The mornings are getting darker, but that doesn’t stop the parkrun tourism crew!
This week, we were up before sunrise — bikes, trains, and a fair bit of determination — heading to East Park parkrun in Wolverhampton for another Bostin’ Saturday adventure.
With Jim stepping in as guest presenter in Iona’s absence, Ewan set his sights on a new parkrun PB after all his recent extra training. East Park’s flat, friendly course with wide paths made for a cracking 5K, looking beautiful as the leaves turned to their autumn colours.
Post-run, we headed to Reece’s Café for a well-earned breakfast (and a much-needed coffee) — tasty, hearty, and great value. Then it was back on the bikes, following the canal towpath towards the Black Country Living Museum.
There, we swapped running shoes for cobblestones and stepped into history — exploring the brand-new 1950s and 1960s section. Ewan loved the music shop, while I felt like I was back in the homes of my great aunts and uncles, surrounded by familiar décor and knick-knacks.
Another fabulous little adventure — make sure you subscribe to join us on the next one! https://www.youtube.com/alittleadventuretime?sub_confirmation=1
A Little Adventure Shop:
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Useful Links
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East Park parkrun, Wolverhampton
https://www.parkrun.org.uk/eastpark/
Reece’s Cafe Wolverhampton
https://www.instagram.com/reeces.cafe
Black Country Living Museum
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About Ian, Iona and Family
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Each week on this channel Ian (Dad) and Iona share our little adventure experiences, often joined by Ewan (Iona’s older brother) and Ruth (Mum) too.
Our weekends often start with parkrun. Iona is on a non-repeat parkrun tourism streak having now visited over 100 different places since she started parkrunning. But we don’t just do parkun and dash home, we love exploring the area and often use bikes and trains for our travels to keep our carbon footprint low and because it adds to the adventure too. When school holidays arrive, longer adventures are possible with Ewan and Iona both being keen cycle tourists and mountain climbers!
So if you like heading outdoors and your idea of a perfect weekend includes parkrun, climbing a mountain or exploring new places on two wheels then we would love to have you join us on our adventures.
We’d love it if you subscribed so you can follow our journey and hopefully be inspired to get out the door and have your own little adventures. Do like and leave comments on our videos too on questions you might have or ideas for places to explore or adventures to go on.
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Standard Filming Kit
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Fujifilm X-S20 with 18-55mm kit lens: https://amzn.to/45nb4NR
DJI Osmo Action 5 Pro: https://amzn.to/4hPE05Q
DJI Mic Mini: https://amzn.to/4c1SQVw
RØDE VideoMicro Directional Mic: https://amzn.to/45nb4NR
DJI Neo Fly More Combo: https://amzn.to/42cSmIV
Music from Epidemic Sound: https://www.epidemicsound.com/referral/o3mkb1
[Music] Yeah, we had the warmth, the light, okay, the mornings that welcomed us. Now it’s head torch dawns and shivering starts. Leaving home before the sun even thinks about rising. But still we go, chasing new parks, new miles, proving summer wasn’t the reason. We were [Music] steady, steady, steady. We are back on our mission to get and film some of the park runs that we’ve done but not film from the early days of our park run tourism adventures. Iona’s having a chill day with a friend and with just chilling at home and we have come back to East Parkrun in Wolverampton. [Music] Good morning. Welcome to sunny Wampton Storm. Amy, I hope you called Amy here. [Music] 3 2 1 [Music] Meet my guest presenter for the day, Jim. With away thought I thought I was Iona for a minute. Yeah, I have a new Iona for the day. So, it’s bigger and uglier. Well, storm Amy seems to avoid disappearance. We now have the sunshine. And that’s actually a beautiful morning for a park run. Enjoying a steadyish slightly out of breath run around the park. You has blasted off ahead and maybe on if his training is working for him for a new PB. So, we’ll see how he gets on at the end. That probably when we’ll next him and he laps us on the way around, which is, you know, a possibility. So, we’re just going to enjoy the park. [Music] Thank you, volunteers. Thanks, guys. We’ve just passed where we’ll sneak off to the finish on our final lap, but we got two water to do before that and finish this one off first. Oh, really? Sorry, mate. Where’s my Haribo? Yeah, and I forgot the Haribo. So, no Haribo per mile, I’m praising. Such a let down. Absolutely. It is beautiful running at this time of year, though, with the trees. I like it when the leaves are still in the trees, but you got them changing color. It’s gorgeous. Absolutely stunning. Yeah. We are into our second lap. We’re starting to get lapped by the fastest runners coming into their finishing lap. We had a brief flurry of we think was rain. It could have just been the water off the trees, but at the moment we’re enjoying dry. It was rain still. It was rain. It was rain. It was rain. Does that mean we get extra points for the rain? Hardcore points. Yeah, hardcore points definitely. But and crosswinds prank us cross training, don’t they? Absolutely. Yeah, we’re enjoying I’m really enjoying this park. Just yet another different park and tourism experience. And crucially, I’m keen to hear what the breakfast situation is. And now Jim knows this part. So Jim, what’s the breakfast situation? Well, hopefully Hickman’s Cafe is open. Yeah. And that’s supposed to be a really good calf. Yeah. But there are rumors that it’s been closed for refurbishment. Oh no. So we might have to do a bit of research. We might do, but we’ll give hip wounds a go first. Sounds good. Is good. This is a mildly undulating, I would say, isn’t it? Yeah. One half of it’s flat. Yeah. And then the half up in the woods is definitely undulating. Yes. Now, a question I realiz never actually asked. When did the funky leggings start? Um, was it right from the beginning? No, it was Natalie started off with some Cookie Monster leggings. Yeah. And uh then she got the kids involved and I was point adamantly not going to wear them