The event is actually held at Bli Bli, which is located right next door to Nambour, but was named Nambour parkrun because Bli Bli is a tiny location and not as well known.
The parkrun course is run almost entirely on the Rocky Creek Circuit (on the map above as a route labelled "B" and coloured in yellow). It's all within the Parklands Conservation Park.
Usually Nambour parkrun is a single (hard) loop but that morning, Michael, the Run Director - in charge of the event for the day, announced that due to the overnight rain, Nambour parkrun would be following the "Plan B" course that day.
Because rain makes crossing the creek more difficult they have to change the way the course is run for safety reasons. The only thing is that it makes Nambour parkrun even harder than it normally is!
While others in the crowd of 122 runners might have been groaning in the background, those of us who had secretly hoped to do “One of Australia’s Toughest parkruns” had just had our wish granted.
In parkrun tourism conversations there’s much conjecture about which is truly Australia’s hardest parkrun. In my mind, there are two serious challengers to Nambour for this elusive award of “The hardest parkrun I have done in Australia”. These are The Beaches (Newcastle, NSW) and Ocean View (Mount Mee, Qld). Having run both the 5km of sand at The Beaches on a 3-out-of-5-difficulty-according-to-the-tides day and pushed my cross-country-conditioned-legs up, down and across those slippery, wet, endless hills at Ocean View earlier this year, I was very, very curious to see what Nambour Plan B could offer up.
Course A is just one loop and which means you only get the steepest hill once. Course "Plan B" goes down to the creek and then straight back up the really hard hill you just came down!
The route was on fire trail the whole way (fire trail = big enough for a fire truck to drive along it) and so there was enough room for the endless overtaking to happen fairly seamlessly. As the slower people went down, the faster people were coming back up!
Nambour Plan B has a lot of elevation gain for a 5km parkrun, but the slipperiness of the vineyard terrain at Ocean View is, in my opinion, harder than the trails at Nambour. And the I’m-trying-to-stay-dry-but-the-waves-keep-crashing-into-my-legs factor of The Beaches at mid-to-high tide is exhausting.
I think the “hardest parkrun in Australia” is the one that you find the hardest.
And this can change depending on your mood at the time, the frame of mind you are in, how healthy you are, and how strong and fit you are. It can also change depending on how supported you feel.
So I want to say that I think Nambour Plan B is “one of the hardest parkruns in Australia”, and until I can run each of them in similar weather, feeling healthy, fit and strong, and then compare times, heart rates and my perceived level of exertion, then I can’t really state one way or the other. What I can say is that Nambour Plan B was indeed very difficult, amazingly beautiful and the volunteers were most definitely encouraging and wonderful.
Unfortunately, Fluffy the Emu did not make an appearance on the day we were there.
After breakfast at Nambour we set off to find the entrance to Mt Ninderry Walking Trail and began our walk/run up this short (2.8km return) but steep (149m up and down again!!) trail. By this stage, it was well and truly hot and our legs made it very clear what they thought of this extra adventure :P
All was well that ended well. We were glad we'd made the effort to drive the 1 1/2 hours up to Nambour and that we got both our wishes fulfilled; run the Plan B course and see Fluffy the Emu.