Behind the night safari, Piggy set a friendly Happy Hash run. He pointed us off towards the hills, and I chugged along the road parallel to the trail for a while before heading up to the first V check. I went right, and in no time Square Rooter was calling OnOn from behind me. Huh? If he didn’t confuse anyone else, he got me wondering, but of course I quickly hit an elaborately marked “FT”.
Back along the trail it was time to overtake. CW stepped out the way to let me through, but then I had to cross country to divert past lots of visiting walkers, and eventually avoided Shagless’s stabbing stick as I rejoined the FRBs. It was HRA, Cumalot and Toe Sucker putting in the work up front. I managed to get a check right and found trail heading up one of the serious hills. No choice, it is up, up, up! HRA not far behind and the trail went all the way up before descending towards the trail at the back of the Night Safari. Several V checks, and finally I got one wrong, but at the check back I couldn’t find an easy way to cross over to the real trail. I climbed down to the main trail behind the Night Safari, and jogged down the hill, turning right to rejoin the pack as they chased HRA up yet another hill. Toe Sucker short cut her way up from the right not long after I rejoined trail.
Ahead Cumalot was running behind HRA. The trail turned sharply right away from the A bucket and towards the out trail, but before we could get far HRA appeared calling “Checking”. I snaked left and found trail about the same time HRA did. We traversed the hill together to the final V check. “You are only as good as your last check” is a favourite HRA quote, and I could only chuckle to myself when he got it wrong. Short trail, but a couple of hills that kept us mixing it up.