Run	Date	Hare(s)	Description	MapRef	1:50000	1:25000	1:10000	Aerial
686	2010-05-23	Pete & Cath	Stoughton	SU815125

It's the hares first trail, there is no help from an experienced hare, and Ben has broken his arm on the reccy. At least the cloudless blue sky was on their side.
Mussolini arrives in time and Bika is wearing peculiar headgear as we listen to Canman tell us of the divorce of Cath of Aragon and then Cath of Havant tells us that the trail has gone a bit "wonky" at the end because they ran out of flour .... oh dear!

Then we are off and soon find trail on the high path east and all the way up to the crossroad with the bike trail before the first check.
No one wanted to check the downhill trail from here and of course it was the way to go.
Strangely Mussolini was already back at the next check on the bottom trail when we got there ... enough said.

It's a long way up from here to Blackbush house but that was where the next check was situated. Dr Blood lead us up to an impromptu regroup and surprisingly there were no moans from the pack, not even Splasher.
I did notice that Cath was absent and had last been seen heading out with more flour presumably to fix the wonky trail.

At the restart we immediately came upon three checks in a row very close together which may have been part of some intricate and complex trail sequence the significance of which was completely lost on the pack as we ploughed on through them and found trail heading along the ridge path towards Kingley Vale.
Half way up a check tried to fool us into thinking that we were about to head back down, but it was Steve, Brylcream and Bika (who were being real FRBs) that found the pleasant shady trail that tunnelled between the trees until at last we all arrived for a regroup and photo session at the first Tumulus.
There was some talk about summoning the devil by running round the top with eyes closed, no one tried, we were all as hot as hell anyhow.
There then followed what could be described as a charge back down via the trails on the western side of the ridge.

There were a few checks that caused little delay as we made our way back swapping potential energy for kinetic in large doses and arriving at the chariots after one and a half hours in the sun.

After the customary vote of thanks for the hares the JMs drew our attention to Spiderman who was clutching a bunch of twigs that he had collected en-route which he described as "pea sticks", a mutter about Bika's headgear but then gave the hash-it to Mussolini on some trumped up charge.
So it all turned out very satisfactorily in the end and it was smiles all round as we slaked our substantial thirst and swapped old hashing stories in the garden of the Barley Mow, thanks Cath and Pete.

Bambi.