At the start of the year I realised that I was going to be spending a lot of time this year running, hiking and kayaking in our local area. In order to keep it interesting, I decided to go out of my way to find new trails, paths and waterways to make it a bit more interesting. I created a master map to track where I had been and I now use it to plan all my routes, trying to fill in all the gaps. I have to admit, this has now become a bit of an obsession and it has become my mission to walk or run every trail and paddle every waterway in our area.

This mission has become very useful over the last few weeks since we have been restricted in the travel we can do. It has forced me to stay local for my expeditions and it is making me realise (more than I already knew) that we have so many fantastic bush walks and waterways in our area.

This is also proving to be a great way for me to get fit (one of my main projects this year), as it motivates me to get out and explore. I am slowly building up the distances and time periods that I am able to comfortably run (or as I call it “ralking”, running with a bit of walking) and paddle. Currently my comfortable distances to do for each journey (without really pushing it) are about 10km of running and 20km of kayaking. I am sure these distances will get further as time goes on as I get fitter.

The Master Map – Blue lines show where I have kayaked this year. Light Green lines are the runs. Dark Green are the hikes. Most of these trips/lines are return trips (out and back).

Our Suburb – You can see there is plenty of bush still to explore.

We have also been doing a lot of dog walking. Poor Chloe is getting exhausted with all the walking she has to do each day (twice a day) and she is getting a lot more slender. Just like the running and kayaking, we are trying to mix up our routes to make it more interesting. I think Chloe is on her own mission to smell every agapanthus bush that other dogs have pissed on. Since I started mapping all my other forms of exercise, I decided I might as well start mapping her walks. Below are the roads we have travelled in the last 3 weeks since the social distancing really kicked in.

Chloe’s walks

What is great about varying up the walks in the streets, with the dog, is that we get to see all the bears in the windows of houses. People all around the world are placing teddy bears in their windows as part of social distancing, to provide a distraction from coronavirus for children.

Our Ted E. Bare doing his part for the children

Apart from all the exercise, the last week has been very busy creating content. I managed to get the Aunty Monkey podcast resurrected and put out 2 new episodes. The first with one of my all time favourite human beings, Deano Pegg, and the other with world record holder, Kim Magee. It was great chatting with both of them, even if I did feel a bit rusty with my interviewing techniques.

I have also spent a fair bit of time preparing the first video podcast episode. It will be going out in the next few days and it will be interesting to see how that is received by the Aunty Monkey fans.

So another week down and I am still managing to keep busy.

What I am Reading: I gave up reading Around The World In Wonder Socks: Travel tales of a Nony – not old not young, somewhere in the middle by Arthur Penlington for now. I think I have read too many books recently about other people travelling, which is just making our travel restrictions that little harder to handle. I have decided it is time to read something a little bit more intellectual, so I am about to start reading Sapiens – A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari. Mum and Dad gave it to me for Christmas and it has been sitting by my bed ever since.

What I am Watching: I finished the 3rd season of Ozark the other day. It is such a good show and this season did not disappoint. I have now just started watching Season 5 of Better Call Saul.

Audio Book I am Listening To: I have just started listening to Ben Folds’ autobiography A Dream About Lightning Bugs – A Life of Music and Cheap Lessons. I am not sure why I am listening to so many autobiographies by musicians at the moment, but it may have something to do with the fact I am listening to a lot more music recently.

Music I am Listening To: This week am going through a bit of a nostalgic Australian live music thing. The album I just found and am enjoying is The Waifs – Live From The Union of Soul. It has a couple of cameos from John Butler (who I am also listening to a lot at the moment) and Clare Bowditch. Speaking of John Butler and live music, I have also been listening to his Live At Red Rocks album, which has always been one of my favourites of his.