A trail piece for Trail magazine

I haven't done much trail writing for magazines for ages and so I was delighted to commit, a few weeks ago, to doing a piece for Trail magazine. Bogged down with work, I only got out this afternoon to take photos and run some trails with Rusty, my friend Karen and her dog (Rusty's friend) Skally.

Despite Deelfontein being on my doorstep (20 min drive from home), I don't get out here often. I really should because it is a gem. I have run and mountain biked here a few times. I do have it on my list to create an orienteering / rogaining map of this superb property. It is blessed with interesting features.

I'll post up magazine write-up when it comes out. For now, some photos from this afternoon.

Me and Rusty

Karen and Skally

Karen watching as Rusty trots towards me (I did ask her to stay with Karen so that I could take a photo...). My sweet dog.

Nice from far

I took this photo this evening.

Rusty and I were out, running on some of our regular roads and trails around town. I enjoy looking at this section of river - some great scenes with trees and rocks in the river.

It reminded me of the saying, "Nice from far, far from nice". We're in the midst of an ecological disaster. Our Vaal River has been heavily polluted by sewerage in the past few weeks. Thousands of fish have died, birds have moved away (good for them). I wonder how the river otters and likkewane (iguanas) are doing? And other creatures that can't just fly away.

Our Vaal river looks so pretty but at the moment it really is toxic - to birds, animals, fish and people. There is talk of it taking billions of rands to remedy. This won't happen overnight (or if at all). And the repercussions - on the economy, on nature on the environment...

Sad.

While litter and the state of the river make me sad and mad, there are lovely things to see about town on my regular runs with Rusty - like this bottle tree. I caught it in lovely light yesterday evening.

And I like to get Rusty to sit on park benches so that I can take photos of her.

Parys parkrun cleanup

Two weeks ago we held a cleanup on the bottom section of our Parys parkrun route. Our route is open to the public and so it gets really littered.

Trash either comes from the fishermen along the bank, people passing through and those that take trash bags from outside houses and then rip through them in the area, leaving the contents on the floor. Yes, it is disgusting.

We arrange cleanups every few months as the municipality intermittently empties the few trash bins around but they don't pick up the rest of the rubbish.

During this cleanup, we filled something like 30 black bags with thanks to our parkrun volunteers.

Unfortunately this is something we're going to have to keep doing regularly because littering behaviours take a long, long time to change. A week after the cleanup there is already litter along the route - not as bad, but the start of it again. *sigh*

This section was my mission - under this big mulberry tree. Layers of trash! We did good here.

With half of the bags full of trash collected from the section around the three bridges and under the mulberry tree.

The ever supportive Parys Gazette featured our cleanup.

Another recent snippet in the paper ahead of our 200th Parys parkrun (which was on 11 Aug). Our 4th birthday is coming up soon.

Tumbling at Decorex

My posting frequency is at an all time low, despite me having so much to write about. We're in a flat-out spin here with both YOLO and Vagabond Kayaks - so much excitement, so little time for everything.

I've just had a good week away at Decorex with my YOLO Compost Tumblers. This is now my second time exhibiting at the show and it was even better than last year.

With my mom at our stand.

My mom has now done three shows with me: Decorex last year, Homemakers Expo this year and now Decorex again. She is officially a compost-tumbling-demonstration pro.

We are inundated with orders from Decorex - so this has been a heavy, but delightful week of admin. We've got a production run on the go to get orders out as soon as possible.

In eight sleeps I fly to the USA to exhibit our Vagabond Kayaks at the Paddle Sports Retailer Show in Oklahoma City. I'm looking forward to a good sleep on the plane to recharge for the show. This pre-departure week is chock-a-block.