Proston. It’s a funny little town that we might never have visited if it weren’t for parkrun.
Having both already done more than a hundred different parkruns it means Brad and I have to travel hours to visit a new parkrun location.
I rather think this is a good problem to have as it means we’ve seen a lot, experienced a lot and get to explore our wonderful country even more.
This weekend we went to Railway Park parkrun in Proston. A town with only a few hundred people, when we turned up I said to Brad, “I don’t know how they sustain a parkrun in such a tiny town!”
But let me rewind for a moment because we weren’t delivered to the main road of this Queensland country town by magic carpet.
We left our home, south of the Brisbane River, around 11 am on Friday after I’d finished serving a client. Brad drove the highway stretch and got us all the way to Yowie Park in Kilcoy before we stopped for a toilet and walk break.
We’d been there for a parkrun several years earlier but I’d forgotten how gorgeous it was! Yes, there is a Yowie statue.
(If you don’t know what a Yowie is, I recommend looking it up online. You might find the stories very interesting!)
But there’s also a lake with lots of birds and even a few beautiful lotus flowers. Most importantly, there were clean toilets!
Next stop was Kingaroy where we were going to stay for the night. But on the way we got to relive another parkrun adventure as we literally drove right past Ros Gregor parkrun in Nanango.
At this point we were firmly in South Burnett Region, known to our Indigenous people as Wakka Wakka Country. There are four parkruns in this area, we’d already done two and were keen to tick off the third with our visit to Proston.
But first we needed to get to Kingaroy, find our accommodation, have a walk around town and get dinner. We stayed at the Y Motels, where the manager was lovely and the room clean and well set up. We visited the Visitor Info Centre and the Museum before they closed up for the day and got a close up view of the heritage-listed Peanut Silos that this town is famous for.
Then it was time to hunt down some gluten free, dairy free, healthy dinner. This is always a bit of a challenge in country towns! I’d looked online. I asked the helpful guy at Visitor Info. Yet, after doing a lap of town I was still coming up short.
We ended up doing something I think we’ll do more of in future and that was heading into the shopping centre and grabbing a meal from the food outlets inside that were about to close. With a cheap takeaway meal in hand we headed up to Mt Wooroolin Lookout to see if was as good as the local reviews suggested.
We had a clear afternoon, and thus the answer was yes! We could see a long way with 180 degree views over mostly farmland. It was prettier than I expected.
Before the light of the day slipped away, we made use of the picnic tables to eat an early dinner and we were promptly joined by a curious and brave Brush Turkey. A native bird that’s most commonly found on the ground (rather than up a tree), I’ve been seeing these for years and years up and down the east coast of Australia. But I’d never seen one that assertive before.
Clearly it had learned that humans equal food. It was fun to watch it circle around us, knowing that it posed no threat. But I refused to feed it as human food isn’t good for birds. However, when we left it immediately moved right in to where our feet had been, no doubt looking for crumbs that we might have accidentally dropped.
We headed back to our accommodation and settled in for the night, sitting at our laptops on the bed both creating content for our various channels and blogs, and by 8pm I was ready to sleep. The lack of sound proofing meant we’d been hearing the out-of-town workers having a loud conversation over Friday night drinks but they too must have had an early morning as they headed to bed right around eight.
With an early alarm set, we poured ourselves into bed and slept pretty well to be honest. Until around 2 am when one of our nearby neighbours was making far too much noise for the wee hours of the morning. We couldn’t work out if he was in immense pain and cycling in and out of sleep, or simply having awful nightmares. Either way, it made us rethink staying in cheap motels!
5am came and the alarm woke me up. Brad was already awake and appreciating the sun as it broke its way in the window. By 5:30 we were dressed, packed and in the car, Proston bound!
Since there was no traffic whatsoever we were even earlier than we had anticipated. It gave us a chance to go check out the town, walk down the main street and use the very convenient, very clean toilets right near the start of parkrun!
At about quarter to seven, Fiona, the Run Director gave us a very good course description which was just as well because the moment I took off from the start line I was way out in front! It was the first time I’d run any more than a few hundred metres in about a month as I’d had a persistent niggle in my right knee that had been telling me to take it easy.
Brad had also been out of action with an ankle that had been telling him in no uncertain terms that running was a no go. So I was a bit nervous when I saw him only a couple of hundred metres behind me chatting away with the only other parkrun tourist while they both ran a similar pace to me. I reminded him to look after his ankle then went back to paying attention to my own body.
Thankfully, as I made my way around the grass and gravel course, my knee continued to be okay. Though my lungs were having a workout because I realised I could do something I’d never done before - I could be the first finisher!
parkrun is not a race but since we get a number as we cross the finish line, if you like running fast, as I do, sometimes it’s just fun to play the game. So my lungs got a workout. Lap one was successfully done with as many smiles at other parkrunners as I could manage. I’d seen that Brad had slowed to a walk and I hoped it was because he was being prudent rather than in a lot of pain. Thankfully, he was okay.
Then, before I knew it, lap two was successfully done as I waved at the small children and lapped the Tailwalkers.
As I came in for the final small loop around the park, I looked over my shoulder to see where the second place person, our fellow tourist was… and he was nowhere to be seen. I breathed a little easier but keep putting one foot in front of the other to run the fastest parkrun I’d run in two months. Annnd to finally get that number one spot!
Yaaaay!!!
The rest of the morning went by in a blur. I played with a local young girl on the play equipment. I had a great conversation with her Dad, a local teacher at the small nearby school about housing prices. I patted the Timekeeper’s puppy dog for the 57th time.
And slowly we migrated over to “Emma’s Coffee Shop”– the only café in town–which was a whole 200 metres away.
Breakfast was uneventful but we were happy to be fed. Soon enough it was time to head home.
Proston. It’s a funny little town that we might never have visited if it weren’t for parkrun. I’m so glad that we did.