I had the chance to visit a friend’s cottage on the weekend. It was nice. There weren’t any paved roads there and my friend told me that even the airport had a dirt runway. So I laced up my running shoes and did something I don’t normally do. I took my camera along on my run and snapped pictures along the way.

My friend doesn’t run so I went alone. He told me which way I should run and how to find the airstrip. So I set off, not knowing exactly where I was going but not too worried about it.

It was a beautiful run along mostly dirt roads and a few overgrown paths. It was amazingly quiet. It was nice to be away from the hubbub of the city.

This shot shows some new growth in the trees to the side.

This is the road that runs parallel to the local airstrip. It’s not used anymore but I ignored the sign and ran down it anyway.

As you can see this road has pretty much been reclaimed by nature. It’s all overgrown and barely resembles a road anymore.

I left the overgrown road and made my way to the runway. I laughed at the thought that I was actually running on a runway. It sounded like that was what it should be used for. I also timed my run so that I wouldn’t be there when anyone was trying to take-off or land. And if I heard a plane, I could always have retreated to the overgrown road anyway. Don’t worry, I was being safe.

You can see the lights that mark the start of the runway here.

You can see the pylons that have lights attached to the top of them and run down either side of the strip.

It was a pretty windy day. You can tell from how the windsock and flags are flying.

Two planes were sitting near the terminal. This is one of them.

I took a small service path back but came across this huge water hazard. I wasn’t expecting this at all.

I managed to make my way around it by climbing through and around the bush at one side of the path.

This was near the end of my loop. I was coming back into the community.

And that was pretty much my run. I actually ran it twice this weekend. Both times it took me around 32 minutes and my pace was pretty good. I know that it takes me roughly four minutes to run a kilometer so by my math it was roughly an 8-kilometer route.

That felt pretty cool to run through the quiet and calm nature of the north. And now I can tell everyone that I ran on a runway. I don’t think too many people can say they’ve done that.