Trailwalker
Apr. 4th, 2011 01:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hnpccThis weekend I volunteered for the Oxfam Trailwalker. I was allocated two shifts, both on Saturday and both towards the end of the trail. The shifts ended up being quite different, but enjoyable.
The first shift was as a trail marshall, at the corner of Don Rd and Ferngully Rd in Don Valley where the walkers turn from Don Rd to start walking up to O'Shannessey's aqueduct at the end of Ferngully Rd. It's about 17.5km from the end of the walk, or 82.5km from the start (depending on how you look at it!) After what can only be described as a stupidly busy day at work on Friday I came home, had tea, climbed into bed at 8pm and crashed out until 11.45pm, when Dean woke me up so I could get ready to head out to Don Valley. My shift was from 2am to 7.30am, and I needed to drive out to checkpoint 6 at Woori Yallock Primary school to collect my tag and spare radio battery and then drive a further 15km to the actual marshalling location. Not being entirely sure how long all this would take I'd decided to give it two hours, even though googlemaps swore blind it would only take 1 hour 11 mins. Googlemaps has no idea where roadworks are though, and I also knew that some sections of the route would be at lowered speed limits because of the event. Knowing how cold it had gotten last year, I'd dressed in leggings with jeans on top and a thermal top with my volunteer shirt over that. BOM were forecasting overnight lows of 5oC again, so I wanted to be fairly sure I was warm. I checked I had my head lamp, new batteries, torch, chocolate, thermoses of tea, hat, gloves and my information sheet, waved goodbye to Dean (who'd very kindly put all that together for me while I'd been asleep!) and headed out.
Leaving more time turned out to be a good thing, as the first thing I did was inadvertently head to Bourke Rd in a misguided attempt to get onto the Ringwood-bound lanes of the Eastern Freeway. Bourke Rd has an entrance to the city-bound lanes, but unfortunately not the Ringwood-bound ones. If I'd been slightly more awake I'd probably have remembered that! After a quick tour through the side streets I got on to the freeway at Doncaster Rd instead and headed out towards Woori Yallock. The first indication I had that the event was well in progress was when I came across a speed restriction zone, followed by a blindingly bright light, under which two marshalls were stopping traffic to allow walkers to cross the Warburton Highway. Little groups of walkers headed across, all wearing head lamps. After they'd passed I continued on... and promptly missed the turn off to Woori Yallock Primary school. Oops. Fortunately I realised quite quickly that that's what I'd done (as I was heading out of Woori Yallock again - bit of a giveaway when the town starts ending), and after a brief adventure in the back streets, during which I managed to come across another Walk-controlled road crossing, I found myself on the right road and at the end of a queue of cars backed up onto the main road waiting to turn into the school. So this would definitely be the right place then!! Even with my navigational detours I'd still arrived nearly an hour early. I inched my way to the front of the queue, where the volunteer looked at my windscreen and then asked "do you have your team permit?"
"No, I'm a volunteer - I'm just here to check in and grab the stuff."
"Oh! I didn't even look at your shirt! Hang on." She radioed in to say she had a volunteer that only needed a short-term space.
"That's what they all say" came the weary response from the parking marshall, "Send them in..."
They directed me into a space right out the front, checking that I wasn't actually blocking anyone in. I headed into the checkpoint, found the right desk and collected my nametag with lanyard, spare battery and a cup of tea (given that I was still over 40 minutes early). The checkpoint was absolutely jumping, with the podiatrists and physios both having long queues, the carpark and oval completely full with cars and tents and teams coming in every couple of minutes. I found the volunteers loos (yay! no portaloos!), and headed back out again to drive out to Don Valley. Out of Woori Yallock, along the Warburton Highway again, past Launching Place and then I was turning left onto Don Road at the Launching Place Hotel (listed as the nearest toilet to me on my map. Well, during hotel opening hours at least. That was the other reason I'd gone to the loos back at the primary school!). Don Road had restricted speed zones the entire way along, as the route goes along it for 4km. There were bright lights at several points, powered by generators - where the walkers emerged from the Warburton Trail to enter Don Rd; at the point where they crossed Don Rd to walk on the other side, and again where they briefly exited to walk along Old Don Rd before returning to Don Rd itself. I crept past them all carefully until I reached Ferngully Rd, which was in pitch blackness, and parked just up from the marshal point next to the previous volunteer's car.
Hopping out I headed over, introduced myself to her and admitted I was early.
"No problems, just get yourself sorted out and I'll hand over."
I put on my gortex jacket, head lamp and hat, put the torch in my pocket and grabbed my green bag of goodies. There was a chair and a table set up, with a nice sign with "Good Luck Walkers!" on it.
"The generator's not working" said the volunteer. This was when I noticed that there was in fact a generator sitting there, definitely not powering anything. "So we're in darkness. We've phoned them, and they're meant to give us 24 hour service, but no one's answering the phone. They're supposed to be coming out to fix it though. The people across the road are really narky about the generator, so if they do fix it they'll probably come back over to complain." She giggled. "I'm not convinced they didn't sabotage it somehow. I also haven't gotten anything out of the radio except static. Hm, what else. Oh yeah, there's a portaloo there" (that was when I noticed the portaloo sitting off to one side in the darkness - yay for toilets less than 4km away!) "and the cars have been coming around that bend pretty quickly, so you need to be aware of that. I think that's everything!" She gave me her reflective vest and we switched batteries on the radio.
