Belly Dancer was out of town, so surely he couldn’t influence Anything on her run? She’d teamed up with Cumalot, and promised us no more than 5km in the hare brief, but we know hares lie – check out the attached scouting report stolen from her GPS. Particularly pay attention to the 24km per hour speeds that she got up to – did you think Anything was that quick?
Anyway, I drove over to the run site (alone), and mentally prepared myself for what was in store – it was the same runsite of an ill-fated run where nobody got more than about 500m in as the trail got washed away… Who was the hare for that? Oh yeah – Belly Dancer! I anticipated a route up the temple steps but we were pointed back out the entrance. I set off at my usual pace hoping to get to the first check first. Sooner or later as I was ‘looking’ for paper Brown Finger breezed past me showing off to a young lad Caligula. After 1.5km we still hadn’t hit a check. I thought about Graven Image, who has a policy of never running before the first check – hah! Brown Finger had set a blistering 5min/km pace at the start, so GI must be a long way back!
The first check was a “V” check with the false trail heading straight into a hedge! wtf? Nobody was tempted as we continued on the main trail. Finally we cut off the trail – no check, no obvious paper, just some hunting around when the trail ran out. We headed to the hills, grumbling and moaning and the pace abruptly slowed as we scrambled along leaf covered trails trying not to trip on the rocks. I hit a couple of checks well and found myself with Chuckie at the front checking at a circle. We found the out trail within 100m instantly, but started checking up into the hills… CW gave up quickly and headed back to run in – I was more determined and killed some time scrambling around on the mountain in the hope of finding some paper. Brown Finger was even more determined, and claims he found some paper, but the most determined was Humperdick who found trail on his own and to his credit was the only hasher who came in from the right direction.
Time for a circle with Anything as GM. Interesting! I enjoyed it – for the most part she spoke slowly enough so we could understand her! Then it was on on to town and that lead to a Belly Dancer sized hangover this morning!
What we should have done:-