Some time ago I found an old wiro notebook in a drawer. A scruffy wiro bound notebook with a photo of 2 men in a kayak with a bear on the front cover. In that notebook I found terrible sketches drawn in pencil made while travelling in 1991. One sketch leapt out at me. It was a rough pencil sketch of Mt Ararat from a backpacking trip to eastern Turkey. The sketch really surprised me – it was a very basic pencil sketch, drawn using a .5mm technical pencil on a cheap notepad. The sketch is just black and white… To my surprise the sounds and smells of the day came flooding back. Meeting some Kurdish goat herders and their flock near the base of Mt Ararat, about 10km from the Iranian border on a bright sunny but cool, alpine day. Along with memories of driving across the mountain steppe in an old Renault 19 and the smells of chai and coffee in a Doğubayazıt pasta solunu. It all came back come flooding back! Why did it evoke such vivid memories? I’m not really sure to be honest. Maybe t...
I was a bit dubious about this event when it was first suggested we enter as a group. But boy what a blast. Several thousand competitors run, crawl and climb their way through 6 kms of swamp, stream, pasture and bog.
No matter how carefully you take the swamp crossings you end up on your backside sliding flat-out downhill to faceplant the smelly swamp water. Yum, fetid swamp water, you have to laugh - a lot. Then there are structures to climb over, and combat style barbed wire crawls, even one with electric cattle wire, that zaps you if, like me, you get lazy and try to get up on your hands and knees.
On finishing you're awarded with a hot meat pie for your trouble. I backtracked to this last swamp section for this quick sketch, and finished it after being sluiced off with a fire hose and through a hot shower.
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