"Oh the table's actually from the guy before me, he's going to pick it up tonight. The chair's mine - did you bring one? " That was the point when I realised that no, I'd forgotten to put it back in the boot. Oh well. "You can always sit on the generator! It was raining before but it seems to have stopped again now - good luck!"
She cheerfully packed up her stuff and headed off.
A group of teams promptly walked up out of the darkness, with headlamps guiding them.
"Good morning!" I said "Turn right onto Ferngully Rd! Unless you want the loo, in which case there's a portaloo here!"
"Oh thank God" said one team member, "where is it?" She hurried over to the portaloo, while the rest of her team stood around.
"Feel free to sit on the non-functional generator! It's not being used for anything else right now..."
"How far are we from the rest stop?"
"5km from the rest stop and 10.5km from checkpoint 7. You're nearly half way through the Superleg!"
And so it went for the rest of the night. In general the teams fell into several rough groups - those who were seriously over it, didn't want to talk but also didn't want to be rude and so just were either quiet or said thanks and kept going; those who were getting over it but were manically cheerful and chatty; those who weren't over it and were focused (not a lot of talking there either, but more than the first group); those who weren't over it and were hyper and chatty; those who were over it and just wanted to sit down on the generator/road/dirt/wherever and those who were busting for the loo. (Then you had those whose response to "we have a portaloo" was "I wish I'd known that 2km ago!!") Within teams there was also quite often a cross-section of those groups.
The teams tended to arrive in groups, strangely enough - every so often you'd get one team, or half a team, by themselves but more often there were at least 2-3 teams turning up at the same time, often more. One of the most amusing parts of the night was when roughly 12-14 teams all rocked up together, of which at least a third of the members wanted to use the loo. Naturally that was the point the truck turned up to pump out the portaloo - he quite happily waited while the queue of 12 people diminished again. The pump for that was extremely noisy as well - I can see why the neighbours aren't really thrilled with the generator going all night.
It was fortunate that I'd already rung the control centre to ask them to send out more toilet paper, after that group the loo ran out. The toilet paper arrived about 20 minutes later - another volunteer driving around restocking everything.
Despite no friends or family being allowed on the trail, I had quite a few cars with support crew turn up to meet people. This was quite nice, as it meant I had more people to chat to while they waited as well.
The radio remained mostly silent, occasionally emitting a burst of static. Three times I got actual phrases, of which the funniest was "*static* winnebago *static*". 'Winnebago?' About 5 minutes later a campervan turned up to wait for a team. I've no idea if that's what they were referring to (given all the other phrases were to do with parking at checkpoint 6 I kind of doubt it!) but it was amusing.
Every so often there'd be a lull, and a couple of times it was quiet enough that there were no headlights coming towards me and no one actually at the turn off. That was when I got to look at the now-cleared sky, which was covered in stars, and listen to the rushing creek somewhere out there in the darkness.
Very few cars went through the road - those coming from the same direction as the walkers were very careful and moving slowly; those coming from the other direction had probably seen the 40kph sign, but didn't actually start slowing until they came around the bend and suddenly realised there were people around. The big flashing sign they had up across from me ("Beware. Walkers on Road") possibly helped with that. I was very aware of all traffic noise all night, not least because I could see teams walking on the road, and I continually was asking people to please not stand/sit/do stretching exercises in the middle of the road, as it wasn't actually closed for the event. Even if it was 3am and there really wasn't much traffic, I'm still not sure that they would have been able to get up from the stretching exercise quickly enough if a car had chosen that moment to arrive!! I'm glad I wasn't there during the day, because it would have been a lot harder to keep an eye and ear out for traffic when there weren't headlights and long-travelling engine noise to give you fair warning.
More teams came through, all of whom had started walking at either 7am or 8.30am and so had been going for 18-24 hours by the time they got to me. One of the most amusing moments was one team having to wake up two of its members, both of whom had fallen asleep while sitting on the generator waiting for the other two to go to the loo and tape up their blisters. Most people didn't want any more chocolate (which was unfortunate, because it meant I ate a lot of it) but they did want to give me hugs, high fives, jelly beans and thanks. I still find it amusing that they were all thanking the volunteers for coming out in the middle of the night - guys, you're fund-raising and walking 100km!! The volunteering is the easy part!
Around 5.30am a new theme started emerging with the teams:
"When's the dawn? I am so sick of it being dark!! I just want to be able to see something!!"
The dawn wasn't for at least another 90 minutes, with first light about half an hour before that. I realised it was getting lighter when I noticed a white painted fence, which I hadn't been able to see all night, about 10m behind the generator. By 7am it was light enough to turn off the headlamps, and to actually see my non-functional generator. At 7.25am a car started heading up the road, necessitating me helping one team member to stand up quite quickly and get out of the way (she was towards the edge of the road, but not nearly far enough). It was my replacement, so I swapped over the radio battery, told her that the radio was useless, informed her about the generator and traffic conditions, told her the distance stats and gave her the reflective vest. Then I headed back to check point 6 to return the battery and name tag. Checkpoint 6 was still jumping, but a bit quieter than it had been at 2am - the majority of 7am teams had moved on, together with their support crew, and the 8.30am start time teams were either heading out or had stayed at checkpoint 5 and hadn't reached the primary school yet. The 10am teams were, in the main, still to come with only a few intrepid and seriously fast teams starting to arrive at the gates. I returned everything, bought a bacon and egg sandwich from the primary school fundraising team (who manned a BBQ continuously from about 3pm Friday to about 10pm Saturday) and then drove home again.
