This Saturday, our monthly parkrun tourism outing took us to Talkin Tarn near Brampton in Cumbria … and what a beautiful parkrun it is! Two laps, each including a stretch along the lake shore, complete with cute ducklings, followed by a not-too-taxing climb through woods that opened out to give stunning views of the Cumbrian countryside, before descending back to the start. At the end of the second lap, there was a finishing stretch on a trail through the woods to finish quite close to the cafe. And the rain held off until after we finished. What more do you want? Perfect.
Regular readers will know that, back in November we had a special report from Claremonter-in-exile Maria Duenas about the 10 boomerangs on a journey from South Beach parkrun in Perth. The idea is that they are passed from parkrun to parkrun before eventually returning home (My boomerang won’t come back). Well, it turned out that we weren’t the only tourists at Talkin Tarn, but we were joined by boomerang B8, affectionately known as Bertie. Bertie is the only one of the 10 in the UK, and the organisers reckon it has been to more pubs than parkruns! Having been collected at South Shields last week, it was the star of Talkin Tarn this week and has now headed north of the border, most likely turning up at Vogrie parkrun next week.
The boomerang excitement slightly overshadowed Claremont success, with Harry Mawdsley getting a comfortable victory, Lily Crouzier being 3rd lady and Lucy Ward, the only one of us who had run the course before, getting a PB.
There was individual tourism too. Aoife Monaghan was also in Cumbria, albeit at Rothay Park in Ambleside, Jim Crinnion made one of his frequent visits to West Yorkshire, and Niki Szlovak ventured to Glasgow where she was 3rd female at Queens Park. The Smiths were down south, both collecting PBs at Tooting Common. Our international man of mystery this week was Luke Woodend, who was at Haarlem in the Netherlands. Though Luke was a bit disappointed to learn that, had he stayed another day, he could have done another parkrun as Monday was a national holiday there!
It was quite busy back home too, with PBs galore – Anna Round on the Moor; Peter Noble, Chloe Glover and Becky Webster at Leazes and Jamie Harding at Newbiggin. Chloe’s PB was good enough to net her the 3rd female spot. Holly Porter and Heather Steel were both in 2nd place at Rising Sun and Gateshead respectively, but the star of the show was Catherine Young. Catherine finished as 1st female at Fulwell Quarry for the 2nd consecutive week.
