So Bute Park is the huge, partially-forested parkland between the river, the university, and the downtown area. It used to be part of the extensive castle grounds. There are lots of walking paths and some footbridges over the river. It’s a good place to go for a jog.
There are signs all over that say the park closes at 4:30. At 5:00, I found out why.
I went to exit via my usual gate, which would leave me only about a block away from Aberdare—except that the gate was locked and barred.
So I ran to the next nearest gate I remembered, about a quarter of a mile upriver, across from the athletic fields. There, I bumped into a young woman with a red umbrella coming the other way. I pulled out my earbuds to ask her whether she knew where the nearest exit was, but she beat me to it with the same question.
So the two of us, united by the shared fear of having to use our umbrellas as makeshift tents overnight, ran back to my gate and past it, to the castle. Over the course of our walk, we introduced ourselves. I didn’t catch her name, but she’s a Malaysian dentistry student. She was just coming off-shift from the hospital. Her friend had offered to give her a ride home, but she’d decided to walk through the park instead because she still needed 2,000 steps on her Fitbit.
I think we put about eight thousand steps on that Fitbit.
We finally did find an escape. We’d pretty much circumnavigated the park.
Did I mention it was hailing?