And slept for several hours, before actually doing some work on my course. Not sure how good the work was, I wasn't exactly awake.
My second shift was in Warburton, 400m away from checkpoint 7, which was the Warburton Golf Club, from 6.30pm until 12.30am Sunday. At 4.30pm I headed out again, managing not to get lost (although I did stop to check my Melways as to how much further Warburton actually was at one point. I hadn't realised it was quite so far past Wesburn.) Again I was directed to parking - this time quite a way away from the golf club, which was packed - checked in, got my tag and battery, discovered that I couldn't collect my meal because they hadn't arrived yet, headed back out to the car park and drove down to my checkpoint. Yes, even though it was 400m away - I thought it would be easier to have the car (and my gear) close by. The volunteers I was replacing were two retired ladies, who'd both sensibly brought fold out chairs to sit on while they directed the walkers. For the second time in less than 24 hours I remembered that I had forgotten to put my chair back in the boot!! Oh well. We changed over the radio battery - this radio was working quite nicely - I put on the reflective vest and they headed off. By this time the majority of teams had finished, so it was a lot quieter than the previous marshal point. I was at the bottom of the Very Steep Hill, watching teams creep down it. The dusk was quite pretty, and I watched a kookaburra swoop on bugs and insects from a telephone wire, a hawk circle high above me and a flock of lorikeets swoop overhead. Behind me the Yarra rushed past. The radio crackled frequently, usually with parking updates as the marshals there tried to fit the support crews in.
A support crew walked up to wait for their team, who'd left checkpoint 7 at 11.45am and hadn't made it to me yet.
"We think they're struggling a bit. They started off walking at about 5kph, but they're down to around 2 now we think." Heh, that sounds familiar.
A car with P-plates pulled up, and asked where they were. I told them they were on the corner of Surrey Rd and Danmans Rd. The passenger consulted his Melways and they headed off. 2 minutes later they passed me going in the other direction. I kind of figured they might be heading the wrong way, given that there were only 3 streets in that direction.
I continued chatting with the support crew. It turned out that they knew one of this year's winning team members, who normally does ultra-marathons. The winning team this year walked/ran the 100km in 10 hours and 23 minutes, which is both a new record for Melbourne and a seriously fast time. What makes it even more impressive is that they'd started at 8.30am, which meant that they'd passed all but 2 teams who started at 7am. They hit the finish line at 6.53pm, or about the time I got home from work. The two teams who came in ahead of them (but slower, given their earlier start time) came in at 6.46pm and 6.53pm. 24 hours later I was waiting for the last of the 10am start time teams to struggle down the hill.
"I didn't realise they'd started later" said the crew member, "I was looking at their time and thinking 'geez, that's pretty slow for them!'"
The team they were waiting for finally made it to the bottom of the hill and they headed off down the last stretch to the golf club. "Be careful of the oncoming traffic!" I reminded them as they headed off.
Things got quiet. I could see headlamps coming slowly - often very slowly, and with frequent turning around to walk backwards for a bit. The teams at this end were a bit less hyper and a bit quieter than at the previous marshal point - they wanted to get to checkpoint 7, sit down and then gather their strength for the final push.
More support crew turned up, some walking all the way up the hill to help and encourage the teams down.
The radio crackled. "Marshal 38, are you there?"
"Hi yeah, it's [hnpcc] at 38."
"The food's arrived, we'll be bringing it out shortly."
"Yay!"
Another team limped down. "Hello! 400 metres to checkpoint 7!"
"Damn, I thought you were at the entrance!!"
"No, sorry - the next person with the flashy light sabre is at the entrance!"
This checkpoint had also supplied me with a torch (which I ignored in favour of the headlamp again) and a flashy red light sabre to direct walkers.
My phone rang. "Hi, it's the control centre - we've had a report from the SES that walkers are in the middle of the road. Can you make sure you ask them to stay on the side?"
Given that Danmans Rd has yet another bend in it, and that the locals were over the event and had sped up again and, most importantly, that the teams were generally not making entirely coherent decisions through fatigue it was necessary to remind everyone to remember to stay on one side of the road, preferably the one facing the oncoming traffic.
The car with the P-plates rocked up again, and this time I went over and pointed out exactly where they were on the Melways, where they had to get to and how many streets to the left past the golf club it was. Heh. They didn't come back so I assume they got there OK!
The radio crackled again. "Parking marshals at the front - can you remember to tell cars turning out that they need to turn left to get to Melbourne please."
I seriously wonder about the directional ability of some people.
A car pulled in next to me. It turned out to be the volunteer co-ordinator, with my meal. And my dessert. And additional chocolate bars, just in case I was still peckish. Heh. She headed up the road to the marshal at the top of the hill.