and uh the kids bought me a pair of Cookie Monster leggings on my birthday. So you guilt tripped into wearing them basically. And now I’ve embraced it. Yep. A few years on and it’s it’s a thing. Definitely. If you don’t know, they all have matching pairs of leggings and you never know what when you get to the park with them which set of leggings it’s going to be that particular week. It’s a bit of fun and it gets people talking. Absolutely. It’s a really sociable thing. Yeah. Get a few shouts out on the way around if you got some funky leg. And my answer usually is look out for the wife and kids. Yeah. We’re just about to pass the tail walkers. Cheers guys. Thank you guys. Thanks for volunteering. This course basically is just a big lap at the outside perimeter of the park. You could do some gym workout on the way around, some gym equipment, a view of factories and industrial units from on the other side. Cheers, Marshall. Thank you, Marshall. Just on the other corner of the park and actually right by where you and I cycled in off the greenway that there is coming to here from Walton station there is what Jim there is the Greyhound track for your your Greyhound meetings and you say what used to be there and there used to be the Wolverampton Speedway ah team used to be there but I think there was something political with you in the ground. So I think now the speedway team has defunct now. Yeah, Speedway teams definitely seem to be slow disappearing. We got the same one in Comry no longer has a stadium. So yeah, it’s a shame though. We do have a cycle speedway little mini loop for that. All right, fantastic. Who we just spotted? I might have just spotted Lara aka Banana coming in towards the end of her second lap. Are we We’re on our third, aren’t we? Yes, we’re going to go to the finish this time. We got to turn right this time, don’t we? Yep. Hey, we’re on the return leg now towards the turnoff point. Not far to go. Yeah, just over.1 of a mile to go. Can we do it in under a minute and a half so you can break the 30-minute barrier? Yeah. And what will you have got when we get there? That’s the big question. Is it going to be a PB? That’s right. Well, you has obviously finished and is just going for a warm down lap by the looks of it. And we are turning now towards that finished Barker. A lovely run around the park this morning in the autuminal conditions. Thank you very much. Thank you. Cheers. And that one. Fantastic. Thank you. Thank you very much. Cheers. Great running, George. Fantastic. Well done, Mommy. Well done. Great running, guys. It’s time for a bench review. My guest bench reviewer is here with me this week. What’s the benches like this week? Four out of five. Four out of five for these benches, are they? Pretty good benches. Yeah, they are too mossy. Bit too mossy. That’s why they’re losing a point. Yeah, fair enough. Okay, you is on tent hooks. He may have got a PB. It’s literally going to be seconds in it. His watch says he was smack on his previous PB. So, we’re waiting to find out on that big moment. Has he got faster? But he’s certainly got a lot faster than he has been for the last six months or so. Unfortunately, Hickman’s Cafe was closed. So, back on the bikes and off to Reese’s 2711. One second off. We enjoyed a excellent breakfast at this cafe. I own a night here. So, I’m going to rate this one at five out of five, especially for all. It was another bargain breakfast for about 12 quid for you and I to have breakfast. Just £3 for a soft bacon sandwich. And now we’re going to face the wind and cycle down the canal to get to the Black Country Living Museum. [Music] Well, that was a bit of an experience coming through the tunnel with our bikes. We can get off and push cuz not only is it a tunnel and dark, it’s also cobbles all the way through it. So, bit hard to maintain balance. Make sure you don’t go in the canal and see what you’re doing. It is actually the route at the moment that I’ve done the Black Country to Birmingham half marathon on and we run through that tunnel which is also quite an interesting experience. Right, we’re almost at the back country living museum. Not far to go now. [Music] [Music] Just in the brick making workshop. Lovely set of old bricks against the wall. And you can actually come here and make your own bricks apparently if you’re with a school group or something like that. This shed is exactly like I remember my great uncle shed. Lines of tools. Bit like my dad’s. My dad is a bit smaller and doesn’t quite have quite as much open space to work in. This is exactly like my great uncles. A big long wooden shed. All the tools, the lays, everything else all set up. Love it. This shed is a printer shed. It’s got all the old letter press and foil blocking machines. Exactly like I started with when I started my printing and design career. This is the sort of thing I used to create artwork for. Going into these houses does feel very like going into my great aunts and uncle’s houses when I was a child. The look of things, the clothing, the bits, the knickknacks, the clocks, all of that very much reminds me of them. This here is the health care center, including all the information you need as an expectant mom and support for young moms and finally for us as well. I love that. So this whole new area here since I was last here is all set in the 1950s and60s. So much newer perhaps than a lot of the black and living museum was which tends to go back to the sort of 1800s. This is stuff that’s sort of living memory. So let’s see what I can find. [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] Have you seen my baby? She’s not a dame nor a lady. Not in the way she walks, the way she talks, or the way she We have finished exploring the Black Country Living Museum. Well, we’ve explored bits of it, the bits that were new to me. Time to head back on the trains. [Music] She say, “Let’s go out.” Another day of ticking off one of our early park runs to film it this time. Nice day with you. Almost got a new park run PB, but not quite. Now just finishing our journey home. Hope you’ve enjoyed our little adventure. See you on another adventure soon. Bye. Nothing she would not do for me. She never plays a koi in my bundle of joy. She’s the one I’ve been dreaming of. I’m overjoyed cuz boy, she’s my girl.
1 Comment
Brilliant video Ian. BCM looks well worth a visit.
Thanks for editing me well lol