Fun Run Pic

The mix up is clear when you read the confusion the previous post caused.  This photo should have headlined the previous post and the picture of the stone memorial cairn is to do with Mt Erica and the death in 1969 of marathon runner and adventurer Geoffrey Watt.

The cairn is on the top of Mt Erica , Gippsland.  There is not much view due to plenty of vegetation, but the cairn for Geoff Watt is well preserved and simple. Geoff Watt was a well travelled marathoner and father of Olympic cyclist Kathy Watt.  He perished here in September 1969 while out running.  The inscription is simple "Geoffrey Mathieson Watt.  Marathon Runner.  Perished while training on this mountain (Mt Erica) .  5th September 1969."

Geoff Watt was a man whose destiny was tied up with mountains and marathons.  Marathon adventures as well as marathon runs.  He came 10th in the 1959 Boston Marathon in America and 10th in the renowned 90 km Comrades Marathon in South Africa.  He revelled in the opportunities running and travel has for achievement, even if you are not in the elite category, he gloried in the "ordinary, mediocre" runners like himself, doing extraordinary things for their own sake. Although I don't think he was exactly mediocre as he described himself.

Alone and wearing sandshoes, he climbed Mt Kilamanjaro on his travels in Africa and suffered snow blindness on his descent from the mountain.  He spent 2 days stumbling down the slopes to safety.  This experience did not frighten him, conversely it made him quite fearless for a long time and he certainly did extraordinary things on his overseas running trip from 1959 to 1961.  He visited New Zealand, Tahiti, Hawaii, Canada, USA, Alaska, Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Phillipines, Vietnam, Malaya, Burma, Nepal, Pakistan, Afganistan, Iran, Turkey, Greece, Sweden, Norway, Scotland, Italy, most of Europe in fact, India, Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia (meeting major emerging long distance running champions while in Africa and training with them), Rhodesia, South Africa and many other places.  He survived high speed car accident in America, being laughed at for his beard by thousands of Koreans in their marathon and gave himself stomach cramp from laughing too; had altercations with Border Patrols in IndoChina; trekked Nepal; was arrested as a spy on the Khyber Pass; hitchhiked round Europe; climbed mountains; won track races, 10 mile races, did marathons in 2:34 and 2:36 etc.  In Boston he was dubbed "The Bearded Galloper from Down Under" from his assertion that "Horses eat oats.  Horses run faster than men, I'll eat oats and I'll fly'.

He returned to Australia and had 4 children including Kathy.  Then one evening in 1969 he went running on Mt Erica, up its staircase tracks and was found dead later, cause unknown.