More teams limped through. More support crew came and waited. One group were uncertain whether their team would arrive OK: "they had a screaming argument at checkpoint 7 and weren't talking when they left... they've only got one set of poles between them at the moment though, so the other two will have to get sticks to beat the others to death with."
We watched the lights coming slowly down the hill.
"You think that's them? There's only 3 lights... wonder which one didn't make it, heh."
Four people with three working headlamps emerged out of the darkness together, talking. Obviously during the 20km walk they'd had time to apologise and get over it.
The radio crackled again. "This is [volunteer coordinator] at checkpoint 37 at the top of Surrey Rd. All quiet here!"
"This is [hnpcc] at the bottom of Surrey Rd. I can see fairy lights coming down the hill!"
I swooshed my light sabre around a bit.
A team came very slowly past me, with their support crew gutter crawling along in the car next to them.
"[hnpcc] - I've got more fairy lights coming your way!!"
"What??" said one of the parking co-ordinators who had obviously only just tuned into the conversation.
The main radio base station explained, with some giggling.
Things were quiet. I waited for the fairy lights to reappear - I had seen them briefly at the very top of the hill but then they'd gone into the dip and vanished. A car came down - it was the volunteer co-ordinator, relieving me so I could have a break.
"What happened to the fairy lights? They seem to be taking ages."
"Oh, they're sitting down in the gutter about half way up the hill."
I drove back to the golf club, this time getting a park just inside the gate. Went to the loo - the rushing Yarra was not helping - refilled my thermos with tea, and headed back out again. The co-ordinator had spread out a blanket and was sitting on it with a cushion.
"Do you want me to leave you the blanket?"
"Yes please!!"
"Have the fairy lights come through?"
"No, not yet."
I sat down and waited. Fairy lights appeared on the crest of the hill. I stood up. The lights sat down again. So did I. Eventually two women limped very, very slowly towards me.
"Hello! You're 400m from checkpoint 7."
"200 metres?" said one woman hopefully.
"No, sorry, 400. But the next light sabre you see is the entrance!"
"Are the podiatrists still on duty?"
"Yep, they'll be there till the checkpoint closes. And the physios. Take your time."
They limped onwards.
It got quiet again. I started to wish I'd brought my course notes to read. Instead I played with my phone. A car turned up and asked how to get to Bulleen.
"First turn around, go back to the Golf Club, turn right and cross the river. Then turn left towards Melbourne..."
*giggle*
The radio crackled again: "Marshals on the course - we've got about 10 teams still to come through."
I updated facebook with this information (9.32pm: Under 10 teams to come thru, wish they'd hurry up!).
Some more lights appeared in a small group, came down the hill and headed gratefully towards checkpoint 7.
I updated facebook again (10.08pm: I should have brought the course reading i need to do. Teams coming in small waves, with long breaks.)
The marshal at checkpoint 37 complained over the radio that she was bored. I suggested doing "YMCA" with the light sabres.
(10.10pm: On the other hand have red flashy light sabre to play with...)
Another group of 3, followed by another 3 and then 2 lights struggled past me. They were all quite cheeful though.
I got my Melways out of the car and started reading that by headlamp light.
The radio crackled again. "Marshal 37, you can come in. Marshal 38, you can come in. All teams have now arrived."
"Yay! I'll be there in a couple of secs!!"
(10.58pm: Yay! All teams through!)
I packed up all the stuff, took off my headlamp and started to drive off. Then realised that I'd forgotten to take my hat off before I took my headlamp off (for the third time mind you!) and it was lying in the road. Jumped out, grabbed it and headed into the checkpoint again to return everything.
The golf club was still busy, but not packed as the last couple of teams got ready to head for the finish line. That was also when I found out that checkpoint 6, which was slated to stay open until 3am, had actually closed at 5pm because all the teams had either withdrawn or left. This was much earlier than last year, when I think the last teams left from there half an hour before it closed! The last team this year crossed the finish line at 2.03am in 42 hours and 56 minutes, well in advance of last year's 7.30am final team arrival.
I have to say I really enjoyed the volunteering and would happily do it again if I'm not walking next year. I can highly recommend it, although if you're on a later shift towards the end of the event I'd definitely take a friend to talk to, a smart phone or a book. Even an iPod maybe!
Driving home again was interesting - I was yawning up to the Ringwood bypass, then I stopped. That was a bad sign, as it meant I was starting to go to sleep. Fortunately I made it home without incident, mostly by concentrating very hard on what I was doing. I do need to get the high beams checked on the car though - I was grateful that it wasn't a full moon, as the high beams are erratic and I didn't end up using them. Which is only a problem if you have large marsupials out!!
The final summary of this year's walking part of the event was 716 teams started, of which 36 withdrew during the event (one withdrew 30 mins after starting, at checkpoint one. No I've no idea why either. My guess is food poisoning.) The fundraising total won't be known for a couple of months yet, but it looks good. And yes, I would quite like to walk it again next year!
Edit: I got curious as to why the teams were so much faster this year. No real answers, but they did take out the Melba Track, which probably helped. Also this year only 389 teams finished with all four members, which is considerably fewer than last year's 422 teams. So while there were 13 more teams starting last year, there were 33 more teams finishing complete. I'd be interested to see the statistics of who pulled out where though.
