What had Brown Finger got in store? He wasn’t giving much away, but having run at the Ag Centre countless times, we had pretty much done every trail there was, on familiar ground, it couldn’t be too hard to figure these dumbass hares out. The hare brief was confusing – who was the hare, what were the instructions? I was starting to feel uneasy – I’m not sure I can trust them… Finally they pointed us off and I jogged off for 400m or so before I found powder – all the time waiting for the hares to call us back with “only kidding”. These bastards would stop at nothing, and somehow they’d already got into my head, while I was trying to get into theirs.
The first circle spelled out what they had in store for us. Just past a junction, of course the circle had to be back, so I reluctantly toyed along with their ploy checking straight on – nobody followed and nobody expected me to call On-On… WTF were these hare’s doing? Sure enough powder was there and we continued down towards the main road. Powder wasn’t good as we rapidly changed directions and then we hit “the circle”. There have been tough checks before, but this certainly brought everyone back together – including Bone Hur and Dog Shit who’d short cut to get that far! We were down by the main road, so Poo and I crossed the road twice – Poo even went fishing to find signs from months back. Around 3 or 4 hours later the hare came down and rescued us, pointing us over a fence and into shiggy that nobody would have wanted to check. It wasn’t the last time the hares would come and help us out – what on earth did we have in store?
The next “highlight” was the pile of horse shit that we were forced to scramble through – the good thing was we were going downhill through it, the bad thing was that Horny Monkey didn’t take a face plant into it – now that I would have paid for! After another check again the hare was on hand to help us out as we finally headed towards more familiar trails. Unfortunately then we found that Kwazi and Frozen Dick had short cut ahead and kicked out a few checks turning the run from a hash into a run in the fields – HRA and Chuck Wao took their advantage and scurried off.
For me, I prefer the mental exercise of the chess game between hare and hounds, over the actual physical running. I could get a beer at home, but it’s more rewarding after a feud, and fortunately we caught up with the short cutters and the game was back on with all the usual players yet to show their hands. A circle check had HRA plunging down the hill and then clambering through dense foliage to rejoin us. Chuck Wao started finding his fitness and feeling a victory started upping his pace. Horny Monkey gave up on checking and followed CW – to be fair I wasn’t far behind.
The hares had their finale planned and back in the chess game, I was expecting a “tricksy little hobbitsies” finish. Skiddy (shortcutting) found the false trail on their first V check, and we went straight towards the ‘used many times’ hole in the barbed wire fence. There was an alternative to the left and no check this time? I’ll let Chuck Wao find the unannounced Skiddy Sticks – I’m turning left! Would you believe it? There’s powder! Only HRA’s followed me, and I knew there’d be a check at the next junction. My head was in the end game – I got to the junction before HRA, so I had the pick. We’ve been here many times and there is an obvious way home. Screw it – I knew what they had in mind… This hare is happy to set a screwy trail early on, just to screw us further at the end.
The hares had more tricks up their sleeve, but with poor markings, I got to the On-In and it was beer time. So I paralleled a short bit – at least one of the hares would applaud that behaviour! As for the other, well we’re setting the next run on Saturday. Brown Finger is a deviant who’s sole objective is screwing everyone brave enough to follow his powder. Be prepared as he sets a CSH3 friendly run!