Category Archives: Blog

I came back from the seaside as I had a date with destiny: haring CH3 on 1st April and how well the date suited the conditions. Actually I’d scouted 2 weeks before with a mystery co-hare who shall remain nameless but Sweary Mary may give you an inkling. The day I returned was fair in the arvo so I set the run on a whim Sunday.
A small pack was no surprise, but size doesn’t always equate with quality as we know. Tiptoe was a bit challenged arriving and it was 4:55 before he fronted. We set off at 5 after as the guys filled water bottles with hydration salts.
Off they walked to the first check overlooking the rice field behind. Before long the pack were away along the riverside path and crossing over a bamboo bridge to the other side. Further down they came back over and to a check as they hit the road. Strava suggests an FRB found trail going into the property rather than the actual first few papers but no matter, the pack cantered along a narrow path above a stream and crossed to a FT, the first of a few.
Back and along the side of a field to a main path. Paper went right but the pack must have expected it to go left. I imagine a FT was suspected. Across a rickety bamboo bridge to a check and then a big box back towards the sandbag dam crossing. While setting, I saw a big black snake slither out of the paddy just a yard infront of me. I remembered to forget that in my hare brief.
Across the dam to a forest check. ABB and Graven took the obvious routes back and along either side of the river. Cartoon eventually crossed a small stream and a concrete weir to find trail along the top edge of a big lake. That check spun ’em around a bit!
Through the school and across another swampy stream into a property with dogs and cattle. No dogs today luckily. Out to a 4 way road check and a big loop towards the 1014 and back over berms in rice fields to a farming property and a tricky check with a long bamboo bridge involved in solving it. More rice field berms and a check near the road in a copse. ABB found true trail but the Turk followed pink walkers paper and Graven with Cartoon followed him to the beer stop.
The last click and a half was around the houses then a switchback to the fields and across a solid berm to the river side path and another beer stop before the On In. Pussy Whisperer, Cumlord and visitor Red Bone made the most of amber supplies. Graven made the most of the first check, skirting the A site and returning to where he’d been an hour previously. Who said Oregonians were behind the times?
Tiptoe and Mumbles marched in after the main pack after probably 1:20 +. Some of the checks hadn’t been kicked so they’d had work to do! Cartoon twanged a calf – there’s a joke in there somwhere – and All Hail the Pussy for 100 up with CH3!
OnOn,
Alice

It’s been a while since I’ve made it to a hash, but the planets aligned and I managed to get out to my backyard in Maejo to see what Krappy Pigs had put together. Excellent signage on the way in – a good start! It was good to catch up with everyone – but I didn’t have much time to get changed and set off following the smallest bits of paper I can ever remember being used to mark trail! WTF?! I’m not sure they could have been cut smaller or thinner!

I set off chatting with CW, and we past the first V while most seemed to want to check off to the right. Somehow we were out in front at the 2nd check, and so broke into a bit of a jog for some checking – I was wrong, CW was right, and I was back catching people up as we headed into the forest trails. Luckily I managed to nail a few checks and spent a bit of time at the front as I started to get a feel for where the trail was headed. It seemed to be breaking right, and we’d gone ‘far enough’, so I started checking off to the right and twice got it very wrong. Twice I was very tempted to keep going as I was sure I would hit trail again soon – luckily I turned back both times as the hares had a twist in store.

Instead of turning right, we turned back left and went up to the ridgeline. I was way back, and had to just set a steady pace up the hill gradually catching those ahead. We made our way up and along the ridge, and eventually broke off to the left for the long decent. I’d conserved enough energy so that I could take off after the FRBs (CW, Cartoon, Strangely Anal, Graven)… But they were all still ahead of me all the way down the hill to a check as we came out of the forest. They all were focused on heading home, and followed each other straight down the hill to the left. I called RU, and they were all checking. They were headed straight towards the out trail, so I turned right and was re-energised when I found the paper. Turning left at the next trail.

Did I have enough left? I could hear them chasing me down behind – I needed to get everything right and hold them off. Beautiful trail out through the field, and no trees to put paper on, so I assumed the paper was there somewhere. I’d somehow stepped off trail and Cartoon was beasting along to my right. I got to a check steps behind him, but that gave me second choice, and the wrong choice. Legs were spent, so I walked in. Great set guys, that forest is a hash heaven!

