By Alice.
It’s been about 8-10 years since I hashed in this area out past the X Centre and probably 13 since I met Gibberish. Was it worth the wait? You betcha!
Emma Royde (and mystery wtf are you co-hare Silla Chow) set a blinding 7 km undulating trail on wide runnable paths through the farms, orchards and fields of Mae Ram that is up there with the best Saturday runs of the year.
I started gingerly, feeling the 7km hike from Friday and no stretches. KO and the kids scampered happily and Purple Fart was happy to have a similarly shaped but smaller athlete alongside.
Gibberish was back, and like Shrek, no one ever asks the derivation of his name. Little brother Hash Broon was keen but equally unintelligible. The look on peoples’ faces when they tried to understand our Glaswegian brothers in hash was priceless.
Hash Brown didn’t call when checking and confused Deep Throat by waving like a demented Max Bygraves on acid. Angry Inch perfected his go 2 metres short of the On On paper and turn round shtick. It’s very effective.
The pack spread out as the trail wound its way round the beautiful area. Clear white strips and well positioned checks made for clear marking. FRBs and your humble scribe were given extra strips to help with joining the circle check to true trail. Think I still had most of them by the end.
Deep Throat asked after 35 minutes u were we on the Runners or Walkers trails? He’d missed the early split sign, as did Purple apparently, far too joyous at having a mini me for company with cuddly lurv handles alongside.
One sharp turn at a check and we were down a path with a marked but easily missable left turn into the trees. I missed it and got suspicious seeing no paper ahead. Deepthroat too but he found the turn and we cut down to a lower level and out into more open grasslands then wide tracks between houses with big gardens back to the A bucket.
If you missed it, you missed a cracker!