The CrossingToward Tintinara
HAA's Adventures of Tin-Tin(ara)
Freezing kilometres through Coonalpyn, Culburra and Tintinara left me swinging between disbelief and wondering what on earth I was doing. The Victorian border was now about 100 kilometres away.
It was properly cold before I started. The weather app said two degrees, feeling like zero. There was no early vlog because operating the phone meant taking my gloves off. That wasn’t happening unless it had to.
So the day began quietly: dark sky, cold hands, Dukes Highway, and the slow business of getting moving again from Ki Ki. Coonalpyn came early, then more open highway, bits of scrub, trucks, signs, and the kind of South Australian country that kept changing just enough to stop the day from becoming one long blur.
There were still small things to photograph. A welcome sign. Coonalpyn’s pelican. One roadside marker simply said Todd X. I have no idea what it meant, but by that point a sign like that was enough to earn a photo. Perhaps I was thinking he could be a distant relative of Malcolm X. Later, Culburra offered a bit of history and another tiny place-marker on the way to Tintinara.
Somewhere in there I posted the mental pattern plainly:
every now and then I find myself torn between two feelings, complete disbelief that I’m actually out here doing this, and a “why the hell am I actually doing this?”
the moment passes and I continue onwards, relentlessly…
That was the strange rhythm of the thing. The disbelief and the question could both appear, then pass through, and I would keep going.
By the afternoon, Tintinara arrived with the only joke it was ever going to get from me: HAA’s Adventures of Tin-Tin(ara). If you’re too young to understand this joke, this intro to the cartoon might help 😉 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qgUfvBw_FM
Another Viterra site made sure I’d be able to identify South Australian grain infrastructure from a considerable distance.
The border was starting to pull closer. One sign put Keith at 39 kilometres, Bordertown at 85, Melbourne at 541, and the next rest stop 22 kilometres away. I posted that the SA/VIC border was about 100 kilometres away, which should mean only two more sleeps in South Australia. Melbourne was just 108.2 parkruns away, which made the whole thing sound almost tidy if you used a ridiculous enough unit of measurement.
I recorded the vlog later, once I could face touching the camera. The fresh Hokas from Adelaide were part of the reset, physically and mentally.
That connected back to a phone call from earlier that day. Muz from Runwest had called while I was on the road, and Roger Hanney from Hoka OneOne Australia happened to be over in Perth with him. They asked how it was going, how the new shoes were working, and talked about getting another pair to me in a size bigger.
The level of support was phenomenal. To this day, Hoka shoes are still my running shoe of choice.
Shoes, feet, warmth, distance, repeat.
I stopped about three kilometres beyond Tintinara Rest Area after 56.3 kilometres, with the running total at 3,065.8. Then we went back to the rest area, and I could finally leave the gloves on.
Videos From The Day
#HAA2015 #week10 #day6 #vlog
Late Day 69 vlog near Tintinara, after a freezing morning, about getting back on track and shoes.
Open on YouTubeImages From The Day
