00:00For four Saturdays one of Northumberland's newest parkruns was brought to a halt
00:04by an annual wildlife spectacle. Hundreds of migrating toads crossed the course at Kirkhall
00:10Courtyard leaving organisers with little choice but to cancel the weekly events. Now with the
00:15migration easing runners are finally back on the start line. Yes I mean it was just fantastic to
00:22be back. I think we all have a bit of a yearning to get back to our original course which
00:28is back,
00:28this lovely thing of back around the lake and then through the woodland that we're here now.
00:33But the problem is that's an awful lot of land to police. The current course we've got about 100 metres
00:38where we can see toads whereas with the lake and the woodland we've got really well it's one and a
00:45half kilometres of places that we need to watch out for toads. We had to make the decision to cancel
00:51on
00:52the basis of seeing one toad and then we thought well what does that mean and then we thought it
00:57probably is the start and yes sure enough two days later there were thousands of toads across the
01:01lakeshore so we got that bit right. I suppose by about two weeks we knew we were in trouble and
01:06we started looking at alternate routes. During the unexpected break event co-director Nick Winslow
01:11embraced the disruption sharing a series of toad of the day photographs and even writing poems about
01:17the amphibians on the events Facebook page. I don't know, I suppose there always has been a thing
01:22with Kirkharl Courtyard Parkrun that we we've always done things just a little bit differently.
01:30Approaching the toads in the Kirkharl fashion you know we've got we do have a few a few resident poets
01:38in
01:38in the Kirkharl Courtyard Parkrun group and the toads have more need of this place than us. The toads,
01:44it's absolutely essential to them to to move away from their hatching areas to move on to find the
01:51place that they will mature. It isn't big but it is actually affecting lives and don't forget parkrun
01:57affects lives don't forget we do have people who've said to us your parkrun has made a basic essential
02:04difference to my life your parkrun. Someone even said your parkrun has given me a reason for living which
02:09it's you know indirectly climate change has stopped our parkrun yeah that's that's kind of gives you
02:16pause for thought. We have all these lovely companions with us the cafe the shop and behind us is the
02:24the
02:24green campsite and the people were coming onto the campsite and staying in order to do the parkrun and
02:31all these people with a cancellation on a Wednesday or Thursday were really being messed up.
02:36For now the runners are back the volunteers have returned to their usual Saturday routine
02:41and the toads have continued on their journey. A quick update on the story more toads have been
02:48spotted on the new course now so Kirkharl Parkrun are asking for more marshals to help out with the
02:55parkrun specifically marshalling the toads.
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