Tasmania

Touted as the “toughest half marathon in the world”, the Point to Pinnacle race in Hobart immediately sparked my imagination when it popped up as a virtual challenge in Strava. After running up and down Bräntberget fifteen times and doing some hill repeats outside the school in Innertavle, I was able to complete the required 1,271 meters of vertical gain yesterday.

That was really in the nick of time because, this morning, the snow was back with a vengeance. With the outside world turning solidly white, I made a saffron fish soup for dinner with a glass of chardonnay from, yes, Tasmania, even as I am quite happy not to be in Australia right now with Adelaide in turn for another severe lockdown. As my friend Jon noted, it is interesting to see how Australia is basically taking the same approach to the pandemic as China with sweeping lockdowns and mass-testing in order to eliminate the virus (rather than just trying to mitigate its effects).