There's a particular kind of joy running through green fields that appear to be at sea level, but then you round a curve or breast a hill and see before you, spread out like a photographic tableau from National Geographic, a vista so amazing you draw an involuntary breath.
Unless you're running so hard, you're already breathing at full capacity.
Which is what I was doing. I was actually chasing a dog. Goldie, Brittany Spaniel and instinctive flusher of game, pointer to rabbits and retriever of ducks, was going totally ape. (Can a dog go 'ape'?)
Running madly across the fields, sniffing a wombat warren here, a rabbit trail there, evidence of kangaroos, wallabies, echidnas and a hundred other creatures. Then there were the grazing cows in the field across the valley, looking like little plastic toys.
At the top of the hill, the view stretched over Wilson's Promontory and the surrounding bay. seemigly hundreds of kilometres of stark, stunning land and seascape. You just gaze at it and wonder at the madness going on in the rest of the world.
Meanwhile, Billy the greyhound just trotted along, hardly looking up. They're supposed to chase rabbits. Yeah, right.
Next day after breakfast, I set off on a nine kilometre run as described by Lisa. Simply follow the road, taking each left-hand turn. You could partially see the route on the perimeter of the valley. First kilometre, slight downhill to the river. Left turn. A rise. Another kilometre to another left turn. Another gradual rise, two kilometres, not too hard. A cheery wave to a passing farmer in his ute, dog on the back tray.
Then another left turn and suddenly, a sharp gradient came into view. This time it kept going. Four kilometres of relentless hill. Just when I thought it couldn't keep rising, another left turn. This was the home stretch, a steep downhill sloughing off all the altitude gained over the course.
I could see the house nestling in the valley and ran towards it, glad the hard part was over.
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