Frog & Toad

Serbian Bomber set off at 7.10pm in the pouring rain and near-zero visibilty of a very wet Tai Mo Shan. First task? The bogs. Second task? To set the run. Early arrivers saw him disappear into the rain, shoulders hunched determinedly. It was to be a live hare run.

Shortly after 7.30 the small pack took off down the hill to Route Twisk and a check, with trail found in the Kam Tin direction. Shortly after, another check with options on both sides of the road. It was here, up some steps, that Creme Brulee called “Frog!” only for the entire pack to converge on the steps to see the GM coming back down. “You called trail!” “Non, I called frog!” The irony of this seemed to be lost on the valiant Frenchman.

After a while another check was found along Route Twisk, similarly with several options on both sides of the road. Extensive checking along every trail – there were quite a few – revealed nothing. So we checked again. And again. After 15 minutes I suggested the trail had been washed out and we “hash” our way back to the beer, a suggestion enthusiastically embraced by almost everybody, but Mango said :No! We’ve NEVER abandoned a trail! We must go out again and find it!”

So once more unto the breach, or in my case, the shiggy. The totally trackless shiggy with no trail going steeply up through forest. And there it was, fluttering in the trees like an abandoned condom: “TRAIL!!” And so we all hauled ourselves up the muddy slope. We’d been out half an hour and were 400 metres from the start. No chance of catching the hare then.

Eventually the MacLehose Trail was attained and the trail led up the stone steps to a shiggy loop among the rocks before dropping down to Tai Mo Shan Road and heading downhill, but I’d had enough and went back to the start. Here I encountered Back To The Future, who’d decided not to run as she wasn’t feeling very well, and I explained to her that the pack was still in the early stages of the run and not to expect them back for 45 minutes. Not much later a torch light could be seen, and then the unmistakeable silhouette of a burly man hunkered like a toad, running very fast indeed and almost falling over. It was the hare. Twenty metres behind him, showing no sense of urgency, was Mango Groove followed by One Eyed Jack and Liberace. Somehow they had failed to realise that the burly man in front of them was the hare.

The accusations started. “What the frick was that third check about?” “Did you lot do the big shiggy loop? You’ve short cut 20 minutes of the run!” Back and forth the banter went. Creme Brulee and Eunuch arrived, having started on the big shiggy loop but lost trail and come back up to the road, so nobody had done the full trail. Nobody? But where was Moni? Had she ventured, alone and in the dark, onto Serbian’s “terribly steep, real shiggy” loop and got lost – or, worse, actually found the trail? After half an hour it was decided to send a motorised search party of one out to find her. Who else but a gallant Frenchman, the GM?

While he was out Moni came back. The GM later said on Whatsapp: “Rain, wind, clouds, inconceivable check, toilet paper lost in the shiggy and Moni deciding to do her own things, triggering a failed rescue mission.”

The usual raucous circle degenerated into chaos and we all went home happy.  – Golden Balls

Hare: Serbian Bomber

Runners: Golden Balls, Mango Groove, One Eyed Jack, Liberace, Creme Brulee, Eunuch, Moni

Non-runner: Back To The Future