The outstation to Pai! CW & HRA had teamed up, apparently with Shagless as well for a run in Pai, and a couple of car loads made our way up to see what they had put together. We arrived with a small amount of time before setting off, and I was feeling distinctly unwell. I should not eat that soon before a run. We set off around a lake, and I was walking. Lucky me, it was Scooby Do that ran into the first false trail, and we scattered looking everywhere but the obvious way – finally ABB called us on, and we nearly completed a whole lap of the lake.
Another check, and the hares were watching us, we tried several routes up the hill, but again it was ABB that found paper, and everyone but Scooby ran back down and followed the trail to another of Pai’s tourist attractions – the “Land Split”, complete with “Dancing Trees”. Not sure what that was about, but when we got up to the road, Scooby had already been checking. It was to the left, and I was still mostly walking, a little jog every now and then, while Scooby charged off into the distance ahead.
I joined TMB & Piggy as we followed, noting at each check the silence from ahead, but the sight of a bright T-shirt running away. We followed – a great trail, had I been feeling better I would have been running harder, but finally Scooby got something wrong, and I’d already spotted the paper off to the right that took us up the hill to the Beer Stop. We’d seen that paper on the way to the runsite, but you never can tell if it is a decoy or not. The hares were waiting, and smiling.
I milled around at the beerstop for a bit waiting while hashers checked the more obvious routes, and then set off to find trail – I did, but promptly got the next one wrong and was left well behind. Lucky for me, from here the checks were good. Get one right and I was at the front, get one wrong and I was way behind – this pack was stuck together. I got one wrong, but looped around, and picked up trail ahead again, only to run into a false trail, and spend a bunch of time checking everywhere but the right way. Again I was punished to the back, but had a good idea where we were now, and with new paper on the road, I figured it was straight On-In. One final circle check, and the rest of the pack thought there would be a sting in the tail.
Very nice run, on some great trails.