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Off to the CH3, and when I arrived (5 minutes before the run, I found Tip Toe looking confused and lonely parked at the A-site… At least I had found the Beer Monster! If nobody else made it I would still be happy! Moments to go, and 2 songthaews loaded with hashers showed up, but no sign of the hare. Jack of all trades, ABB, stepped in as stand in hare, and stand in hash cash, and with the latter deferred we set off moments late. The instructions (2nd hand), were go back the way you came in, and turn right – I estimated 4 different trails that fitted that description, but fortunately we found the right one. I trudged off – first circle I opted to the left – surely we would head for the hills asap, because going straight just meant we’d get to the square lake? I was wrong, but a visitor conspired with me to cut across and get back on trail before the 2nd check. This one must be left, as right just takes you back to the road.

Others seemed less keen to check, so I was ahead again as I checked left and left again, finding clear trail just as there were confusing calls behind. I think some of the pack was confused, but Brownie, Piggy & I set off up the hill, and I managed to hold them off to the next check. Definitely checking right as straight or left take us back home. I was correct, and put my foot down, breezing through the next check, and silence behind me. Nice trails for a jog, and then the trail past a couple of nice trails off to the left. Hmmmz… no check…? Aha, finally a circle…. My gut said go back and check at the junction, but my feet disagreed… I checked left, until the trail ran out, back at the circle, and still silence behind me, on and around to the left, up a good 120m, nothing… back down to the check as Piggy ran past – he wasn’t calling so I went back to the junction and got there just as ABB found powder.

Brownie back in the action again, and he lead us up to another circle at a junction. He opted for left, so I slowed down and let Graven pass me. I followed Brownie to the left, and sure enough he was on… It was about then I started feeling not quite so good… 2nd on trail, but my stomach objected strongly to my exertions, and I was forced to keel over vomiting while hasher after hasher past me by offering varying degrees of sympathy or lack of! Finally when Dogshit caught up, I pulled myself together and staggered onwards. I was tempted to straight line it back to the A, but managed to pick up a steady jog over some great trail and started feeling better.

I slowly caught up and found Lumber Jackoff and Scooby up front with Graven, Brownie and Poo. Scooby was running well – strange his GPS had a km or so less than mine at the finish…? The check was close to home, if trail was left, we’d be in and drinking beer, but no, it was straight on, and onto the nice trail that runs along the edge of the hill. Lumber Jackoff was scampering along ahead, and another check offered the choice of left (towards home), straight (up the hill) or right (no chance!). With LumberJO Lumbering up the hill, Brownie, Graven & I headed confidently left towards home… Graven at least shared my misery when we were wrong.

The next check, and finally it was time to turn left. Now though Lumber was so in tune with going straight there was no stopping him. When I got there, it seemed nobody wanted to turn left, so I ran down the hill with Brownie, and when he called on, I let gravity do it’s work and ploughed on. Left at the next check, and we were getting closer to home. Next check I got to powder one side of the fence before Graven found true trail the other, we ran off. We knew we were close… I just couldn’t quite place where we were… Another check, and I took off right. Graven followed, and the mysteriously stopped (now I can picture him checking his map on his watch). You are only as good as your last circle, and sure enough the hare beat me. Excellent trail, good checks, good circle, good hash!

Anglo Dutch relations were strained to breaking point during the hare brief as BrownFinger and Robin van Banks argued over pink paper and scared this hasher that the run would be some kind of H.Monkey alike mess up. Happily, the subterfuge worked for the trail was a high quality blend of well linked forest trails, barbed wire fences to roll under/spike your back on (choose where applicable), tricky checks to all but BMY and a few challenging steep up and down bits to remind the pack this was a male hash. Plus a decent flattish last km or so to mostly erase any hurtful memories and soothe ill tempers.
BMY appeared at the start looking like a runner and at the end in jeans and top, beer in hand, looking like a day visitor to Calais? Checks were not kicked out that he’d reached first and no sign of him during the run by any regular human, or hasher. Visitor Walter would have a conspiracy theory I’m sure.
I recognised parts of the trail from Sqrooters and H.Dick’s last set together back in March that was destroyed by the rain and hail….with only Alice, Yanksoffalot and Sloppy completing, that gave me some idea at least but most of it was virgin trail for me and beautiful yet challenging enough 2 days after the gruelling Bahrain X Island Run left me in a state of jellied pulp plus Guinness.
The pack seemed to work well together with Graven eager for work, HRA keen as mustard and the rest doing their bit most of the time. HRA was squawking excitedly when up ahead at checks – Turkish please note – and did a good job in low vis sections at checks.
The circle was fairly sedate and enjoyable. Frozen and TipToe were rightly blasted for claiming to be survivors of their own ‘Hybrid Rambo’ route which took about 1:30 to complete and had the hares concerned until YoA confirmed they were behind him on the run in. There’s only one thing worse than cocky, arrogant hares and that’s walkers who think they know better than the hare and can ignore some of his advice and join up the dots themselves due to higher intelligence.
But sometimes the hashing gods are kind and all ends well….yet this kindness can disappear as fast as an IT Prof in a shaded forest glade….
On on and thanks hares for a top run and the pack for your welcome back and company.

I left the house prepared for the hash, but with plenty of business to attend to, I wasn’t sure if I would make it – the stars aligned and sure enough I made it. Keen to see how Brownfinger’s leg had healed, and what he’d put together for us. The directions were Ob Kham, so I was happy to find the forward sign as I am often concerned I missed a sign on that road. It was the hexagonal shelter for the runsite…

The hare delegated the harebrief, which was thorough and elaborate – Robin Banks detailed the checks thoroughly, while BF looked petrified… Was he going to sweep – no ffing way! Banks tried to lead us through the trees, but the trail was past the barrier and soon we were off. Suckit’s visitor was clearly a real runner – wearing a marathoner’s t-shirt and breezing past me at the first opportunity – you might be a marathoner, but are you a hasher? He got the first couple of checks right, but then joined the game.

Sloppy was playing all the dodgy FRB cards.. “Hey – you guys should go down the road, cos there is barbed wire here!” I didn’t hear him say it, but I was confused as ABB, Poo & GI came running back towards me while some of us just followed trail.

Listen carefully to the harebrief. The hare stated that the Rambo trail would be to the left, after around 5km – that gives a lot of information – it says the trail would be clockwise, which helped me a lot with a couple of checks and we crossed the road. I was following Suckit and at the next circle he wanted to go left. I thought right was good, but had a small stone in my shoe. Time to get rid of that, while all the other hashers seemed to follow to the left. Only Sloppy Rod joined me checking to the right, and by the time we found the powder, we were clear.

We ran up the small hill, and hit a V check. SR’s exuberance gave him the choice, and he chose Right, (which would have been my choice), so I was left to hack my way across on what happened to be the real trail. Sloppy came flying along with me, and before I got to the next circle I pointed the trail out – he generously offered me the check along the trail I’d picked, and sure enough that was correct. Suckit’s boy was chasing me down, but I got to another check first and this time picked right, where I ran into Kwazi, who told me where the next powder was.

I got another couple of checks right, but was quickly tiring, pushing myself on thanks to Graven being just behind me. Finally I got one wrong and it took the pressure off… I was tired… Finally the wimp rambo split… Suckit went right on the wimp trail, and it looked so tempting! Turns out he didn’t see the “W”, only the arrow, and came running back about the same time I decided to take the short route back.

A great set on some great trails – yes we’ve done a similar run in reverse very recently, but the hare didn’t know that! Huge respect for the hare getting off his ass and setting a great run while his leg is still stitched up.