our planned 4:30 start time turned into a 5pm start.  On top of this the weather forecast had been for thundery storms clearing and it was raining or drizzling on us most of the time that we were dropping off the cars, so we were expecting a wet cold walk.  But fortunately the drizzle stopped just before we arrived at Polly’s and wasn’t to be seen again.

Went we left the car and headed for Polly’s hill there was a lot of whining from Brock and Shane about how cold it was.  Both had decided they only needed t-shirts and had left their jackets in the other cars.  Nicole was very sympathetic, pointing out that she was not only wearing a thermal shirt, but also had 2 jackets.  Despite some very convincing arguments, she refused to share.  Luckily the hill was long and steep and the walk up warmed us all up nicely … and Nicole’s jackets were tied around her waste and demoted to arse warmers.

As we neared the top of Polly’s hill the light levels dropped enough to turn on the head torches, which in turn prompted the standard conversation about who had the most reflective shoes/bag/hat.  Nicole stole the show with her new long tights with super reflective stripes on her calfs.  Shortly after Stuart spotted something even better to stare at and complement than Nicole’s tights, a beautiful orange sunset that was silhouetting the next ridge line.  It was so good that we stopped for a short break to admire the view.

The trip down Polly’s was pretty quick as we jogged most of it.  This was interesting as it was the first time we’d tried jogging in the dark.  But we did well and made it to the bottom without incident.  We did however focus the mathematical talents of Team Fibonacci on it’s first ever maths problem.  What would we do if we won the $90 million oz lotto super draw, and are the odds really worth joining a syndicate or buying a quick pick.  Shane and Nicole had both been offered a share of a syndicate, but Nicole didn’t think it was worth it unless the prize was over $100 million (while you might find this a surprising and rather arbitrary limit, the more surprising aspect was that no one broke out a Dr Evil impression when the magic number was mentioned!)  Shane’s theory was that $100 for a syndicate entry was a touch much, but he was seriously considering getting a quick pick.  Nicole confused the issue further by pointing out that Oz Lotto is a 7 number draw not a 6 number draw, so the odd of winning are a lot less, although still better than power ball.

We had a short break at the Enviro Centre before setting off on section 9. This section nearly broke us last year … mainly because we didn’t know what to expect.  The start is a nice wander along the edge of the Hynze Dam.  This was pretty uneventful except for having to walk across a narrow fallen tree to avoid some water.  However once we left the dam we started on the up, down, up, down, up, down, up of the cowpad trail. Having done this before it didn’t seem as bad, however Stuart did mention that he could understand how depressing it would be if you didn’t know how many hills were on the trail. 

We did use the time on the cowpad trail to tackle our second mathematical problem: how many possible tax file numbers are there considering the fact that the TFN contains a check sum digit.  It was awesome, it’s just a shame that there was only four of us there to enjoy it!  We compared our system to the US social security number system and discussed the problems they have with reusing numbers.  We talked about the issues involved if we had to add an extra digit to the tax file numbers and the implications on the check sum … I’m sure you want more, but unfortunately the hill was long and we’d solved all these issues long before we hit the top …

After plodding our way up to the car, we drove around to Syd Duncan Park.  We all agreed driving this road section was a good idea because it was very narrow and windy.  The car trip was surprisingly painful, well, for one of us at least.  Brock let out a couple of yelps when he climbed into and out of the car.  Apparently his excessive running over the last couple of days had taken its toll – although he insisted it didn’t hurt while walking or running.  Syd Duncan Park was very cold and windy, but the clouds had cleared and we had millions of stars to look at and the view of the Gold Coast was very impressive.  After some food and a change of socks we reluctantly removed our jumpers and set off again.  The trip down Hell Fire Pass was easier to jog down in the dark than expected.  However there were some very slippery sections towards the bottom that slowed us down, but we all managed to stay on our feet.

The next challenge was Mt Nathan.  Stuart declared that the problem with Mt Nathan was that it was too steep.  We all agreed that it was a very obvious statement.  But he said that because it’s short, it’s too tempting to go up quickly, and that really hurts. So this time we all took our time and made our way to the top.  After wandering along a muddy 4wd track for a while we finally made it to the road.  Somehow we all managed to find the energy to jog the 2 or so kms down the road to Nerang State Forest and were glad to get to the car.  We’d covered the 30kms in just over 6 hours.  Not a bad little hit out.

After changing into some warm clothes and doing some stretches, we set off to collect the other cars and the drive home.  On the way home our convoy stopped off for a midnight snack at our favourite servo … as it turns out, McDonald’s was the only shop open, so the choice was easy.  Brock surprised us by complaining about the number of kilojoules in his burger … if only we’d done some exercise to offset them …

Close to 1am we put all our gear back in our own cars and headed for home, very tired, but happy with how the training session had gone.
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