By Alice

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The birthday boys combined to bring us a very sensible and enjoyable hash run the Monday after BB2019. Surprisingly Frozen and Graven dared show their faces and even more surprisingly no rotten vegetables were hurled at them in the stocks. I guess the hashers’ balls were just too broken – or the pack too addled and decrepit to remember events a full 2 days previous more likely!
Welcome back Emma Royde, Poo, Horny Monkey, Anal Vice and Krapthai! Great to see Angry can get the songthao to the hash when he really wants to!
The Turk selected an old fav of his, out past Doi Saket and to the right. I recall a run about 8 years ago he set with Big Top. How fun to be on trails you don’t recognise, hills you haven’t trodden to death and sneaky cut throughs you wouldn’t know when asleep. Piggy and HRA excepted naturally.
Trail was an oblong – in an anti-clockwise direction I worked out early doors – going along the flat, into the fields, up the hillside to a saddle, down the hillside, around the Technical University and the Ruins of Greater Zimbabwe and back along the canal side to home.
Cartoon was the top dog today. Graven lurched and plotted and used most of Turkey’s tricks to stay up there. Emma Royde incessantly took wrong options at checks. Hardly Normal, missing two kangas in his top paddock, gave his new Salomans an outing and turned into a part time runner. Horny also gave a good impression of a man who doesn’t know his own limitations until a fall towards the end. Scooby stayed competitive. Analvice kept up well until fading later on, obviously burning the candle at both ends in Phuket hasn’t helped. Rooter did his thing and Poo ran out some of the jet lag in his system. Frozen couldn’t find joining paper from the first check so did his best Superman impression. Brownfinger – or is it Ringfinger now? – was competitive throughout. Krapthai and ABB lurked at checks but kept well up. Krappy even running hard for much of the last km I was adjacent, although that may be the reason. Sheepy brought up the rear and protested he wasn’t English.
Lively t shirt, decent circle and OnOn, big thanks to the hares for sponsoring most of the packs’ pleasures.

Byte’s write up is “Colourful Paper”.

