THe start of the Songkran runs, and Skiddy was the hare out in San Kampaeng / Bo Sang… A new run site, that looked flat and surrounded by rice fields… We expected bridges, we expected rice fields, what would be delivered? First up – we were delivered his co-hare – GasMan… Uhoh…
We set off straight into the dried out ricefields, and a circle check. I kept going straight, while people fanned out to the right, reluctant to try crossing the dried up mudbed to the left. A bit further along and there was a dodgy bamboo bridge crossing. Clearly Skiddy hadn’t found it, otherwise he would of used it. I surely wasn’t on, but there were no calls from elsewhere. I made my way across and through the rice field, spying what might be paper in the trees beyond. It was, and I was on. No sooner had I cried “OnON”, then I cried “OOOOOOW!”, like a girl, as I smashed my knee into a wooden stump. Blood oozed down my leg, but I continued. When the trail turned abruptly left to a circle, I knew the trail was going back, but took the long way around to the road, slowly catching up as we headed out into another set of rice fields.
The trail ran down the edge of the ricefields, and not far ahead Graven started leaking off to the left. Smart man, I peeled off before he did and we paralleled across the field – around 100m or so from the end of the field, and it was no surprise when Brown Finger called circle check ahead. The only problem was the stream I had to scramble across, but I was back on trail the other side – intelligent hashing – right?
Laying trail through the field is tricky, and there were more calls of “Looking” than “OnOn”. We lost trail at one point, so I fanned off to the right – a long way off to the right, ending up on a trail the wrong side of a large rice field. Bugger… It wasn’t looking good. I could barely see them a few hundred metres away to the left, but at least my trail was runnable, and when I hit the road, I heard “Checking” to my left, moments before I saw powder on the road ahead of me. Result!
It wasn’t far from there to the beer stop, but far enough for Brownie and a bunch of others to pass by. Beer stop – always a good addition.
We then headed to the W/R split, and the unpleasant part. Scrambling through thorns, barbed wire, scrambling along a tiny concrete path. I got lucky with the skiddy sticks and found myself ahead again. Only, I had to lead the way through ricefields – not just along the burns, but straight through the crop… wtf? I don’t know if it was waiting to harvest, rice, grain, feedstock or whatever, but it wasn’t pleasant trying to avoid trampling down the fruit of a mans labour. We got through, and a final circle check before the On-In. A climb over around a gate was a nice finishing touch, but with the pack limping in, bleeding and cut up, it was a testing experience!