Uhoh – What a disaster!!!
The first sign of trouble was probably finding the co-hare exhausted at the run site, with no sign of the hare. Screwed Up (co hare) was virtually laid out exhausted with Frozen Dick apparently still out setting trail…
The hare brief was confusing at best – when he did finally show up, he was barely able to speak, and muttered something about 17km being the wrong way, but it was clearly marked, and if we hit a check back definitely don’t run through it as he’d relaid a better trail – only he’d set the check back in powder and it started raining when we all showed up. And of course we all unknowingly made it onto the false trail – remember if hashers can screw it up – we will!
And so it was. The early trail was actually quite nice (despite the rain) and we eagerly set off bounding over hills. Finally my internal GPS told me something was wrong – very wrong… After the trail turned away again, I stopped Skid Mark and begged him to check his maps – and sure enough we were 6km into the run, and as the crow flies, we were about 5km from the A – and the trail had been heading away all the time. (It seems the hare was taught how to use his GPS by Belly Dancer!).
We tried to call Chuck Wao and Horny Monkey back, but they were off into the looming darkness. Fortunately there was a group of us together that set off back down the trail – Byte My Yahoo, Skid Mark, Semen Sores, Superman, Bone Hur, Dog Shit (& Kwazi Moto – who decided to still head out alone). Back down the trail and we came across the shelter Dog Shit used last week, and from there we called the Songthaew to collect us.
Chuck Wao and Horny Monkey bribed a local farmer to bring them back on his motorbike, and the only “lucky” one was Dyke Converter who perhaps sensibly short cut his way back to the A. Clearly Frozen Dick put a lot of effort into the run (and trying to salvage the run), but it took so much out of everyone that we had the shortest circle ever, and nobody wanted to go On-On-On!