The rest is by Alice.
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Taste my Buns asked Frozen Dick on Friday night what the trail was like. “50% runnable” he replied, “And 50% not!” So it just shows hares don’t always lie.
Frozen, Shagless and Graven Image teamed up to set a rather challenging three legs of pain, strain and do it again in the hills, ravines and valleys of Ob Kham. But mostly the first two.
I wasn’t doing great:sore back, dodgy ankles, sore Achilles – I was hoping to survive A leg and then see. Well I saw and I did the whole shebang, with a bit of give n take on leg 1. Am writing this in bed Sunday am so don’t actually know if I can walk this morning yet.
It all started with the liquorice allsorts of HHH signs which hares should specify. NON STANDARD signs. Do NOT look for red on white! the email should say. I was hoping the trail would be marked more clearly in better colours. More of that later.
Off we went from onto familiar trails and after one neat hidden trail up from the first sandy valley which was after a Skiddy stick FT, I knew where we were and climbed vertically to the ridge of the property. The check looking down into valley 2 could be down the steep hillside or left back through the woods to the initial main lateral path. I favoured option B and followed TMB and Scooby although most everyone didn’t. A faint Germanic ONON! and I thought I was getting into the hare’s head. Tricky, intricate, tight. The next circle where 4 choices present was easy as no one had turned up 2nd valley. After 100m there was blue paper with BB. I was in the lead! I was reading the hare! A little too well as it turns out.
Next check I again went straight but without too much confidence. TMB went up into the forest and I know she and Frozen know trails there. Browny paced behind me, looking very Smurf like in his yellow condom headgear and shouted that I was on as he could see something blue on the fence another 50m ahead. So could I but it didn’t look right. It was metal I think and trail had been called from inside the forest now 250m away. What to do? Be brave and carry on! I reckoned there was a good chance Frozen would bring us out of the forest into the paddock just ahead. I padded forward as the pack disappeared way behind me into the bush. I was alone – save for a great big chalk arrow and Beer Near sign. ‘Kinell, I was at the end of leg 1 already after less than 2km. Talk about second guessing the hare!
Being a true sport, I retraced trail backwards into the forest – completely surprising Frozen in the process who yelled: What the fcuk are you doing here, you’re running it backwards! As if! I carried on until I heard the FRBs approaching and watched as small groups stayed together at checks rather than spreading and leaving the kicking out to someone else. That theme was to repeat itself for the next 3 hours.
After the beer stop it was up, up, up to a forest ridge after a V hadn’t been kicked. Sex Pistol and self climbed steeply right, no calling at all from the left. Wtf? Poor hashing. Eventually at 120m she called OnOn! despite no check back from down left. We went up and over down to a saddle only to find the FRB group running in from the left off trail. Why had they ALL run left together thru the V and not seen the Checkback? Why hadn’t one of the bastards gone up and kicked the V if they thought it was left? Fcukers all went wrong and got onto blue first leg paper which they followed like idiots for a while. Som nom na!
Tricky trails, steep, narrow, ravines, creek beds and a ridge path lead us to a stupid ‘something’ after a cruel and pointless 100m steep ascent. ABB could not decipher it. ‘A box of flour with all paper in tact’ he said. Doesn’t look like a circle or a FT. And no paper trail anywhere. Down through the trees I see Turkish standing silently at a circle. Why a circle check so close and not connected to this ‘thing’ ABB came across?
By the time Sex Pistol, ABB, Suckit and Blows Herself had got to the circle, Turkey had silently departed and paper was strewn in every direction but not helpfully. We followed ABB right on a decent trail and scoured for trail paper. It was leaf green on this 2nd leg, and er, well camouflaged in many places. 5 mins later we reversed and found a small hillside trail going left from the circle. Very cute, but clearly marked would have saved us ten mins. More than a few circles were kicked out but paper only went 15m and then there were multi options. This gets more irritating the more tired and hurt one becomes. And I was both. By the time I came to the second beer stop along with Shrek and Pussy Whisperer I didn’t even realise I’d been on trails I knew for the km at least.
Shrek had a nasty skin issue on his heel so called it a day. HRA was happy with his 12km. I was tempted to quit and my heel hurt. Annoyingly after taking off my shoe, sock and strapping and replacing and retightening, it didn’t feel too bad so I grabbed the LAST small water and set off with Sloppy Rod and Andreas, keen to see how the hare got us over the hills to the familiar terrain we must enter on the other side.
I wasn’t so keen while I was doing it, hard going, tiny paths, steep drops, a stony creek bed that pushed my ankles over their limits, bush whacking ups and down etc. Finally we came out on a trail I’d investigated before but was so overgrown I’d given up after 50m! Now we could jog a bit up the hill to the water towers, down past the cows and up to the blue roof house and a long curving lovely trail through the forest. From here on I was aware of all the hare’s options but he surprised me with a little forest path left off a dirty circle mid track. Down and back into the end of sandy valley and the long, straight jog home. Wrong! The bugger took us into the bush and along the hidden valley trail behind the first range of foothills. Frozen’s paw print all over that move! Out of the forest after a steep ravine traverse on a narrow path between two fences of lethal new barbed wire. “Don’t fall into that” I urged myself as my shattered body moved down to the big OnIn on autopilot and I could suddenly see the hashers and cars at the A site field opposite. “You look stressed” says Strangely. But not as much as some.
Big thanks to the hares for all their efforts and the pack for their company and commitment. ChiangMai Ball breaker 2019 did what it says on the tin

By Alice
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Gripe out of the way first. Run directions said 1st turn after the U. No sign but took it anyway. Fail. Took 2nd turn. Fail. No pin to click on website just GPS that aren’t active and can’t copy into GMaps on my phone while on bike.
Pissed off, wasted journey, head home. 8th left turn after the U there’s a well camoflaged HHH with red Hs on orange background. Wtf! Game on!

Got there and downloaded on Suckit. Sorted ShSh’s on trial camelbak and set off after everyone else.

Beautiful trails well
marked and many options at the many checks. Pleased the frb’s had all the headaches!

Recognized trails from BF and TMB runs starting from behind Suckit’s; great and varied they are:sandy paths, forest tracks, stony creek beds.

After about 2km I reel in Frozen and Superman. A check hadn’t been connected and it takes Sup’s eagle eyes to spot paper ahead.

Next up were Tiptoe and Rooter, striding away like good ‘uns. Hardly Normal in his fab Nadi hash top came next before Softballs and his poor hearing. Softy was full of the joys of spring, gamboling like a young lamb and even running with joy. I know that feeling after months of Achilles pain.

The thing about the camelbak is handsfree and can carry keys, money and extra water if needed. You have to stop to take water on board and get your sucking and breathing
right. Overall the experiment was a success, albeit a sweaty one.

Just before the A site a large group of water buffalo eyed me suspiciously and turned to face me down, bristling and skittish. I know how Suckit felt as the hashers arrived just before 4:30 and vented in his direction!