The first shift was as a trail marshall, at the corner of Don Rd and Ferngully Rd in Don Valley where the walkers turn from Don Rd to start walking up to O'Shannessey's aqueduct at the end of Ferngully Rd. It's about 17.5km from the end of the walk, or 82.5km from the start (depending on how you look at it!) After what can only be described as a stupidly busy day at work on Friday I came home, had tea, climbed into bed at 8pm and crashed out until 11.45pm, when Dean woke me up so I could get ready to head out to Don Valley. My shift was from 2am to 7.30am, and I needed to drive out to checkpoint 6 at Woori Yallock Primary school to collect my tag and spare radio battery and then drive a further 15km to the actual marshalling location. Not being entirely sure how long all this would take I'd decided to give it two hours, even though googlemaps swore blind it would only take 1 hour 11 mins. Googlemaps has no idea where roadworks are though, and I also knew that some sections of the route would be at lowered speed limits because of the event. Knowing how cold it had gotten last year, I'd dressed in leggings with jeans on top and a thermal top with my volunteer shirt over that. BOM were forecasting overnight lows of 5oC again, so I wanted to be fairly sure I was warm. I checked I had my head lamp, new batteries, torch, chocolate, thermoses of tea, hat, gloves and my information sheet, waved goodbye to Dean (who'd very kindly put all that together for me while I'd been asleep!) and headed out.
Leaving more time turned out to be a good thing, as the first thing I did was inadvertently head to Bourke Rd in a misguided attempt to get onto the Ringwood-bound lanes of the Eastern Freeway. Bourke Rd has an entrance to the city-bound lanes, but unfortunately not the Ringwood-bound ones. If I'd been slightly more awake I'd probably have remembered that! After a quick tour through the side streets I got on to the freeway at Doncaster Rd instead and headed out towards Woori Yallock. The first indication I had that the event was well in progress was when I came across a speed restriction zone, followed by a blindingly bright light, under which two marshalls were stopping traffic to allow walkers to cross the Warburton Highway. Little groups of walkers headed across, all wearing head lamps. After they'd passed I continued on... and promptly missed the turn off to Woori Yallock Primary school. Oops. Fortunately I realised quite quickly that that's what I'd done (as I was heading out of Woori Yallock again - bit of a giveaway when the town starts ending), and after a brief adventure in the back streets, during which I managed to come across another Walk-controlled road crossing, I found myself on the right road and at the end of a queue of cars backed up onto the main road waiting to turn into the school. So this would definitely be the right place then!! Even with my navigational detours I'd still arrived nearly an hour early. I inched my way to the front of the queue, where the volunteer looked at my windscreen and then asked "do you have your team permit?"
"No, I'm a volunteer - I'm just here to check in and grab the stuff."
"Oh! I didn't even look at your shirt! Hang on." She radioed in to say she had a volunteer that only needed a short-term space.
"That's what they all say" came the weary response from the parking marshall, "Send them in..."
They directed me into a space right out the front, checking that I wasn't actually blocking anyone in. I headed into the checkpoint, found the right desk and collected my nametag with lanyard, spare battery and a cup of tea (given that I was still over 40 minutes early). The checkpoint was absolutely jumping, with the podiatrists and physios both having long queues, the carpark and oval completely full with cars and tents and teams coming in every couple of minutes. I found the volunteers loos (yay! no portaloos!), and headed back out again to drive out to Don Valley. Out of Woori Yallock, along the Warburton Highway again, past Launching Place and then I was turning left onto Don Road at the Launching Place Hotel (listed as the nearest toilet to me on my map. Well, during hotel opening hours at least. That was the other reason I'd gone to the loos back at the primary school!). Don Road had restricted speed zones the entire way along, as the route goes along it for 4km. There were bright lights at several points, powered by generators - where the walkers emerged from the Warburton Trail to enter Don Rd; at the point where they crossed Don Rd to walk on the other side, and again where they briefly exited to walk along Old Don Rd before returning to Don Rd itself. I crept past them all carefully until I reached Ferngully Rd, which was in pitch blackness, and parked just up from the marshal point next to the previous volunteer's car.
Hopping out I headed over, introduced myself to her and admitted I was early.
"No problems, just get yourself sorted out and I'll hand over."
I put on my gortex jacket, head lamp and hat, put the torch in my pocket and grabbed my green bag of goodies. There was a chair and a table set up, with a nice sign with "Good Luck Walkers!" on it.
"The generator's not working" said the volunteer. This was when I noticed that there was in fact a generator sitting there, definitely not powering anything. "So we're in darkness. We've phoned them, and they're meant to give us 24 hour service, but no one's answering the phone. They're supposed to be coming out to fix it though. The people across the road are really narky about the generator, so if they do fix it they'll probably come back over to complain." She giggled. "I'm not convinced they didn't sabotage it somehow. I also haven't gotten anything out of the radio except static. Hm, what else. Oh yeah, there's a portaloo there" (that was when I noticed the portaloo sitting off to one side in the darkness - yay for toilets less than 4km away!) "and the cars have been coming around that bend pretty quickly, so you need to be aware of that. I think that's everything!" She gave me her reflective vest and we switched batteries on the radio.
