Worumba, Flinders Ranges
I was very excited to go home for Easter and join the family on a trip to the Flinders Ranges in South Australia. Usually we go to Wilpena Pound, Parachilna Gorge or the lower flinders ranges. We usually camp. This trip we stayed on a sheep station called Worumba (yay for showers) with my parent’s walking group. Worumba is 50mins drive on dirt road from Hawker. Hawker is north of Quorn, which is north of Port Augusta. The drive from Adelaide was 6 hours. I love the Flinders Ranges because it is remote and beautiful in a red, dry and exposed way. It also has some great trail running opportunities especially in the mountain range that includes St Mary’s Peak and along the rocky and dry gorges. You can also see yellow footed rock wallabies hopping about the steep gorge walls. There is also abundant native food around including the fruit of the quandong tree (wild peach). I had planned to go on long trail runs every day and join in hiking activities in the afternoons.
The Thursday before Easter after interval training I had a very, very sore peroneal tendon and severe pain deep in my heel foot pad. This was really disappointing, as I had raced Buffalo Stampede on the Saturday, it had been 4 days since then and my body had held up well in the previous four days, even the day after the race during my back up run. My achilles and quads were sore after the race but I had spent a lot of time treating these parts of my body. If I did not perform well at Spartan Picton Beast on 4 May I would not qualify for the Spartan World Championships or get a podium position at the Spartan National Series, goals I had been working really hard to achieve.
The first three days after injury I swam two or more kilometres a day and despite not being able to trail run was keen to get hundreds of kilometres away from a pool. I would be safe from chlorine in the flinders. My Dad took mountain bikes on the trip so I had something to do (my family know to keep me occupied while injured or I will drive them insane).
Worumba is a 170 square kilometre property with its own mountains, including Mt Plantagenet and Mt Craig. It also has areas of spinifex, mallee, dry gorges and a lot of exposed and rocky hills. A rocky, dry and hilly world, like Tatooine on Star Wars, but slightly more vegetation.
Day 1, everyone headed off for a long walk in the morning, so I was left to try and mountain bike solo. I made a few errors included stubbornly wearing short running shorts only to retreat after a couple of kilometres because I couldn’t sit on the seat properly. After putting on sensible bike shorts and working out how to change gears and take my feet out of the pedals without stacking it, I was good to go, and staying on farm trail rode to the top bore through dry creek bed, paddocks, spinifex grass, mallee scrub, and plenty of rocks. Another mistake I made was thinking I wouldn’t need any food because mountain biking is easy. I could not have been more wrong. Mountain bikes are heavy and require energy to move. Luckily I was solo so no one had to endure hangry Monika. I had water, which is the most important thing when you are in desert areas (technically the area has a rainfall of 320mm so does not fall within the definition of a desert but it is definitely semi-arid and is currently in drought).
That afternoon I joined everyone for a sunset walk, where we hiked a 10km loop up a steep hill and some of the walking club drove 4wd to the top so that there was champagne and cheese to watch as the sunset. I am more into chocolate than cheese, but was still impressed by the high level of organisation. Walking back to the shearing quarters by headlight was also special. Normally I am running by headlight which requires concentration. Walking by headlight is really enjoyable because you are not stressed about tripping over every step.
On day 2 I decided to test out my foot. Hard dirt road with rocks everywhere is not the best place to try to recover from a peroneal tendon injury, but on the 40min jog I didn’t get any searing pain and it did not swell up in the afternoon, so that was promising. I did the same mountain bike route afterwards 20mins quicker than the day before, riding skills having improved slightly. Day 3 I ran a 11km hilly loop and my foot coped really well, so I could actually enjoy the sunrise. I had Lily the kelpie running with me. I love running with dogs because they are just so happy living in the moment, not overthinking anything. Lily also knew the best places to run so I didn’t get lost.
We then went on a 4wd day around the property. I prefer travelling on foot because I get super car sick, but we got to cover a lot of the property and visit historic settlement sites, mining sites, caves, ancient river red gums, and countless views. I drove back to Adelaide the next day with my sister before flying back to Canberra. Even though I did not get to do as much running as I would have liked, the rocky river beds, spinifex, and Mallee scrub always make me feel more alive.