The meeting point for the two girls teams – who were running the first sections today – was the Sri Chinmoy Peace Statue at Yarralumla Bay (our arrival point into Canberra).
It was a lovely tranquil misty morning on Lake Burley Griffin.
Here we met Emma and Eka.
Emma is a friend of Kanyaka’s from Bali who lives in Sydney and came to see her run some of the Peace Run.
Emma kindly started today’s run for us along the beach at Yarralumla Bay.
Tavishi ran the first road leg. Having run around USA last year and many many Peace Runs in Australia, we were all thrilled to have her join the team for the day. Here she is joined by Kanyaka, who is not accustomed to fog in her native Bali!
Gradually the landscape transformed into natural bush where the silence soothes and the nature brings calm to the mind.
Kanyaka had a tough three kilometres of non stop uphill ...
... and we all enjoyed the long following downhill!
The second girls team set off to run some of the way to Tumut over Brindabella Road – which is partly a dirt road and kind of ‘thin’ in parts so getting this done on a Sunday with as little traffic as possible was our plan. Our team’s job was to run from Cotter Bend to Goodradigbee River.
We will all be sad to see Niribili depart tomorrow, back home to Auckland. She has been a fountain of energy and cheerfulness for our team!
We had risen above the fog by this point and started climbing the Brindabella Ranges. And it was a lovely climb making it up to 1,300 metres above sea level. And yep we ran our way up there. The first 10km was straight up hill, not a single little dip in the road just up up up!
Then lo and behold it went down, with one of us doing a fast few km straight down hill to finish at the meeting point of some trail motorbike riders.
They had been passing us en route and this was the first time we all stopped at the same point. They kindly offered to quicken the pace and take the torch with them: we politely declined their kind offer and started our climb once again.
All too soon we came to our finish point, previously marked for us by the boys team ...
... and the lovely Goodradigbee River… admittedly the big hill we saw in front of us was a bit daunting so in part we were grateful to finish!
For the purposes of covering as much ground between Canberra and Tumut as possible over a quiet weekend, a small boys team was assembled to complete the route over the Brindabella Ranges and into the Tumut Valley. The starting point was marked with TWO Peace Run brochures so the following girls team would know where to stop...
Starting at the gurgling Goodradigbee River in the heart of the Brindabella Ranges ...
... the team took turns running through some sublime remote forest with barely a car passing all morning.
... (other than our own).
The only sound was birdsong, the runner’s heartbeat (which quickened when ascending some pretty steep inclines!) and the comforting rhythmic whooshing of the flame alongside one’s ear.
Once over the Range, the landscape opened out, now clothed in vast pine forests extending to each horizon.
Running amongst the silent pines is a completely different experience, yet soothing in its own way.
Thanks to the combined tally of our 3 teams this morning, there remain only about 27 km to cover into Tumut when the Peace Run resumes on Tuesday. Tomorrow (Monday) being a Public Holiday, is a scheduled rest day for the Team in Canberra.