"Oh the table's actually from the guy before me, he's going to pick it up tonight. The chair's mine - did you bring one? " That was the point when I realised that no, I'd forgotten to put it back in the boot. Oh well. "You can always sit on the generator! It was raining before but it seems to have stopped again now - good luck!"
She cheerfully packed up her stuff and headed off.
A group of teams promptly walked up out of the darkness, with headlamps guiding them.
"Good morning!" I said "Turn right onto Ferngully Rd! Unless you want the loo, in which case there's a portaloo here!"
"Oh thank God" said one team member, "where is it?" She hurried over to the portaloo, while the rest of her team stood around.
"Feel free to sit on the non-functional generator! It's not being used for anything else right now..."
"How far are we from the rest stop?"
"5km from the rest stop and 10.5km from checkpoint 7. You're nearly half way through the Superleg!"
And so it went for the rest of the night. In general the teams fell into several rough groups - those who were seriously over it, didn't want to talk but also didn't want to be rude and so just were either quiet or said thanks and kept going; those who were getting over it but were manically cheerful and chatty; those who weren't over it and were focused (not a lot of talking there either, but more than the first group); those who weren't over it and were hyper and chatty; those who were over it and just wanted to sit down on the generator/road/dirt/wherever and those who were busting for the loo. (Then you had those whose response to "we have a portaloo" was "I wish I'd known that 2km ago!!") Within teams there was also quite often a cross-section of those groups.
The teams tended to arrive in groups, strangely enough - every so often you'd get one team, or half a team, by themselves but more often there were at least 2-3 teams turning up at the same time, often more. One of the most amusing parts of the night was when roughly 12-14 teams all rocked up together, of which at least a third of the members wanted to use the loo. Naturally that was the point the truck turned up to pump out the portaloo - he quite happily waited while the queue of 12 people diminished again. The pump for that was extremely noisy as well - I can see why the neighbours aren't really thrilled with the generator going all night.
It was fortunate that I'd already rung the control centre to ask them to send out more toilet paper, after that group the loo ran out. The toilet paper arrived about 20 minutes later - another volunteer driving around restocking everything.
Despite no friends or family being allowed on the trail, I had quite a few cars with support crew turn up to meet people. This was quite nice, as it meant I had more people to chat to while they waited as well.
The radio remained mostly silent, occasionally emitting a burst of static. Three times I got actual phrases, of which the funniest was "*static* winnebago *static*". 'Winnebago?' About 5 minutes later a campervan turned up to wait for a team. I've no idea if that's what they were referring to (given all the other phrases were to do with parking at checkpoint 6 I kind of doubt it!) but it was amusing.
Every so often there'd be a lull, and a couple of times it was quiet enough that there were no headlights coming towards me and no one actually at the turn off. That was when I got to look at the now-cleared sky, which was covered in stars, and listen to the rushing creek somewhere out there in the darkness.
Very few cars went through the road - those coming from the same direction as the walkers were very careful and moving slowly; those coming from the other direction had probably seen the 40kph sign, but didn't actually start slowing until they came around the bend and suddenly realised there were people around. The big flashing sign they had up across from me ("Beware. Walkers on Road") possibly helped with that. I was very aware of all traffic noise all night, not least because I could see teams walking on the road, and I continually was asking people to please not stand/sit/do stretching exercises in the middle of the road, as it wasn't actually closed for the event. Even if it was 3am and there really wasn't much traffic, I'm still not sure that they would have been able to get up from the stretching exercise quickly enough if a car had chosen that moment to arrive!! I'm glad I wasn't there during the day, because it would have been a lot harder to keep an eye and ear out for traffic when there weren't headlights and long-travelling engine noise to give you fair warning.
More teams came through, all of whom had started walking at either 7am or 8.30am and so had been going for 18-24 hours by the time they got to me. One of the most amusing moments was one team having to wake up two of its members, both of whom had fallen asleep while sitting on the generator waiting for the other two to go to the loo and tape up their blisters. Most people didn't want any more chocolate (which was unfortunate, because it meant I ate a lot of it) but they did want to give me hugs, high fives, jelly beans and thanks. I still find it amusing that they were all thanking the volunteers for coming out in the middle of the night - guys, you're fund-raising and walking 100km!! The volunteering is the easy part!
Around 5.30am a new theme started emerging with the teams:
"When's the dawn? I am so sick of it being dark!! I just want to be able to see something!!"
The dawn wasn't for at least another 90 minutes, with first light about half an hour before that. I realised it was getting lighter when I noticed a white painted fence, which I hadn't been able to see all night, about 10m behind the generator. By 7am it was light enough to turn off the headlamps, and to actually see my non-functional generator. At 7.25am a car started heading up the road, necessitating me helping one team member to stand up quite quickly and get out of the way (she was towards the edge of the road, but not nearly far enough). It was my replacement, so I swapped over the radio battery, told her that the radio was useless, informed her about the generator and traffic conditions, told her the distance stats and gave her the reflective vest. Then I headed back to check point 6 to return the battery and name tag. Checkpoint 6 was still jumping, but a bit quieter than it had been at 2am - the majority of 7am teams had moved on, together with their support crew, and the 8.30am start time teams were either heading out or had stayed at checkpoint 5 and hadn't reached the primary school yet. The 10am teams were, in the main, still to come with only a few intrepid and seriously fast teams starting to arrive at the gates. I returned everything, bought a bacon and egg sandwich from the primary school fundraising team (who manned a BBQ continuously from about 3pm Friday to about 10pm Saturday) and then drove home again.
