Wednesday 1 August 2012

Day 131 - I'm a Cowboy

I wonder how many people would become a vegetarian while running the BNT, well you would have to run it first? But, how many cows can a man see?

It seems lots, what I have noticed about the good old Australian bush is that we have a lot of cattle, even through some of our national parks, and they come in all shapes, sizes and breeds.

I had this fear of cows early on in the piece, well I think it was the fear of actually being chased by bulls early on that gave me a nervous feeling every time I entered a field with any type of cattle......are they teats or balls??

These days I'm not bothered by either, even bulls run away when I come tumbling through the bush in my signature Arcteryx orange t-shirt. Today for example I was again in the middle of nowhere, not a road or farm track in sight, I could only follow the cattle pads and aim for the general direction of where I needed to be going, there where alot of gullies and a little tree coverage, not the vast open fields that we are used to seeing cows grazing in.

The humped cattle, white all over or Brahmans as I now know there called, had the biggest fright seeing this sweaty man in orange, bashing through the wilderness with his teeth gritted, going hard up and town the gullies. They would be lucky to see people in general let alone this one!

I propose that we ditch the horses, quad bikes and helicopters that the farmers use to muster up their cattle come market day, and get a bunch of trail runners in to do the job, bigger impact, but doing what we love to do which is running through the wilderness!

Its been a little like that over the last week, lots of good cattle country and me mustering up the cows on the way through. It says in the guide book that this section for some can be a little boring and monotonous.

I think completely the opposite, the trail is diverse that's what I love about it, and I'm running trails through some of Australia's best country, its a little welcomed break from tackling mountains as the terrain seems to be alot softer and flatter. The views are still amazing I'm either looking at mountains or I'm in them, I have been on the trail for four months and there hasn't been a day where I have found this great trail to be boring, funny how some people think, I often think that it could be worst......I could be sitting in an office!

Little sight of people or even properties this past week, just a vastness all to myself, even the railway line that I followed for most of yesterday, didn't have a train on it, a great time to reflect on the run and panic a little as I think of it coming to a end!

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