By Alice
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It was BMY, at Mae Jo Dam, with a box of tricks up his sleeve. Well, in Cluedo speak it was.
Byte knows the area well and usually brings some native cunning to his sets, so I was interested in how far he could toy with a pack who know many of the trails in this area on both sides of the road.
Poo gave the hare brief as Byte was still out laying. The small squares of Mother Hash paper suggested a live set and flour circles. That was it.
Rather wonderfully Purple Fart wasn’t tuned in – quelle surprise – and told me afterwards that he kept thinking ‘Where are the circles I’m missing? The joining paper is going on for km and I don’t see any paper strips….’
USMC ladies and gentlemen, need one say more.
The start had us clambering almost vertically up a
concrete spillway. Chim and It’ll Cum passing me here as I lagged back with Pussy Galore feeling the effects of a fully curry late luncheon.
Now and again shout from ahead revived our spirits as the pack dealt with the early tricky checks. After a km or so I started to jog and after another km caught up with James and Does Nothing etc.
The thing about this area is most checks offer multiple options and Byte used these skillfully to rotate the road constantly and fcuk over the FRBs. The trick with this run was to trust the hare, let paper be king and the hounds mere serfs.
He of the ice cold penis, decided to head off paper to short cut and ended up wonderfully about 2 hrs later at some farm about 5 km away. I have decided NEVER to assist hounds who do this or don’t take my number. Angry, Turkish, Snowballs etc you have been warned!
Back towards the road we turned and on familiar trails it was an endless guessing game. Most of which the FRBs and self when in pole, got wrong! I knew where the road was but wanted to play the game.
Eventually after nearly 6 km I think we came to the road and a Beer/Water stop from the Byte mobile. Unless you were a back marker and then it was just a Byte mobile and chat stop. Here I feel the hare missed a stitch. I was already knackered and didn’t take more water as it’s less than a km home I thought. However Byte took us into the forest and across the weir and then messed us around something rotten into the forest, back out onto the main trial again and again.
HRA had fronted up, Poo and KO were in the van at some stages, Alice and Blows Herself, Anywan too. But we all came to grief until we exited the forest finally and headed back on the long, wet gravel road.
I was hurting by the end and had around 9km. Poo had over 10km. It was old school hashing. And many of us are a bit old to bear it. Chucky opined in the circle that he thought it was a good run, both of them!
Well marked, well devised and devilish in the detail. ‘Never mind the quality, feel the length my boy,’ as the cardinal said.