And slept for several hours, before actually doing some work on my course. Not sure how good the work was, I wasn't exactly awake.
My second shift was in Warburton, 400m away from checkpoint 7, which was the Warburton Golf Club, from 6.30pm until 12.30am Sunday. At 4.30pm I headed out again, managing not to get lost (although I did stop to check my Melways as to how much further Warburton actually was at one point. I hadn't realised it was quite so far past Wesburn.) Again I was directed to parking - this time quite a way away from the golf club, which was packed - checked in, got my tag and battery, discovered that I couldn't collect my meal because they hadn't arrived yet, headed back out to the car park and drove down to my checkpoint. Yes, even though it was 400m away - I thought it would be easier to have the car (and my gear) close by. The volunteers I was replacing were two retired ladies, who'd both sensibly brought fold out chairs to sit on while they directed the walkers. For the second time in less than 24 hours I remembered that I had forgotten to put my chair back in the boot!! Oh well. We changed over the radio battery - this radio was working quite nicely - I put on the reflective vest and they headed off. By this time the majority of teams had finished, so it was a lot quieter than the previous marshal point. I was at the bottom of the Very Steep Hill, watching teams creep down it. The dusk was quite pretty, and I watched a kookaburra swoop on bugs and insects from a telephone wire, a hawk circle high above me and a flock of lorikeets swoop overhead. Behind me the Yarra rushed past. The radio crackled frequently, usually with parking updates as the marshals there tried to fit the support crews in.
A support crew walked up to wait for their team, who'd left checkpoint 7 at 11.45am and hadn't made it to me yet.
"We think they're struggling a bit. They started off walking at about 5kph, but they're down to around 2 now we think." Heh, that sounds familiar.
A car with P-plates pulled up, and asked where they were. I told them they were on the corner of Surrey Rd and Danmans Rd. The passenger consulted his Melways and they headed off. 2 minutes later they passed me going in the other direction. I kind of figured they might be heading the wrong way, given that there were only 3 streets in that direction.
I continued chatting with the support crew. It turned out that they knew one of this year's winning team members, who normally does ultra-marathons. The winning team this year walked/ran the 100km in 10 hours and 23 minutes, which is both a new record for Melbourne and a seriously fast time. What makes it even more impressive is that they'd started at 8.30am, which meant that they'd passed all but 2 teams who started at 7am. They hit the finish line at 6.53pm, or about the time I got home from work. The two teams who came in ahead of them (but slower, given their earlier start time) came in at 6.46pm and 6.53pm. 24 hours later I was waiting for the last of the 10am start time teams to struggle down the hill.
"I didn't realise they'd started later" said the crew member, "I was looking at their time and thinking 'geez, that's pretty slow for them!'"
The team they were waiting for finally made it to the bottom of the hill and they headed off down the last stretch to the golf club. "Be careful of the oncoming traffic!" I reminded them as they headed off.
Things got quiet. I could see headlamps coming slowly - often very slowly, and with frequent turning around to walk backwards for a bit. The teams at this end were a bit less hyper and a bit quieter than at the previous marshal point - they wanted to get to checkpoint 7, sit down and then gather their strength for the final push.
More support crew turned up, some walking all the way up the hill to help and encourage the teams down.
The radio crackled. "Marshal 38, are you there?"
"Hi yeah, it's [hnpcc] at 38."
"The food's arrived, we'll be bringing it out shortly."
"Yay!"
Another team limped down. "Hello! 400 metres to checkpoint 7!"
"Damn, I thought you were at the entrance!!"
"No, sorry - the next person with the flashy light sabre is at the entrance!"
This checkpoint had also supplied me with a torch (which I ignored in favour of the headlamp again) and a flashy red light sabre to direct walkers.
My phone rang. "Hi, it's the control centre - we've had a report from the SES that walkers are in the middle of the road. Can you make sure you ask them to stay on the side?"
Given that Danmans Rd has yet another bend in it, and that the locals were over the event and had sped up again and, most importantly, that the teams were generally not making entirely coherent decisions through fatigue it was necessary to remind everyone to remember to stay on one side of the road, preferably the one facing the oncoming traffic.
The car with the P-plates rocked up again, and this time I went over and pointed out exactly where they were on the Melways, where they had to get to and how many streets to the left past the golf club it was. Heh. They didn't come back so I assume they got there OK!
The radio crackled again. "Parking marshals at the front - can you remember to tell cars turning out that they need to turn left to get to Melbourne please."
I seriously wonder about the directional ability of some people.
A car pulled in next to me. It turned out to be the volunteer co-ordinator, with my meal. And my dessert. And additional chocolate bars, just in case I was still peckish. Heh. She headed up the road to the marshal at the top of the hill.
