Piggy, Piggy, Piggy… With a new regime in power everyone was making big efforts in their new committee positions. All we needed was the perfect run for the start of the new year…! Ob Kham, the far end of the road to nowhere, what would we have in store? An early hare brief – cunningly designed so we could get out on trail before Gorf arrived late. It told us very little, except the wimp run was nice, and the rambo run not so nice.
It was hot, damn hot. Turkey short cut his way out of the A-bucket – impressive to short cut before we’d even started the trail! He promptly got the first check wrong and Shit House and I continued up the road. Straight away there was the Wimp Rambo split. Aaaargh!!! I was tempted to just do the wimp run, but it was a bit early so I gamefully went for the rambo option. Another circle check and the virgin visitor had no idea what to do, just following me to the trail. A bit further and trail seemed to stop. There was some paper, but it looked old, and then nothing. For some time we looked around and I climbed up the hill in case there had been a circle check that nobody saw. Finally someone called on, from a long, long way away! I went back down the hill to find an FT hidden on the back of a tree (we’d followed HRA’s old paper past the FT). No idea how somebody found the true trail, but it had cost us some time.
I made my way through the pack, perhaps putting too much effort in – damn it was hot. And the trail was just going back up the same bloody hill I’d just climbed. Turkey had just cut across, which would have been the sensible choice. Damnit! The trail continued up, up, up. I didn’t like the look of the peak, so idled my way around the side of the hill, and lucked out. There was a V-check on top, and I traversed to the correct trail avoiding the worst of the rambo climb, and nailing the check. Another V check nailed, and then arrows. Holy fook, we were rejoining the Wimps, but we’d done 2km of hill (20 mins), and they’d done a couple of hundred yards. Even the slowest walkers would be a long way ahead.
I was some way ahead of the rest of the FRBs though, so jogged along through the already kicked out checks. At least the walkers had had some fun, but would we ever catch them. Chuckie was some way behind, but I wasn’t sure how long I could hold him off. I passed Miss Piggy, going the wrong way, and a few other ladies who’d turned back with bags laden full of foraged food. As I past Anything, I saw up to my left Wooly Jumper on the top of a ridge. “Are you ON?” – “Yes” she told me. Great – I cut up, wondering why she was stood watching me. When I reached the top, that was the moment she decided to point out the False Trail. WTF Wooly? I thought you were my friend?
As I came back down the hill, CW had already past, but he slowed to let me join him… Or at least that was his plan until Gorf stormed through. Given the choice of idling along with me, or chasing it with Gorf, he decided to put the effort in and I didn’t see either of them again. I pressed on, and crossed the gorge, which had a well placed bamboo bar designed to take the head off almost every hasher. Finally I started to pick off the walkers. But by now we were already on our way back, and CW & Gorf were way ahead. I tried to keep pressing on, but it was hot…
Poo passed, HRA passed, Turkey passed…. At least Toe Sucker was kind enough to say hello as she breezed past me into the A-bucket.