THE 10 BOOMERANGS OF PARKRUN – Runner’s World, Dec 2025 issue

Be sure to bring a holy book with you the next time you do a parkrun – you might be asked to swear the ‘Boomeranger’s oath’. If someone hands you a white boomerang with the logo of Qantas airlines on it, you’ll be expected to take care of it for a week, sharing photos of its adventures on the ’10 Boomerangs’ Facebook page, then hand it to someone else, sharing their name and which parkrun they’re taking it to next time. ‘This adventure is about connections,’ Ally O’Rourke says. ‘People are connecting all over the world via a boomerang.’

For Ally, a landscaping business owner from Perth, Western Australia, being Head Boomeranger has its ups and downs as well as its outs and backs. ‘There are some mornings where I’m thinking, “Bloody hell, why did I do it?”’ she says. ‘Originally it was just going to be one boomerang, but when I got to the store they were selling them in packets of 10.’

All 10 were carried for the first time on 15 June 2024 at South Beach Recreation Reserve parkrun, on the Perth coast, where she is the run director. They were then passed on to people who were doing a different parkrun the following week – and so on. She sends me a daunting spreadsheet detailing every person and parkrun that has been boomeranged so far. I had no idea there are parkruns in Lithuania.

They were numbered B1 to B10, which is a bit boring, but that hasn’t stopped enthusiastic Boomerangers from assigning them nicknames and individual personalities. B8, known as B8rtie, sports a little tutu and has been to the UK, Germany, Japan, Singapore, Italy and Poland before he eventually made it back to Oz. B6 was named Dell, after a friend of Ally’s who died of a terminal illness, and was treated with great respect while it travelled to places she couldn’t.

The other rule is that once a boomerang is returned to Australia, it can’t leave again, and when it eventually comes back to South Beach, that is the end of its journey. At the time of writing, five of the original 10 were in retirement, and only B9 was still abroad, in the US, but Alley had organised a special first anniversary event at Osterley parkrun, west London, to launch 10 more. This was around the time that Ozzy Osbourne died, so inevitably one boomerang, B12, is now called Ozzy.

The anniversary run was missing the Australian sunshine, hampered by stormy weather. Poor jetlagged Ally was confused to get up, drive to the park at 8 o’clock carrying 20 kilos of Australian treats, and find the gates locked. When she phoned her local contact she was informed it was still Friday. ‘A rainy 8 o’clock at night in London looks the same as a rainy 8 o’clock in the morning in Perth!’

The Facebook group is constantly busy with snapshots and stories, with most Boomerangers getting deeply involved in showing their bendy stick the local sights throughout their week as custodians. When a boomerang finally come back to South Beach, Ally hangs map-themed bunting, bakes boomerang cookies and pops the champagne. The new batch all started in England but after three weeks, B20 was already in Sweden. This adventure will run and run.

’10 Boomerangs – A parkrun Adventure from South Beach’ is on Facebook