More teams limped through. More support crew came and waited. One group were uncertain whether their team would arrive OK: "they had a screaming argument at checkpoint 7 and weren't talking when they left... they've only got one set of poles between them at the moment though, so the other two will have to get sticks to beat the others to death with."
We watched the lights coming slowly down the hill.
"You think that's them? There's only 3 lights... wonder which one didn't make it, heh."
Four people with three working headlamps emerged out of the darkness together, talking. Obviously during the 20km walk they'd had time to apologise and get over it.
The radio crackled again. "This is [volunteer coordinator] at checkpoint 37 at the top of Surrey Rd. All quiet here!"
"This is [hnpcc] at the bottom of Surrey Rd. I can see fairy lights coming down the hill!"
I swooshed my light sabre around a bit.
A team came very slowly past me, with their support crew gutter crawling along in the car next to them.
"[hnpcc] - I've got more fairy lights coming your way!!"
"What??" said one of the parking co-ordinators who had obviously only just tuned into the conversation.
The main radio base station explained, with some giggling.
Things were quiet. I waited for the fairy lights to reappear - I had seen them briefly at the very top of the hill but then they'd gone into the dip and vanished. A car came down - it was the volunteer co-ordinator, relieving me so I could have a break.
"What happened to the fairy lights? They seem to be taking ages."
"Oh, they're sitting down in the gutter about half way up the hill."
I drove back to the golf club, this time getting a park just inside the gate. Went to the loo - the rushing Yarra was not helping - refilled my thermos with tea, and headed back out again. The co-ordinator had spread out a blanket and was sitting on it with a cushion.
"Do you want me to leave you the blanket?"
"Yes please!!"
"Have the fairy lights come through?"
"No, not yet."
I sat down and waited. Fairy lights appeared on the crest of the hill. I stood up. The lights sat down again. So did I. Eventually two women limped very, very slowly towards me.
"Hello! You're 400m from checkpoint 7."
"200 metres?" said one woman hopefully.
"No, sorry, 400. But the next light sabre you see is the entrance!"
"Are the podiatrists still on duty?"
"Yep, they'll be there till the checkpoint closes. And the physios. Take your time."
They limped onwards.
It got quiet again. I started to wish I'd brought my course notes to read. Instead I played with my phone. A car turned up and asked how to get to Bulleen.
"First turn around, go back to the Golf Club, turn right and cross the river. Then turn left towards Melbourne..."
*giggle*
The radio crackled again: "Marshals on the course - we've got about 10 teams still to come through."
I updated facebook with this information (9.32pm: Under 10 teams to come thru, wish they'd hurry up!).
Some more lights appeared in a small group, came down the hill and headed gratefully towards checkpoint 7.
I updated facebook again (10.08pm: I should have brought the course reading i need to do. Teams coming in small waves, with long breaks.)
The marshal at checkpoint 37 complained over the radio that she was bored. I suggested doing "YMCA" with the light sabres.
(10.10pm: On the other hand have red flashy light sabre to play with...)
Another group of 3, followed by another 3 and then 2 lights struggled past me. They were all quite cheeful though.
I got my Melways out of the car and started reading that by headlamp light.
The radio crackled again. "Marshal 37, you can come in. Marshal 38, you can come in. All teams have now arrived."
"Yay! I'll be there in a couple of secs!!"
(10.58pm: Yay! All teams through!)
I packed up all the stuff, took off my headlamp and started to drive off. Then realised that I'd forgotten to take my hat off before I took my headlamp off (for the third time mind you!) and it was lying in the road. Jumped out, grabbed it and headed into the checkpoint again to return everything.
The golf club was still busy, but not packed as the last couple of teams got ready to head for the finish line. That was also when I found out that checkpoint 6, which was slated to stay open until 3am, had actually closed at 5pm because all the teams had either withdrawn or left. This was much earlier than last year, when I think the last teams left from there half an hour before it closed! The last team this year crossed the finish line at 2.03am in 42 hours and 56 minutes, well in advance of last year's 7.30am final team arrival.
I have to say I really enjoyed the volunteering and would happily do it again if I'm not walking next year. I can highly recommend it, although if you're on a later shift towards the end of the event I'd definitely take a friend to talk to, a smart phone or a book. Even an iPod maybe!
Driving home again was interesting - I was yawning up to the Ringwood bypass, then I stopped. That was a bad sign, as it meant I was starting to go to sleep. Fortunately I made it home without incident, mostly by concentrating very hard on what I was doing. I do need to get the high beams checked on the car though - I was grateful that it wasn't a full moon, as the high beams are erratic and I didn't end up using them. Which is only a problem if you have large marsupials out!!
The final summary of this year's walking part of the event was 716 teams started, of which 36 withdrew during the event (one withdrew 30 mins after starting, at checkpoint one. No I've no idea why either. My guess is food poisoning.) The fundraising total won't be known for a couple of months yet, but it looks good. And yes, I would quite like to walk it again next year!
Edit: I got curious as to why the teams were so much faster this year. No real answers, but they did take out the Melba Track, which probably helped. Also this year only 389 teams finished with all four members, which is considerably fewer than last year's 422 teams. So while there were 13 more teams starting last year, there were 33 more teams finishing complete. I'd be interested to see the statistics of who pulled out where though.
